Diversify Company Culture with Art
/Why does Progressive include artwork from diverse cultures in the insurance company’s collection? Because our nation’s talent pool includes people from diverse backgrounds.
Art collecting can improve your employee recruiting efforts by attracting workers from various backgrounds who might not consider your company otherwise.
Art Speaks Without Words
The art you hang on your walls can help create a workplace that inspires workers of all backgrounds. It’s as clear a message as your equal employment opportunity pledge.
Amidst many options for addressing branding and company culture in the workplace, art can help communicate key brand messages in a nonverbal way.
For example, an organization that displays unusual artwork is likely to be seen as conducting business in less traditional ways or marketing less conventional products; art that seems based in multiple ethnic traditions can signal multicultural management practices.
Diego Rivera, Flower Carriers, (Courtesy of Reddit)
Changing Demographics
The American workforce is changing, particularly when it comes to age and culture. The changing demographics are something companies will need to embrace going forward.
According to the non-profit National Utilities Diversity Council, which promotes diversity in the utilities and communications industries, millennials will represent 34% of the workforce by 2020, and the U.S. will be a “multi-ethnic majority country” by 2044.
Also, crucially, “companies with a diverse workforce are 35% more likely to financially outperform the industry median.” And then there’s this:
A 2014 survey by MyKindaCrowd found that 69% of students between the ages of 12 and 25 said that the lack of diversity in a workplace would prevent them from working for a particular employer. This data reflects Generation Z, who have just turned 18 and are entering the workforce.
—National Utilities Diversity Council
Lionel Smit, Girl with Blue (Courtesy of Huffington Post)
Progressive’s Example
Progressive not only hangs diverse art in offices, the company makes use of the art to reflect our times, bring employees together and make a better overall work environment.
The collection is used as decor throughout the workplace, in communications such as their annual report, as a catalyst for employee engagement through their own curated art shows, and through arts-based learning programs to help employees:
Understand diverse perspectives
Empathize with other perspectives
Better communicate ideas visually
Use analogies and relations to see the big picture (strategic thinking)
Inspire creativity
Ransome Stanley, Green Cat (Courtesy of Huffington Post)
Art Collecting Helps Recruiting
Culturally diverse art collecting enables you to attract job candidates from every part of the nation’s talent pool.
Collections that reflect the current demographics of your company or the future desired demographics of your company tell prospects, without words, that they are welcome.