Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading content…
Transcript

DEI, Attitudes + Communication, Motivation + Decision-Making, and Sustainability

Abbey Liao

Sienna Scoggin Liam Badger

Nikki Rubottom

Andrew Plaschke

Skyler Sulkis

Overview

  • Patagonia was founded in 1973 by Yvon Chouinard and Craig Mathews

  • Originally an extension of Chouinard Equipment Company, Patagonia was founded to be a means for Chouinard and others to fund outdoor activities.

  • With the growth of the company, its founders realized that the nature of their business was affecting the outdoors. The very thing Patagonia was designed to help the founders access.

  • Patagonia pivoted early on to embrace and protect the environment leading to their core values

Company Values

Patagonia is one of the most successful companies across the board when looking at concepts such as DEI, attitudes at work, motivation, and sustainability initiatives all of which will be illustrated in this presentation.

Core Values

  • quality
  • integrity
  • environmentalism
  • justice
  • not being bound by conventional practices

Core Values

These core values shape all decisions made within Patagonia and lead to their mission statement.

“Our Core Values - Patagonia.” Patagonia Outdoor Clothing & Gear,

https://www.patagonia.com/core-values/.

Mission Statement

Mission Statement

“cause no unnecessary harm”

(Chouinard 15)

Patagonia has followed this mission by using buisness as a force for good.

Examples include joining the Fair Labor Association to create a living wage for their workers (Chouinard & Stanley 58) and donating 1% of total company revenue or 10% of pre-tax profits per year depending on which sum is greater (Zint & Frederik 94).

Chouinard, Yvon, and Vincent Stanley. The Responsible Company: What We've Learned from

Patagonia's First 40 Years. Second ed., Patagonia Books, 2016.

https://archive.org/details/responsiblecompa0000chou/page/4/mode/2up

Zint, Michaela, and Rob Frederick. “Marketing and Advertising a ‘Deep Green’ Company: The

Case of Patagonia, Inc.” The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, no. 1, 2001, pp. 93–113. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/jcorpciti.1.93.

How They Implement This

“at Patagonia, making a profit is not the goal…We strive to balance the funding of environmental activities with the desire to continue in business for the next 100 years” (Chouinard 160).

Patagonia has also made a historic choice to have all stock be transferred to trusts dedicated to fighting climate change outside of any person's control (McCormick). This is to ensure the mission and values of the company are upheld and related efforts are properly funded (McCormick).

Patagonia's recent actions seem to imply that they put their money where their mouth is in terms of following their core values

How They Implement This

Profit is not the sole motive of Patagonia. Growing slowly and with intent on creating a workplace built on shared company culture and diverse, motivated employees (Chouinard 170) allows Patagonia to grow in such a manner that these core values are distorted as little as possible during the growth of the company (Chouinard 71).

McCormick, Erin. “Patagonia's Billionaire Owner Gives Away Company to Fight Climate Crisis.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 14 Sept. 2022,

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/14/patagonias-billionaire-owner-gives-away-company-to-fight-climate-crisis-yvon-chouinard.

Chouinard, Yvon. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman.

Penguin Press, 2005. https://archive.org/details/letmypeoplegosur00yvon_0

Further Actions

Patagonia is also committed to creating a diverse workforce culture that encourages working together outside the traditional hierarchical structure (Chouinard 167-168). This is achieved by creating employee environments with diverse religious, social, and political beliefs and attracting people across these spectrums. The company motto is the uniting factor between all these aspects (166-167). An example of this is that over 50% of all jobs are held by women (170).

Further Actions

How Patagonia implements their core values into their organizational structure is thus clearly effective. There are on average 900 applicants applying for every job opening, which shows the attractiveness of their core values (Chouinard 170).

Chouinard, Yvon. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman.

Penguin Press, 2005. https://archive.org/details/letmypeoplegosur00yvon_0

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

  • DEI is important to consider when defining company values and practices
  • Patagonia -> diverse hiring practices and creating inclusive work environments
  • ranked 94th best workplace for diversity on Fortune ("Patagonia")
  • create retreats, partnernships with organizations, and employee benefits
  • diversity - > more decision-making, better understanding of customers, higher job satisfaction, and better company performance (Bauer & Erdogan)

Bauer, Talya, and Berrin Erdogan. Organizational Behavior: Bridging Science and Practice, Flat World, Boston, MA, 2021.

