‘Listen to the People Who Matter’ (That Includes the Workers)

B the Change Weekly: February 22, 2019

Delivered on Fridays, B the Change Weekly delivers the most important and most relevant stories about people using business as a force for good. The newsletter features a weekly note from the B the Change team alongside insight and context on the stories we share here on Medium. Below is our latest roundup. To receive these insights directly in your inbox, sign up for B the Change Weekly today. Now onto the good stuff:

(Photo by Antenna on Unsplash)

In the business world, the mainstream mindset says that customers matter most for a successful bottom line. But for Certified B Corporations, the stakeholder circle is larger — and workers are an important component of the equation.

Companies with a purpose-driven mindset can follow the lead of London-based B Corp Forster Communications, which has a simple way to shape its progressive policies: “We started by doing what we tell our clients to do, which is to listen to the people who matter: our employees. The result is an effective policy that is knitted into how we operate as a business.”

By considering their businesses’ impact on their workers — plus customers, community and environment — B Corps craft resilient companies that serve the bottom line while also widening the stakeholder circle of success. It’s a modern mindset that will soon be the normal way of doing business.

For the last three years, Forster Communications has been honored as one of Britain’s Happiest Workplaces

Overcoming Taboos to Create a Healthier Workplace

In the United Kingdom, mental health issues cost employers and the overall economy billions of pounds a year. While mental health is a daunting health and economic challenge, London-based B Corp Forster Communications has tackled it as part of its mission-driven public relations business.

Forster’s 22 years of mental health work include MindOut for Mental Health, a three-year anti-stigma campaign that was the first of its kind in this country, and the Time to Change pledge to reframe how society sees and values mental health.

The B Corp also worked with Business in the Community and Public Health England to create a suite of toolkits for employers that provide free, practical support for whole-person well-being, tackling taboo subjects including mental health, sleep, domestic abuse and suicide prevention.

On B the Change, Forster shares more on how it helps clients find an authentic and effective way to talk about mental health with employees, customers and communities and counteract negative stereotypes.

Workers Embrace Journey of Improvement

As one of the United Kingdom’s longest-standing B Corps, COOK has gone through the B Impact Assessment three times and progressively increased its B Impact score.

COOK’s B Corp journey also has inspired its employees to feel a connection between their everyday work and the wider purpose-driven business movement for change, says Charlotte Sewell, the company’s head of impact and learning.

“People start to think of all the different things they could do to contribute to our score and our positive impact, whether that’s finding a local dry cleaner or paying small suppliers more quickly,” Sewell says on B the Change.

Even as it has grown rapidly over the last few years, COOK continues to help new employees understand that the company is trying to do business differently — as a force for good in the B Corp community.

British B Corps Open a Virtual Supermarket Aisle

B Corps are getting new attention thanks to a new online store with a British supermarket chain that helps shoppers vote every day with their grocery purchases.

The online B Corp shop at the Waitrose supermarket chain highlights products from about 20 B Corp brands and serves as a virtual aisle for conscious customers looking for products with purpose. Shoppers can link to the page directly or by searching for any of the B Corp brands.

It’s just the first step in the B Corps’ work with Waitrose, which is part of Britain’s largest employee-owned retailer and known for its sustainability work, including reduced packaging, minimized food waste and environmentally friendly farmer practices.

Read more on B the Change about longer-term plans to take the B Corp store to Waitrose brick-and-mortar locations and further highlight the product and the benefits of B Corps for shoppers.

Book of the Week

If you have a specific suggestion, let us know at bthechange@bcorporation.net with the subject line “book recommendation.”

Brave New Work

By Aaron Dignan

Aaron Dignan helps teams around the world completely reinvent their operating systems through the fundamental principles and practices that shape their culture. In Brave New Work, he takes a three-part approach that examines the Future of Work, the Operating System and the Change.

Dignan shares how to reinvent the way you work through a groundswell of autonomy, trust and transparency rather than top-down mandates. He takes a counterintuitive yet straightforward approach to change that honors the inherent complexity in each organization.