MARKETING BUZZ
Diversify Marketing Strategies with Workplace Inclusivity
By: Carolyn Rawson
Making a big impact as a brand means targeting a diverse market. But reaching a diverse market begins with inclusive etiquette in the workplace.
An inclusive work environment ensures a healthy mix of perspectives and a greater understanding of the customers your business has the potential to serve. It consists of employees of varying race, ethnicity, physical appearance, and abilities.
More and more companies are cluing into the fact that inclusivity is not only ethical but also an integral part of a healthy, attuned workforce.
Trends in inclusivity have the power to keep your employees motivated, challenged, and engaged—all while keeping your brand on the cutting edge of an increasingly heterogeneous market.
Here are some of the latest trends in inclusive business practices. Their implementation will attract a strong and diverse workforce, one that will understand your customers because of their strong, foundational respect for one another.
Training Employees to Recognize Unconscious Bias
Ongoing education is an important component of a healthy work environment. Many businesses already conduct seminars covering topics from sexual assault to personality assessments. Human resource teams should expand training to teach leaders and employees about unconscious bias.
In an environment where cooperation—not consternation—is key, preconceived stereotypes can become an obstacle. But acknowledging unconscious bias helps to break down these often-invisible barriers and make a diverse workforce more confident and cohesive.
BUSINESS ETIQUETTE
Inclusivity in Marketing
By: Meredith Flory
Diversity is a term often used in workplace settings, referring to seeing or experiencing a wide range of human experiences and identities represented within a group of people. Marketing for many companies has become more diverse, in hopes of reflecting our communities better.
In fact, an oft-told celebrity story, such as in this 2021 CNN article, is how Meghan Markle wrote a letter to Proctor & Gamble as a child about how their marketing was aimed only at women and pointed out the sexism inherent in marketing cleaning supplies only to women. She has continued to work for women’s issues as an adult public figure.
Over the past few decades, consumers have witnessed a shift in marketing, with many household product companies increasing their diversity in advertising to reach beyond just white, suburban moms to anyone who might need these products for the home, with varying racial identities and family makeups being represented on screen.
While this is more in line with our society, it’s also good business sense to increase your customer base. But what’s the next step?
GIVING BACK & GETTING INVOLVED
Milspo-Owned Powerhouse Reflects on Year of Empowering the Homefront
By: Julie Kirchner
On a stormy September morning in 2022, a group of Powerhouse team members gathered in a hotel hospitality suite high above St. Pete beach. Powerhouse knows how to have fun together as a team, and no amount of rain could dampen the spirits of this group. The energy in the room was as palpable as the humidity. The company’s 10-year anniversary celebration had brought together Powerhouse freelancers and their spouses from all corners of the United States to commemorate the important milestone together. For many, it was our first time together in person, even having worked together remotely for years.
The focus of the agenda this particular morning was rooted in a core part of Powerhouse’s team culture—our mission to “Share the Goodness”—and the room quickly filled with stories, ideas, and plans to launch a program to help lift up other military spouses with career support. It was then that an official volunteer committee was formed, and Powerhouse’s Empowering the Homefront program was born.
Empowering the Homefront is a pilot program designed by Powerhouse Planning to empower and provide career support to military spouses. Through the program, military spouses have the opportunity to be selected through an application process to receive career kick-start prizes, including free resume makeovers, mentorship, and other career tools and support.
As a Coast Guard spouse, Jessica Bertsch knows firsthand the sacrifices and unique challenges military spouses face, which led to her creation of Powerhouse Planning, a company devoted to providing clients with remote team solutions through employment of skills and talents of military spouses and other remotely located individuals. We have lived and seen the amazing skills military spouses possess that are often underutilized as they support their spouses’ military careers, which require them to be flexible and adaptive.
BUSINESS RESOURCES
With diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) becoming more and more important to consumers and employers alike, we’ve compiled a short list of online resources designed to give you a better understanding of what inclusive marketing is and how you can improve your own marketing campaigns.
For a broad overview of inclusive marketing, including information on what consumers are thinking about it, check out Amazon Ads’ guide.
Looking for resources to help you get started on making your marketing more inclusive? Google’s Inclusive Marketing site is for you! Complete with helpful tips, audience insights, and more, this site will give you a great base of knowledge from which to build.
For a great read on why inclusive marketing needs to become our default, check out Forbes.com’s article.
Want more? Powerhouse Planning can help. Contact us today for more information.
New Powerhouse Team Member
Melissa is overjoyed to join the Powerhouse team as an office administrator. Having found success in team sports, she feels like she can contribute her energetic, loyal, and organized self in assisting with all the needs of the admin team. With over 15 years of customer service-based roles, she has found that leading with a positive attitude, being willing to take on any task, and always giving your best will lead to success! Raised in Oregon, she earned a B.S. in sociology while playing for the University of Oregon Division I women’s soccer team. Shortly after graduating, she married her husband, a newly commissioned Marine Corps pilot. After stops in San Diego and Corpus Christi, they landed in New England, where they currently reside with three active children. Melissa has over 20 years of milspouse experience with several different branches—the Marine Corps, Navy, Marine Corps Reserve, and currently Air National Guard. If Melissa had free time, she would love to be hiking outside or enjoying a freshly squeezed margarita.
LEADERSHIP SPOTLIGHT
Growing Community with Liza Rodewald of Instant Teams
By: Carolyn Rawson
Co-founded by software engineer Liza Rodewald in 2016, Instant Teams’ talent marketplace has consistently grown and facilitated more than 5,000 direct hires. Beyond their remarkable success, we wanted to know more about the launch of their new app, Twelve Million Plus, and how it’s designed to support the military spouse community.
Liza Rodewald was busy writing government software when she met and married her husband, an active-duty Army officer. Immediately enveloped in military life, she found herself surrounded by fellow military spouses wanting to know how she remained so gainfully employed. For most military families, moves are frequent, making it challenging for dependents to find and maintain jobs.
Approaching her, they would often ask, “How are you working from home? What are you doing? I’ve been struggling with getting a job for so many years . . .”
Liza sympathized, admiring their tenacity. “I love the fact that military spouses build community,” she says. “They are productive with their time, they are appreciative of opportunities, they want to keep [those opportunities], and they’re going to perform.”