“Patagonia.” Fortune, Fortune, 30 Nov. 2017,

https://fortune.com/ranking/best-workplaces-for-diversity/2019/patagonia/.

What is DEI?

  • diversity: “compositional differences among people in a work unit” (Bauer & Erdogan)
  • inclusion: “allowing individuals to bring aspects of themselves that make them unique to a group while also being treated as organizational insiders” (Bauer & Erdogan)

What is DEI?

Bauer, Talya, and Berrin Erdogan. Organizational Behavior: Bridging Science and Practice, Flat World, Boston, MA, 2021.

DEI Retreats

DEI Retreats

  • In November 2017, Patagonia hosted a DEI-focused retreat in Yosemite National Park
  • goals: disucss more ideas -> change and inclusivity
  • “We can, and should, be doing a lot more to actively engage with individuals and communities who are historically underrepresented in the outdoor community, the environmental movement and our own company” (“A Gathering for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with Teresa Baker”)
  • The Greening Youth Federation (GYF): most are African American or Hispanic students
  • teach students about conservation efforts, careers in STEM, and leading a healthy and active lifestyle while spending time outdoors

Gender-Balanced Workforce

Gender-Balanced Workforce

  • over 50% of Patagonia's workforce are women or identify as women (Chhabra)
  • 12 weeks of fully paid family medical leave, 16 weeks of fully paid maternity leave, and 12 weeks of fully paid paternity leave (Chhabra)
  • 100% of their female employees return to work after maternity leave (Chhabra)
  • since 1983, offer free onsite childcare for all staff members at their Ventura headquarters and Reno warehouse (Chhabra)
  • family-friendly policies -> increase productivity and more women in management positons (Chhabra)

Chhabra, Esha. “Does Patagonia Have the Answer for Narrowing the Gender Wage Gap?” The

Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 17 Nov. 2016,

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/17/us-companies-gender-wa

ge-gap-patagonia-arjuna-capital-salesforce-expedia.

Downsides

Downsides

  • Patagonia struggles with inclusivity for different gender identities and all body types/sizes - they are a work in progress
  • "They/Them" Film - starring Lor Sabourin (Glenday)
  • discusses inclusivity and acceptance around climbing
  • Patagonia has the ability make an impact for athletes
  • sports can be "liberating" (Glenday) and create spaces that fight oppression
  • Inability to produce clothing that is inclusive for all bodies
  • “My main theory is that Patagonia is underestimating the size of the market. They carry XL and limited XXL options, the size charts aren’t drastically different from Lane Bryant or Eloquii, but say they don’t have success” (FemiGnarly)
  • Patagonia is struggling with overcoming their biases of having plus-size individuals wearing their clothing
  • not seen as "outdoorsy" (FemiGnarly)
  • Patagonia should be an inclusive company for all regardless of gender, sexuality, or body type

Glenday, John. “Patagonia Climb Ambassador Discusses Gender Identity and Sport in Documentary.” The Drum, The Drum, 7 Oct. 2021,

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/10/07/patagonia-climb-ambassador-discusses-gender-identity-and-sport-documentary.

FemiGnarly. “Patagonia's Resistance to Plus Sizes.” FemiGnarly, 20 Nov. 2020, https://femignarly.com/2019/12/05/patagonias-resistance-to-plus-sizes/.

"They/Them Film"

"They/Them" Film

https://youtu.be/ahuiQT4xMdw

Attitudes + Communication At Work

Attitudes + Communication

At Work

  • Patagonia has a reputation as a socially responsible and environmentally conscious company, and many employees appreciate the company's commitment to these values

  • Known for their unique approach to employee experiences, with an emphasis on work/life balance, personal growth, and employee well-being

  • Highly engaged and motivated workforce leading to increased productivity and loyalty

Culture

  • Patagonia's culture is built around the idea that employees should be encouraged to pursue their passions, enjoy a work life balance, explore the outdoors, and engage in meaningful activities outside of work (Anderson)

  • Patagonia places a strong emphasis on finding people who are passionate about the outdoors and who share the company's values (Culture/Life)

  • The company offers a range of benefits and programs designed to support employee well-being, such as flexible work arrangements, on-site child care, and opportunities for personal and professional development

  • Patagonia has created a work culture that is highly supportive and empowering which has contributed to the company's success

Culture

Anderson, Bruce. “5 'Ridiculous' Ways Patagonia Has Built a Culture That Does Well and Does Good.” LinkedIn, 27 Sept. 2019, https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-connect/ways-patagonia-built-ridiculous-culture.

