Q&A: How to scale social change through employees

With recent studies showing that individuals across all sectors are increasingly putting trust in their employers, those in corporate leadership have a responsibility to nurture that trust and listen, said Paurvi Bhatt, president at the Medtronic Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Medtronic that works to improve lives for underserved populations worldwide.

Employees are no longer just the lifeblood of companies in delivering products and services, she added, but are essential change agents in their communities.

“Business in society has long moved past traditional forms of volunteering time and writing a check. Societal change today requires that individuals and institutions get more deeply involved,” Bhatt said. “Finding, sharing, and amplifying voices and enabling leaders and employees to organically get involved in issues and causes that matter most to them is central to activate the change we are all aiming to achieve.”

On the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Medtronic Foundation, which is operationally headquartered in the Minneapolis area, used virtual tools to bring together community partners and Medtronic employees to listen, learn, and advocate for change around racial and social justice.

Individuals play a critical role “in bringing the truth of what’s happening in their communities into the four walls of a company,” said Bhatt. “Today’s environment requires us to find the courage to speak up, pushing leaders to actively listen to shape their responses and help their teams drive meaningful, collective action.”

Speaking to Devex, Bhatt explained the role of employers in enabling their staff to advocate for change and shared best practices for doing so.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why is it important to ensure employees are more than just “volunteers” but “advocates for change”?

Advocating for something and putting action behind it is a very active process that breathes a different life into what it means to [be] giving of yourself in service. It actually means deciding that this is something that affects you directly and you're willing to challenge yourself, take some risks, and put yourself inside of the problem to help solve it in a very different way.

We certainly believe deeply in service and making sure that people are giving their time in the traditional ways of volunteerism, but in this era, employees-as-advocates is a really important effort.

Especially with the COVID-19 pandemic and when we had to be virtual, we had to reimagine the different ways to truly activate service … The work became much more about listening, learning, and giving voice … and democratized the way we bring our voice and our action to issues all over the world.

Can you share some examples of how the Medtronic Foundation is working with its employees to help them become advocates for change?

About a year ago, when we were all brought to our knees in social justice, it was clear that we needed to get involved, listen, and learn. Inequitable systems have plagued the underserved for generations, and it was time that we brought this into the core of our response.

Our team, together with Medtronic employees, innovated and came up with a new way of coming together in service called a “Power Hour.” For an hour at a time, employees would come together with nonprofits in a virtual community, learn about an issue, and then get involved. That involvement ranged from writing letters to the American Civil Liberties Union and to members of the United States Congress, to standing up against Asian American and Pacific Islander hate crimes.

We incentivize [these efforts] by ensuring that employees not only give their time and voice but also funding. If an employee gives a certain amount of time, [the Medtronic Foundation will] match that time with financial resources toward the cause.

We made sure our focus on inequity went beyond the U.S. community alone. We recently announced a comprehensive partnership to enable access to quality heart surgery, making a more equitable difference in congenital heart disease for underserved children … Not only are we partnering deeply with Children's HeartLink to address this disease, [but] we also are bringing together our employees and leaders to help think through how we can scale for this issue together.

Our purpose-driven leaders are going beyond nonprofit board service into galvanizing highly skilled employees to think differently about how we translate skills, change, and capacity-building in a way that can go to scale in multiple locations from India to Brazil and China.

When you are a purpose-driven company and you reflect on your mission and you bring that mission into today's issues and start to make your decisions based on that lens, it requires advocacy — there’s no other way.

What are some of the best practices for engaging employees in that way?

As a company, we’ve truly taken to heart the requirement to prioritize listening. [It] all begins with taking some very intentional steps to listen first, clarify a unified goal with community partners, and decide on where we can take a stand together.

We held listening sessions where people could share what they were feeling and experiencing. From those listening sessions came a community within the employee base … and then we provided tools and resources so that [employees] could act to hold a “Power Hour” together. To create a greater impact, employers should provide tools and financial incentives to encourage people to donate their own resources and partner with nonprofits to reach more people.

When we took the time to get to know each other as well as our community partners, we realized how courageous leadership shows up through our own resume of service over the years. In many instances, it is service, more than our academic pedigree, that has led us to our purpose, and that path brought us all to our company, to this time, and this opportunity to come together to drive impactful change in the future.

Do you have advice for other organizations on how to support their employees as they engage in efforts to tackle societal issues?

Have the courage to take the individual journey in exploring these social issues, for yourself, with your team, and also in conversation with your leaders. To activate change together requires this individual experience that eliminates walls and hierarchy.

Stay empathetic and open to listening. It’s important to appreciate that even when focused on a single goal, our diversity implies that we come from all different sides of an issue. We have to openly listen without assumptions to build the best opportunity for change. We know that all organizations, whether they be public, nonprofit, or private, have to make the best institutional decision for their mission and goals.

There are times when a company will make a decision and take a stand and there are times when they won't [but] that doesn't mean that an employee can't. The change we require in the world needs to begin with this change we need inside any organization. That change starts with individuals together within their community.

Visit the Impact Makers series for more coverage on how to better cultivate change through philanthropy. You can join the conversation using the hashtag #ImpactMakers.