Currently, the world is split. There are those with the resources to wait out
the pandemic as it surges again, and those without that ability. Those who can
order pizzas and binge-watch cable shows; and those who can’t, because they have
to work on what we now call the ‘front line.’ Those who do or don’t have access
to healthcare. Those whose billions grew even, as millions of others were laid
off or had their businesses crushed by recession.
We knew all this, knew these divides existed. But it wasn’t until we saw
minimum-wage earners super-spreading the coronavirus in meat-packing
plants and grocery clerks dubbed
“essential workers” that it truly came home to us. Overburdened hospital
workers,
too, in makeshift PPE — who themselves did not have the wherewithal to stay home
safe — were living, COVID-breathing embodiments of this divide.
Still, the advent of the pandemic was so impactful, it actually competed to push
these inequities from our consciousness even as it was shining a bright light
upon them. With so much focus on infection and death, bandwidth for the millions
who slipped into poverty was in short supply. Even a global recession and major
impacts to planetary travel and politics were mere corollaries.
As the pandemic surged around the world, stock-art giant Getty
Images
wanted to know if it pushed out everything else from people’s minds. The company
combed
its vast customer database of more than a billion image searches, then
commissioned a third-party
survey
of more than 10,000 people across 36 nations and 15 languages.
The study
found
that six long, pandemic-laden months later, consumers were indeed turning their
attention to other critical issues — concerns that could be funneled into four
basic categories: sustainability, wellness, an area they called
“realness,” and technology.
Sustainability was, they learned, trending
upwards
“quite against expectations.” Then again, that makes sense — certainly it’s
tough to restart an economy or solve social problems when roads are flooded and
vast swaths of forest are on fire.
The consumers who flagged sustainability said they were likely to pay 10-15
percent more for products or services from companies that:
-
use sustainable practices
-
are aligned with their values
-
have transparent business practices
-
care about the wellbeing, safety, and security of customers.
In other words, even in a time of enormous tension, physical fear of infection
and massive systemic
inequities,
the world is also split into those who are working to hold back climate change
and those who are not; and that split is largely along the lines of personal
values. This finding aligns with the main point of my forthcoming book, The
Value of Values — which is that values affect behavior, and both impact
profitability.
Supporting a company you believe in takes your actions out of the realm of pure
dollars-and-cents and into one where values matter. Purchasing an air
conditioner from a brand that’s an environmental leader will not have a dramatic
impact on sustainability (though it’s better), but it does add a “feature” to
the list — a less conventional feature than the cooling power or the ability to
control the temperature from your smartphone. It’s the ability to feel better
about the purchase — better about its direct environmental impact and about
supporting a company that is a sustainability leader (and maybe even a
catalyst).
I call this tying together of identity, values and purchasing “corporate
citizenshop” — and it is continuing to grow. This isn’t new; people have
been buying, in part, based on values for decades; and pioneers in things such
as organic food, cruelty-free cosmetics, and socially responsible
investing
have helped reshape industries. Both
companies
and
researchers
have been documenting the increasing importance of values for years.
But there are two aspects of this that are new:
First, we now know that it is strong enough to grow — even in the midst of a
pandemic, global economic issues, political uncertainty, and much more.
Second, the increasing inclusion of values in purchasing decisions is true for
both supporters and opponents of sustainability.
Research
my company performed in late 2019 (before COVID) revealed an interesting
phenomenon — a slice of consumers who, when asked, “if two products are equal,
including price” would they be more or less likely to buy the one made by a
perceived sustainability leader, gave the sustainability leader a thumbs
down.^1^
In fact, no matter how we asked the question, a consistent minority not only
refused to support sustainable products but said they’d actively punish
companies who did. This behavior seems to have come out of their political
worldview — not whether or not they believed in climate change. They too, in
other words, were acting upon their values.
If the most important basis of trust is, as the Arthur Page Society
asserts,
“mutuality… based on shared values or interests,”^2^ then it’s clear the two
groups — those who preferred the sustainability leader and those who avoided it
— had widely diverging values.
But, in spite of this division, bringing values to the
workplace
is good — and not just because those who preferred the sustainable company’s
product outnumbered those who avoided it.
Values make companies
money
in many ways — "The Value of Values" isn’t the least bit euphemistic — and
help people see meaning in their work.
We know, for example, that there is enormous submerged
value
— value that runs invisibly under the surface — in having a company’s values out
front. That attracts, lands and retains talented individuals who appreciate what
the company stands for and is doing. In addition, people feel better when they
bring their values to the workplace, as my friend, Bea
Boccalandro, delineates in
her book, Do Good at Work.
The pandemic is currently surging again in quite a few places, and that’s bound
to be top-of-mind for many people. Yet, there is more on the minds of humanity
than just COVID; and companies would be wise to heed that in their efforts and
messaging. Getty
notes
in its research that, amid the chaos, people are longing for positive messages,
good news they can cling to, upbeat images of things that match their values.
Even as the virus dominates the headlines, and many of our lives, we know we
must still prepare for what happens when it recedes. As the Getty research
suggests, a lot of us are doing just that.
1 Luckily, many more respondents gave the sustainability leader a thumbs up than
gave it a thumbs down, so it is, on net, positive to be a leader. But that some
avoided the leader is still a striking finding.
2 The other two elements in Page’s model are: (1) Balance of Power – where risks
and opportunities are shared by parties; and (2) Trust Safeguards – that limit
vulnerability in the context of power imbalances. While there are different
models of trust, shared values are a common thread among them.
Published Nov 13, 2020 7am EST / 4am PST / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET