Building a More Inclusive Future: Conversations with Bernadette Davis

There are many challenges faced by DE&I practitioners in today's landscape, including the backlash against DE&I efforts. In this episode, we are joined by an expert in the field of DE&I communications, Bernadette Davis of Bernadette Davis Communications. Listen to hear her valuable insights on how communicators can navigate these challenges, emphasizing the need for inclusivity to be woven into the company's culture.

Stay in touch with Bernadette on LinkedIn and at her website, bdaviscomm.com.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane with VoiceMatters and of course Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. But we are most excited - we love when we have guests – today we have a guest!You're in for a treat today. We welcome Bernadette Davis. Bernadette is an accredited public relations professional and founder of Bernadette Davis Communications. She and her team use their depth of expertise in media relations, executive communications, internal employee communications, diversity, equity and inclusion, and corporate editorial to support clients. So that sounds marvelous and we are so happy, Bernadette, that you're with us today. We're lucky.

Bernadette Davis, APR (00:52):

Thank you for having me.

Michelle Kane (00:55):

No, this is phenomenal. So tell us about your work in DEI communications because it's very important work.

Bernadette Davis, APR (01:01):

Okay, so again, thank you both for having me on. Today I lead a small but mighty team. I started the company though as a solo in 2014 and have transitioned into a boutique agency. And one of our areas of expertise is in DE&I communications. So before I started this agency, the last job that I had, traditional role was at Walt Disney World Resort, which I loved. And I worked on a team, the public affairs team, and we had internal clients. Two of my internal clients at that time were the DE&I team and the supplier diversity team. And while I worked with a lot of clients while I was there, I did learn a lot from those two teams. Little did I realize when I was doing that work as an employee there that 2, 3, 4 years later, I would end up starting an agency and using that expertise to then serve clients.

So that's how that journey started with me, specifically with DE&I communications, bringing that knowledge together with my communications experience. And so my team operates very well as an extension of corporate comms teams because we do have design capabilities, communication strategy, content development. So we can really be almost like their in-house agency as an external partner. And we apply that to DE&I work as well. So for example, when we work with a chief diversity officer or with a communications team that wants some more DE&I experience, we might write for senior level executives who are giving speeches and presentations where they have an inclusive component. We would do design work for them DE&I reports, and even internal and external communication strategy. So how are you talking to your employees about the inclusive work that the company does? And we help to amplify those stories, figure out what are the right stories to, to reach their audiences and even developing that messaging.

Karen Swim, APR (03:11):

Thank you so much for that rich explanation because I think for people that may not be involved in DEI and B work that you may underestimate the amount of activities that get poured into helping companies to really have an inclusive culture because that is, that's a full breadth of public relations services dedicated to a very specific part of the company and then weaving that into the overall messaging as well. So that was really helpful. I'm really interested, some of the things that I'm seeing beyond, not with my own clients, but just when talking with people that do this work is that we've seen this year be a little bit tumultuous, a little bit economically challenged, and we're used to seeing things like marketing and PR being cut back. But it seems like some DEI programs are also being cut back or departments are being merged into other pieces of the company, which is disturbing because there's so much work to do. What trends are you seeing in your work with your clients or just in talking with other colleagues that are also in this space?

Bernadette Davis, APR (04:35):

So Karen, I think first of all, it's interesting, A little bit tumultuous. Yes, more than a little bit and more than a year. The trends that I see, and this is coming from other communicators as well as DE&I, practitioners that I know and some that we've worked with. The landscape around DE&I is very challenging right now. And some people really position it as DE&I work, diversity, equity and inclusion work is under attack. And anytime you have a team or content that's under attack in that way, there can be a concern around that. How do we continue to do this work? So you see things like repositioning the work, naming it differently, for instance, adding the concept of belonging or referring to it as belonging work that's been going on for a couple of years, that transition. So you'll see some teams that are DEI and belonging, bringing it back into HR teams if it was ever pulled out of HR, bringing it back into HR, talking about company culture, which I think is really positive because inclusion should be a part of your company culture.

So I think some of these transitions are helpful because inclusion should not sit off to the side of your business. Your people, leaders, financial leaders, your operations leaders, employees at every part of the company should be thinking about their work and how it can be more inclusive. We also see some companies and organizations that are truly becoming concerned enough that they're likely stopping the work or they want to stop talking about the work that they're doing because they don't want to draw fire over that work. So that's concerning. And I think our role as communicators is to work through that with them and to bring to bear what's messaging that does work, what are the questions we can ask that help us find the right story to tell and to explore what the work really is that we're not making assumptions based on external factors and that we are disusing people of those assumptions. So I think as communicators we do have a more integrated role to play rather than just being task takers to help the organization and help leaders think through the work that they're doing, are you really going to stop doing inclusive work? Because to me, I'm always challenged by that idea because companies don't want to include fewer employees. That's not a smart thing to do.

So those are the things that we're seeing,

Michelle Kane (07:23):

Right, and it just doesn't make sense because it should be at the forefront of how companies cast their vision and develop their values and their culture.

Bernadette Davis, APR (07:36):

Exactly. It's about taking care of the people in your company, taking care of the people you do business with and your customers. And it's also about reputation, risk and opportunity. So when you think about how people perceive DE&I and DE&I work, there was a PEW research study shared earlier this year that said most workers around 56% say focusing on increasing DE&I at work is mainly a good thing. That's more than half of your audience. So you have to be very cautious about not doing the work, not talking about the work. No one wants to lose half their audience.

Michelle Kane (08:21):

No, no, they do not.

Karen Swim, APR (08:24):

I believe it also, let's just call it out. It is good for your bottom line profitability. Often leaders, the language that they speak are dollars and there are so many studies that support that When you have an organization that is inclusive, it's good for the bottom line, inclusivity gives you varying points of view that are really important and makes your business more robust. It leads to greater innovation. There's just so many benefits to it. I'm not somebody who's in that space. I don't think that I could do that day in and day out. However, I do advocate with my clients that DEI is not something that is something that should be off to the side just like ethics. And I believe the DEI is part of ethics as well and I beat that drum all the time. This is something that needs to be woven into your culture and it needs to be not just something that you do as a checklist.

It really needs to be something that is lived period throughout the entire organization for every single human being that works there, full stop. It's sometimes hard to get people to see that. And it's interesting that you mentioned the backlash because it blows my mind that we live in a culture that is so firmly planted in their factions of life. Everything is for or against. It's like if you like the color blue, then there's a group of people that says that you're wrong. And purple is really the color. We fight about everything. And if you believe in inclusivity, which to me is believing in humanity, then somehow you are woke in the wrong way. And you're right, companies can then receive the backlash for being aware that all human beings are not the same, which is such a sad shame. So what are some tips that you can give to other communicators that are faced with this toxicity in our culture and the pressure on practitioners and trying to figure it out? What are some strategies that you've utilized to keep this at the forefront and to keep momentum going?

Bernadette Davis, APR (10:52):

So one of the key strategies and reminders for communicators and for our clients and for your partners is that, again, DE&I shouldn't be separate from your overall business. So are you communicating about policy changes that affect employees? You need to think through those policy changes and what are the inclusive aspects of those, just the policy itself and then how do you communicate that in a way? Does that policy affect your company's approach to accessibility? For example, you should be thinking about that. So it may be a policy that's done by a completely different part of the organization, not DE&I, but all of your employees are going to be impacted. So how do you think about inclusion when it comes to that? So that's the first thing. It should not be separate from the other parts of the business. And you can ask that question and that's a bottom line question because the rest of your business is operating, are you being inclusive?

I'll give an example of something that was released this week. Deloitte released a study with, I think it's associated with the NYU law school, about the concept of covering when people are working to hide parts of their known identity, parts of their identity that are disfavored or seen or perceived as unfavorable. About 60% of the people that they surveyed say that they do some covering at work. And so when you think about that in terms of DE&I and the company, that's a financial issue because if people aren't comfortable at work and they're in an environment where they feel like they need to cover, I would imagine that that plays into them moving around company to company. And we know there's a cost associated with that every time that you need to deal with that. As a business owner, a corporation, there's a cost associated with that.

But if you address that and create an environment where people do not feel like they have to cover as many people, fewer people feel like they have to cover and there's all kinds of covering. So there's covering mothers covering in the workplace, not talking about their children. If they perceive that to be a challenge, people covering based on their faith, based on their orientation, their LGBTQIA identity. And so that's affecting a lot of people. So that's another reminder that it affects a lot of people. So that's another thing to say to business leaders to keep the momentum going. If we aren't going to do this work, how do we address these very real concerns that our employees have brought up and are mentioning and that we need to ask them about? So another way to keep the momentum going is to look at your employee engagement and what your employees are saying in your surveys and making sure that you're asking questions that get to the heart of whether or not inclusion is an opportunity or what your inclusion opportunities are. There probably isn't an organization on the planet that's perfect from an inclusive standpoint. It's a question of whether or not your organization is making the effort, making progress and staying on top of what the people need, your consumers and the people who work there in order to adjust to meet their needs.

Michelle Kane (14:19):

That's so true. And much like Karen said that leaders speak in dollars, they also speak in metrics. Show me the goods, prove it to me. So what kind of metrics do your clients find most impactful to make sure that they stay on the right track with these initiatives,

Bernadette Davis, APR (14:38):

Those employee engagement scores, the surveys, and sometimes even doing internal focus groups to hear what employees are saying. Those are important metrics. So if you want to get data that's to do, and you can build this into your surveys, most companies do survey the employees, they even survey job candidates, build in the questions to find out what their thoughts are around inclusion. And then there are some other information that you can get from employee resource groups, which tend to be very active and vocal and have the pulse of what employees are thinking, who are members of different dimensions. So what do they have to say, how do they respond? And some companies will go to them directly to ask them to engage on that and then it can be a part of a company's overall reputation strategy. So when you look at reputation, however your company is measuring reputation or keeping tabs on that, how does your work on inclusion affect your reputation? How does it affect those measures?

Karen Swim, APR (15:47):

Do you find that companies, we work with some clients that in my agency that deal with neurodivergence and the statistics on that are pretty sad too that employers under count their employees who are neurodivergent because they haven't self-identified for fear of backlash. That's a huge problem because you're handicapping people from really being the best employee because you're not giving them an environment in which to succeed. So do you find that companies pigeonhole, DEI to a specific group or group of people and missed the global picture of what inclusivity really means?

Bernadette Davis, APR (16:34):

I think that's happening less now. I think one of the challenges there, whether they intend to do this or not, is that certain dimensions of diversity are tracked more easily. And so you mentioned self-identification. It's difficult for them to address challenges if everyone doesn't self-identify and you aren't required to self-identify. So they may not really know what their numbers are. But I do think there's an opportunity here. I like to think about things being designed for the best for everyone. So if you think about this, and this will be a very tactile, I guess example, when you think about restaurants and stores and even apartment buildings being designed, we often don't think, in my opinion about design for mobility challenges until we have that mobility challenge. However, many of the things that you can do to make a location more accessible would in fact be better for everyone.

And you don't know that you need it until you need it. But what if every place that you went into, every workplace, every store, every apartment building, every hotel was accessible Because we tend to do that design. There will be just a few hotel rooms in a hotel building that are accessible rooms,

But what if they were all accessible? And so I think that's the kind of thinking that we need. Even if your numbers don't indicate that you have whatever your percentages, you think threshold of employees who are neurodivergent or who have a mental till illness or any other disability, maybe your numbers are not that high, but if you built an environment where you were accessible to everyone, then when they apply for a job, there it is, it's ready for them. And I do notice different things. We dined at a location this weekend and I noticed it was very accessible. I also noticed that I saw different people there. People go where they have access and so if you design it for everyone, everyone will come. That's how I like to think about it.

Karen Swim, APR (19:02):

I love that.

Michelle Kane (19:03):

That's fantastic.

Karen Swim, APR (19:05):

Yeah,

Michelle Kane (19:06):

Yeah. It's such a no brainer too. It's like, well of course we should. My goodness. Why do we keep doing things the hard way? It's just so bizarre to me. So I know we touched on this a little bit as far as the state of DEI, but what do you think is ahead for DEI communications in 2024?

Bernadette Davis, APR (19:29):

I've been looking at that and I've actually been to at least one session talking about DE&I in the current landscape. And I would say the first thing is to stay the course

Michelle Kane (19:41):

Good.

Bernadette Davis, APR (19:42):

Turning it on and off like a faucet doesn't make sense and people see that, employees see that job candidates see that even the organizations you work with see that decide that you're going to do the work and do the work for communicators. I think it's an opportunity for us to continue to strengthen our collaboration with DE&I practitioners who are our colleagues and with the organizations that do this work. I think communications professionals have room to grow in terms of learning this work and it really has the opportunity to influence all of your communications content and tactics. So continue to build those relationships so that we can be partners and even advocates for this work. And then I think we are often making the case for things when we are telling a client or a partner, Hey, we really think this is the right strategy and here's why.

Just as we would pull research, look at existing coverage and trending topics when we're talking about other work, do the same for DE&I and bring those statistics to the table just so that whatever the decision makers decide, we can't control for that outcome, but at least we will know that we have presented what's available in terms of the research, the facts, what people's perspectives are. So if a client or an organization that you're working with decides, we see that Gen Z almost 30% identifies as a member of the L-G-B-T-Q-I-A community and another, I think it's 20 to 30% of their generation advocates for their friends and family in that community. So now we're looking at about 60% of the generation that cares about this topic and is very passionate about it. If that's not something your company or organization wants to engage in, that's fine, but do understand what you're talking about for today and for the future.

Michelle Kane (21:49):

So true. That is so true and so important too. Incredibly important.

Karen Swim, APR (21:56):

Completely agree. I know that you are an expert in not only doing the work but reporting on the work. So I want to hear about what you're doing in terms of reporting your efforts and what tips you might have as we all are starting our year in reports and sharing with clients those details.

Bernadette Davis, APR (22:19):

Thank you. This is exactly the time of year where people are either writing their DE&I reports or starting to pull that information together from all of the work they've done in the previous year. We've worked with multiple clients where we work with them either on the strategy and the outline for their report. Sometimes we write the entire report and do the design as well. So we've touched all facets of that process right now. I think it's considering your audiences spending more time thinking about the audiences. A lot of DE&I reports tend to be longer and I don't think I know, we know we see this, that people don't read those longer documents the way they might have in the past. So I think thinking through your audiences and how do you create a report document where you can pull out what you need for audiences and that it's a useful document for your team.

I think that's one of the best pieces of advice that we can provide. Thinking about what part of this is attractive to job candidates, what part of this do we need to share with external stakeholders? What part of this matters to employees? And using that as a guideline for how you develop the report and making it very concise. We look at about 40 different DE&I reports from companies every year for our edification and we pull that a report around the insights and trends that we get from that. And so that's a benchmarking study we've done two years now and share with clients and that really helps us see what's trending with reports and how they're changing. And that can be something very helpful as we do this work and we're able to share that with potential clients and clients and they've all found it very useful.

Karen Swim, APR (24:08):

That sounds like an amazing report. Are those insights something that you package up and offer to other colleagues as well or is that something that you're thinking about doing? Because that sounds amazing.

Michelle Kane (24:22):

Yeah,

Bernadette Davis, APR (24:23):

Every year we do share it out and we are getting ready to do our end of year newsletter, so we'll be sharing it out in that newsletter. And I think I've shared it in the past with solos in the member group, but definitely can do that this year. It's just a great way when you have to do a report like this, whether it's ACSR DE&I report, you know what we're going to do? We're going to go look at five in our industry, five more from another industry so that we have that as benchmarking and we've done a lot of that legwork.

Michelle Kane (24:52):

Oh, that's wonderful. So I know we all want to know where can we find you? How can solos look you up so they can make sure that that might hit their inbox?

Bernadette Davis, APR (25:02):

Thank you. The best way is our website baviscomm.com. So that's bdaviscomm.com. And I'm very available on LinkedIn and our company page - bdaviscomm.com - is very active there. We have a great team that keeps us in front of people.

Michelle Kane (25:19):

Fantastic. And there was one thing you said at the start of our conversation was that the work that you were doing at Disney prepared you for the work that you do as a solo. And I think that is such a commonality amongst us that we, many of us who are solos didn't really set out to be solos necessarily, but we can all look back and say, oh, I served in this specific role because that prepared me to be able to be a solo, right? I mean that

Bernadette Davis, APR (25:52):

Exactly. I started my career as a newspaper reporter, print newspaper. I ended up working on a website that was in support of an ABC affiliate in Orlando in the early two thousands. So web development, I worked PR for an ad agency, I did communications for an HBCU law school. So all of those pieces, and never along that path did I think, oh, this will be helpful when I start my own business. But it all worked out just fine. This is the beginning of our 10th year in operation.

Michelle Kane (26:26):

That's fantastic!

Karen Swim, APR (26:27):

Congratulations.

 

Bernadette Davis, APR

Yes, thank you.

Karen Swim, APR (26:30):

And I do want to remind our listeners that we will have Bernadette's information in the show notes and I encourage you to follow her because the content that you share publicly is so phenomenal. You're such a superstar. So for people like you who not only do the work but live it externally because you advocate for inclusion in everything you do, it's not just client work that you do, this is who you are. And I'm always inspired by that and I look to people like yourself to stay abreast of the things that I should know. But I applaud you. I mean, I can't say this enough. I believe that this work is so hard. It can be really hard. It can really drain you, particularly when you are a person of color and you're having to remove your biases and you're having to step into this role of educating people sometimes to the point of frustration. So thank you so much for hanging in there for doing the work and shining the light for the rest of us. I can't say enough good things about you. I'm just super thankful that you came here today and talked to us about this and I'm looking forward to seeing your report. That is just such a fantastic resource and we appreciate you, Bernadette.

Michelle Kane (27:53):

We do. We really do.

Bernadette Davis, APR (27:54):

It's thank you. I've been a long time member of Solo PR, many people, and it's been so helpful in building my business in the quiet times when it was just me and I didn't know what I was doing. So many things that I do, I'm like, yeah, someone in solo PR said, use this tool. I'm using it. So the feeling is absolutely mutual.

Michelle Kane (28:18):

Oh, that's wonderful. We are lucky to know you, Bernadette. We are. Thank you so much for spending this time with us today and we hope to do it again soon. To our listeners, again, please connect with Bernadette on LinkedIn if you found this episode of value, and of course you did, come on now. Please do share it around. And if you have any questions or comments, hit us up at solopro.com. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.