Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know
Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.
Operating a business is about making money, but creating a workplace where employees feel welcome is an important piece of the money-making puzzle.
That was the topic of discussion when Todd Corley, SVP of inclusion, sustainability, and community at Carhartt, took the stage at the eTail Boston conference last week. Corley laid out why diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) are valuable for retailers, and how those efforts work in tandem with Carhartt’s sustainability and community development initiatives.
- At its core, DE&I work, as Corley explained it, is about creating an environment where employees feel like they belong in the organization, while taking into account individuals’ skill sets and ability to add value.
- And workers value companies that stay true to their DE&I efforts: 80% of respondents to a July survey from The Muse said they’re more likely to search for new work in the next year because their companies have pulled back on their “diversity commitments.”
“Doing more means all those work streams that we’ve talked about, adding business value, but also hopefully adding value to the communities in which we serve, and people feeling good about coming back, shopping more,” Corley said.
It all ties together: Corley also leads sustainability and community development initiatives at Carhartt, including the company’s recently launched Carhartt Reworked resale program and its “For the Love of Labor” program, which supports nonprofits that educate, train, and place workers in skilled trades.
- Corley sees those parts of his job as inextricably linked to DE&I—all of them ultimately generate business value for Carhartt.
“You want it to set all those purpose things for a brand to make sure it’s showing up in a way that obviously drives traffic, makes consumers come back, but also hopefully engages your associates to be thoughtful about why they’re joining your company, why they want to come back, and recommend it to other people,” he said.