“Culture & Life.” Patagonia, https://www.patagonia.com/culture.html.

Current + Past Employees

Current/Past Employees

Positive:

  • Strong sense of community among employees and opportunities for personal and professional growth (“Patagonia Reviews: What Is It Like to Work at Patagonia?”)
  • Many employees, current and former, appreciate the company's values-driven culture and feel a sense of pride in working for a company that prioritizes the environment and social responsibility
  • The company's commitment to work-life balance and flexible scheduling
  • Patagonia has a reputation for offering competitive compensation and benefits packages, which many former employees have appreciated

Negative:

  • Some employees have felt that the company's high expectations and intense work culture can lead to burnout and stress
  • Others have expressed frustration with the company's decentralized decision-making processes and lack of clear direction
  • Some employees have criticized the company's lack of diversity and inclusion, which they feel has led to a homogeneous corporate culture

“Patagonia Reviews: What Is It Like to Work at Patagonia?” Glassdoor, https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Patagonia-Reviews-E5474.htm.

Work Satisfaction

Work Satisfaction

  • Patagonia has impressivly high employee loyalty, boasting a turnover rate of just 4%, (Mautz)

  • This is because Patagonia goes above and beyond when it comes to supporting their workers providing things like travel nannies for employees who need to travel for a project.

  • Patagonia strongly believes in a proper worklife balance as well as the power of an employee centric work enviornment.

Mautz, Scott. “Patagonia Has Only 4 Percent Employee Turnover Because They Value This 1

Thing So Much”

https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/how-can-patagonia-have-only-4-percent-worker-turnov

er-hint-they-pay-activist-employees-bail.html

Personality

  • Patagonia is dedicated to hiring employees whos personalities match with their carefully curated work enviornment.

  • Patagonia went as far as to say "we’ll often take a risk on an itinerant rock climber that we wouldn’t on a run-of-the-mill MBA" (Culture & Life)

  • By hiring an employees who share major personality traits and interests Patagonia fostered a work enviornment in which employees can be authentic and can form genuine bonds with eachother. (Mautz)

Personality

“Culture & Life.” Patagonia, https://www.patagonia.com/culture.html.

Mautz, Scott. “Patagonia Has Only 4 Percent Employee Turnover Because They Value This 1

Thing So Much”

https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/how-can-patagonia-have-only-4-percent-worker-turnov

er-hint-they-pay-activist-employees-bail.html

Decision-Making, Motivation, and Sustainability

Decision-Making, Motivation, and Sustainability

Sustainability:

  • Patagonia prides itself on its world-class sustainability and limited environmental consumption practices
  • It is one of, if not the top company in terms of sustainability practices in our world today
  • This greatly affects motivation to work, because many of the employees feel pride in working for Patagonia, knowing that they are doing something positive for the planet
  • It also has a huge affect on decision making, because the company as a whole has to make sure they are always making decisions that keep the company green and sustainable

Decision-Making + Motivation:

  • The actions taken by Patagonia so far have illustrated the bold decisions they have made in their business.
  • Patagonia extends this decision making to their employees and encourages them to provide input.
  • Decision-making and autonomy have positive effects on motivation as well.

In Depth Sustainability

In Depth Sustainability

  • Patagonia has over 87% of their fabric containing some form of recycled material (Kamprad, 1).
  • Patagonia has strict policies for their manufacturers to follow. They outline a code of conduct for these companies they work with and routinely visit each manufacturing site to ensure everything is up to code and sustainable as outlined in their mission.
  • “Over 80% of their workers make a living wage” (1). This is far above average for the majority of clothing companies, especially ones with complex supply chains (1).
  • since 2012, Patagonia has been a certified B Corporation
  • This means that they are part of a small section of companies that follow and meet strict environmental and socioeconomic standards within their brand.
  • They are legally required to weigh the impact that all of their choices have on their employees, their customers, and the environment.

