Some civic duties, like paying taxes or serving jury duty, can feel like a chore. Outdoor retailer Patagonia doesn’t want its employees to feel that way about voting, so it’s trying to make it easier for them to participate in the democratic process.

The Ventura, California-based company has, since 2016, closed its 70 stores and paused its business operations in the US on general and midterm election days so its nearly 2,200 employees can vote, according to J.J. Huggins, PR and communications manager at Patagonia, who is also a project manager for Time to Vote, a program Patagonia launched in 2018 to help employees cast their ballot.

“We decided to close [in 2016] on election day, give everyone a paid day off and let all the employees know that nothing was more important than voting on election day,” Huggins told HR Brew. “Simultaneously, we sent the signal to our customers, letting them know that we believe nothing is more important than voting in this election and that shopping could wait a day.”

Sending a message. Environmentalism and justice are central to the company’s mission, so Huggins said employees have been encouraged to vote “with the planet in mind,” since 2004. But in the lead up to the divisive 2016 presidential election, he said “leadership put their money where their mouth is” and started providing PTO to vote.

Keep reading here.—MC

The US presidential election is here, and the mood is shifting in workplaces around the country.

As HR leaders prepare for an administration change, employees are preparing to cope with the surrounding discourse, with 31% calling the election “a source of tension or friction” at work, according to a recent report from global communications agency Burson. While 76% of employers and 84% of C-suite executives are confident in their readiness to handle post-election political discourse, just 53% of employees feel the same.

“Polarization is impacting business. It’s impacting productivity. It’s impacting culture,” said Bob Feldman, founder of the Dialogue Project, an initiative that helps improve the civility of conversations in the workplace, during a virtual conversation with Johnny C. Taylor, president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, on Oct. 28.

Feldman and Taylor shared advice for how leaders can navigate the post-election environment.

Keep reading here.—MC

This year, major companies including Lowe’s, Ford, Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply, and Molson Coors walked back their DE&I commitments. Not only are companies pulling back, they’re talking about it less too; in 2024, companies mentioned DE&I and related terms 22% less frequently in earnings reports and other documents than in 2023, Gravity Research found.

But e.l.f. Beauty, the third-largest mass beauty brand in the US, is bucking that trend. It proudly touts the fact that 78% of its board members are female and 44% are diverse. This year, it rolled out a campaign called Change the Board Game, with the goal of increasing the percentage of women and minorities on corporate boards to 50% by 2027.

It’s conducted research into board diversity in partnership with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T) and is compiling a database of public companies’ self-reported board demographics. And it also sponsored 19 women and diverse candidates for Accelerate, the NACD’s boardroom readiness program.

Though skeptics might say this sounds like a circa-2020 PR move, there’s solid business strategy behind it.

Keep reading on CFO Brew.—CV

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