Kamprad, Dennis. “How Sustainable Is Patagonia? All You Need to Know.” Impactful Ninja, https://impactful.ninja/how-sustainable-is-patagonia/#:~:text=In%20the%20US%2C%20Patagonia%20uses,80%25%20compared%20to%20virgin%20fibers.

Melchionne, Laurie. “Sustainability Battle of Brands: Patagonia vs the North Face.” Impakter, 2 Feb. 2023, https://impakter.com/sustainability-battle-of-brands-patagonia-vs-the-north-face/.

Patagonia vs. North Face

Patagonia vs. North Face

  • “Patagonia uses 7% more recycled materials than Northface when supplying materials and clothes. However, North Face is committed to a circular design, where they will reduce half of their CO2 emissions by 2030. They will also be eliminating their plastic packaging by 2025, instead packaging all of their items with recycled materials” (Melchionne 1).
  • Patagonia focuses on their sustainability in the present while Northface focuses on how they can reduce their overall emissions over a circular and longer period of time.
  • North Face coats are also certified by the Responsible Down Standard, “which sources feathers from geese and ducks raised on certain farms that meet the label's animal welfare criteria”

Melchionne, Laurie. “Sustainability Battle of Brands: Patagonia vs the North Face.” Impakter, 2 Feb. 2023, https://impakter.com/sustainability-battle-of-brands-patagonia-vs-the-north-face/.

Decision-Making

  • “Increased participation in institutional decision making leads to greater job satisfaction and work achievement, as well as greater individual integration into the organization” (Alutto & Belasco 118).
  • The design of jobs at Patagonia is shaped to have decisions made in a democratic process that allows employee voices to be heard (Chouinard 178).
  • Patagonia’s emphasis on hiring workers that are free-thinkers and highly motivated by the company's core values means that these workers often are motivated to be part of company discussions (Bauer & Erdogan 138).
  • This job design fosters decision-making to be made by all levels of empoyees and encourages high levels of autonomy and task significance which is linked to motivation (Bauer & Erdogan 172-173). A topic discussed on the next slide.

Employee Decision-Making

Chouinard, Yvon. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman.

Penguin Press, 2005. https://archive.org/details/letmypeoplegosur00yvon_0

Bauer, Talya, and Berrin Erdogan. Organizational Behavior: Bridging Science and Practice, Flat

World, Boston, MA, 2021.

Alutto, Joseph A., and James A. Belasco. “A Typology for Participation in Organizational

Decision Making.” Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 1, 1972, pp. 117–25. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2392100.

Motivation

  • Patagonia states that they intentionally hire self-motivated individuals who value autonomy (Bauer & Erdogan 138).
  • Patagonia ensures that this is met by selectively choosing who works for them (Chouinard 167).
  • Employee autonomy aids better decision making, proactive approaches to working in group efforts, and increases in motivation (Bauer & Erdogan 173).
  • Autonomy paired with task significance, the feeling that the work being done is important and valuable, is one of the most influential motivational properties in job design (Bauer & Erdogan172).
  • Allowing employees to have some level of decision-making compliments these factors as Patagonia designs their jobs to encourage these aspects.

Motivation

Chouinard, Yvon. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman.

Penguin Press, 2005. https://archive.org/details/letmypeoplegosur00yvon_0

Bauer, Talya, and Berrin Erdogan. Organizational Behavior: Bridging Science and Practice, Flat

World, Boston, MA, 2021.

Does Patagonia truly cause no unnecessary harm?

Evaluation

Looking at Patagonia's business model and analyzing their core values, practices and policies, and organizational behaviors we can evaluate how good of a job Patagonia does at upholding their mission to cause no unnecessary harm. All of their procedures and programs in place work to minimize harms and as a B-corp, they are ahead of their competitors in regard to issues such as sustainability and DEI. But, due to the nature of being a company that produces goods, there are still environmental harms that exist. They try to offset these harms by "donating" the company to the planet, but there are still emissions that come from producing such goods.

Does Patagonia

uphold its

core values?

Does Patagonia uphold its core valures?

Not Bound By Conventional Practices

Part of Pargonia's value of not following conventional practices is how they pride themself on valuing people over profits. Patagonia’s emphasis on hiring workers that are free-thinkers and highly motivated by the company's core values means that these workers often are motivated to be part of company discussions (Bauer & Erdogan 138). Additionally, we can see how they aren't profit driven through their financial contributions to environmental preservation efforts.

Bauer, Talya, and Berrin Erdogan. Organizational Behavior: Bridging Science and Practice, Flat

World, Boston, MA, 2021.

Justice

Justice

Patagonia focuses on racial, social, economic, and environmental justice. Patagonia strives to create an authentic culture. They believe that “An authentic culture starts with the leaders. It's worth the pursuit because authentic behavior binds human beings to one another, reinforces self-identities, and creates a bridge to a sense of belonging” (Mautz). Patagonia upholds their value of justice by creating an ethical work environment through their inclusive and harm minimizing practices and policies.

Mautz, Scott. “Patagonia Has Only 4 Percent Employee Turnover Because They Value This 1

Thing So Much” https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/how-can-patagonia-have-only-4-percent-worker-turnov

er-hint-they-pay-activist-employees-bail.html

Environmentalism

Environmentalism

Patagonia is ahead of their competitors in regard to sustainability. For example, “Patagonia uses 7% more recycled materials than Northface when supplying materials and clothes." (Melchionne 1). Additionally, as B-corp they are legally required to weigh the impact that all of their choices have on their employees, their customers, and the environment. B Corporations are evaluated on five different company areas to see whether or not they fit the criteria: environment, workers, customers, community, and governance. Patagonia has performed so well in each area and are top ranked in best places to work for the environment in our world today (Kamprad, 1). There are still areas where they can improve environmentally but they are doing a strong and good job at upholding this value relative to others.

Kamprad, Dennis. “How Sustainable Is Patagonia? All You Need to Know.” Impactful Ninja, https://impactful.ninja/how-sustainable-is-patagonia/#:~:text=In%20the%20US%2C%20Patagonia%20uses,80%25%20compared%20to%20virgin%20fibers.

Melchionne, Laurie. “Sustainability Battle of Brands: Patagonia vs the North Face.” Impakter, 2 Feb. 2023, https://impakter.com/sustainability-battle-of-brands-patagonia-vs-the-north-face/.

Integrity

Integrity

They uphold their value of integrity by implementing and following moral practices. They go above and beyond to try and mitigate economic, environmental, and social harms. They do this by implement DEI policies and training, and they use a slow and intentional hiring process. We can see that these programs are effective. For example, Patagonia has been praised for having a gender-balanced workforce with 50% or a little over 50% of the employees identifying as women (Chhabra). But patagonia has been less successful in using gender inclusive language and sizing. These are areas where the integrity of Patagonia could improve.

Chhabra, Esha. “Does Patagonia Have the Answer for Narrowing the Gender Wage Gap?” The

Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 17 Nov. 2016,

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/17/us-companies-gender-wa

ge-gap-patagonia-arjuna-capital-salesforce-expedia.

Quality

Patagonia upholds its value of quality both in their products and by creating a high quality work environment. We can see this through their high levels of job satisfaction. In Chapter 4 of their textbook, Bauer and Erdogan list a handful of factors that impact job satisfaction the factors boiled down to how well an employee was suited for the job and the environment, how well the job matched up to the expectations, and how well the work-life balance was maintained (Bauer & Erdogan 114). In each of these areas Patagonia goes above and beyond to ensure that the employee comes first and that they are satisfied with their work. Scott Mautz wrote in his article, “Patagonia Has Only 4 Percent Employee Turnover Because They Value This 1 Thing So Much”, about some of these Patagonia policies that go the extra mile. He shares, “paying to send nannies on business trips to embrace and support work-life integration, and hosting childcare right on their facilities” (Mautz). This demonstrates that Patagonia is more than willing to take on extra expenses to foster a proper work-life balance and knows how to create a job environment that satisfies their employees. Additionally, they use recycled materials, organic cotton and other imperfect but best alternative options for the materials of clothing (Chouinard 212).

Chouinard, Yvon, and Vincent Stanley. The Responsible Company: What We've Learned from

Patagonia's First 40 Years. Second ed., Patagonia Books, 2016.

https://archive.org/details/responsiblecompa0000chou/page/4/mode/2up

Mautz, Scott. “Patagonia Has Only 4 Percent Employee Turnover Because They Value This 1 Thing So Much”

https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/how-can-patagonia-have-only-4-percent-worker-turnov

er-hint-they-pay-activist-employees-bail.html

Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi