Worcester Business Journal

32 Worcester Business Journal | October 12, 2020 | wbjournal.com Almost 60 million Latinos live in the United States, making up 18% of the population. It's estimated according to the U.S. Department of Labor one in every three new employees by 2025 will be Latino or of Hispanic heritage. All this comes with their own set of challenges in the workforce. Hispanics workers earn 74% of what the typical white workers earn; Hispanic women experience a much larger gap than white women, earning just 54 cents for every dollar earned by white men; and upward social and work mobility is three times more difficult than other demographic groups. Even with these stats, employers in struggle to capture the Hispanic talent. Here are ways they can reverse that trend. 10) Mentorship. Being able to identify and mentor your Hispanic workforce will translate into better retention and opportunities. 9) Evaluate your senior management. Representation cultivates aspiration. When we don't feel represented in the organization, we lose motivation. 8) Eliminate bias in the evaluation and promotion opportunities. As an organization, always promote equal pay for equal work and be conscious of decision making based on bias. 7) Invest in your team. Recruit and hire for retention and have strong plans to develop your team. 6) Acknowledged our power. Hispanics account for $2.3 trillion economic activity, according to a 2019 report by the Congress Joint Economic Committee. If the U.S. Latino GDP were its own country, it would rank as the eighth largest GDP in the world. 5) Recognize our value as a competent workforce. Even those with a college degree will have to work a third or half longer to make what a white man or woman earn in a year. 4) Help with hurdles to employment and financial security. Expand your outreach to high schools, colleges and universities to promote mentorship and paid work opportunities. 3) Build a strong and positive reputation within the Hispanic community. We do business with companies we trust, but more importantly we do business with companies representing our values and understanding our needs. 2) Deploy robust Spanish-language digital content. This will help you attract more business and will increase engagement. 1) Don't worry about getting it right. It's not just about getting it right on the first try, it's all about trying and interacting with your Hispanic employees to get solid feedback. K N O W H O W Overhaul your branding like McDonald's 10 1: B eing Zoomed out is a state most can relate to these days, with COVID-19 still having many of us working remotely. Video calls can get draining and nonproductive if we aren't careful. Here are some changes you can implement today. Hide yourself. Seeing live video of yourself via Zoom isn't only unnatural, it's distracting, writes Ashira Prossack at Forbes. "You're more likely to pay attention to your facial expressions, what you're wearing, or your general appearance rather than just focusing on the conversation," Prossack writes. For more effective meetings, utilize the "Hide myself " feature to only allow other participants to see your video. Redefine one-hour calls to 50 minutes, says Steve Hickman at Mindful.org, especially for those in occupations where back-to-back calls are the norm. is allows for a 10-minute break in between calls to use the restroom, grab some water and otherwise decompress. Otherwise, there are no clear boundaries between sessions – a lesson Hickman learned the hard way. "Quite oen, my Zoom meetings run back to back … sometimes my Zoom room becomes a kind of random encounter anteroom, where people from various aspects of my personal and professional life bump into each other for a few moments on their way in and out of a meeting with me," he said. Don't let Zoom become a default, says Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy of Harvard Business Review. Switch to phone calls or email if possible, they advise – most likely, the person you are connecting with will be relieved, especially if it's at the end of a day of back-to-back video calls. "A video call is fairly intimate and can even feel invasive in some situations," they write. "For example, if you're asked to do a career advice call and you don't know the person you're talking to, sticking to phone is often a safer choice." 1 0 T H I NG S I know about... ...How business can capture Hispanic talent BY KHAM INTHIRATH Special to the Worcester Business Journal W hen you think of the most estab- lished brands in the world, McDon- ald's likely comes to mind. And for a good reason: McDonald's is the globe's largest fast- food chain, serving a staggering 68 million people each day. Despite its icon status, McDonald's has never been one to stagnate. e brand is currently planning its most significant marketing overhaul in 16 years. is move serves as an excellent example of what others could accom- plish, were they not so afraid. McDonald's brand overhaul McDonald's wants to extend its reach to Black consumers. To do this, it's launching what it calls the "Black & Positively Golden" campaign. • e initiative will launch with a one-minute spot, airing twice during the 50th NAACP Image Awards. • e campaign features a Black Marine and a woman receiving a col- lege scholarship from McDonald's. • e campaign is utilizing radio ads and social media campaigns and will launch ads on the new Instagram channel, @wearegolden. McDonald's other historic rebrands McDonald's major rebrand comes on the heels of another big change: e brand's sweeping efforts at uni- fication and a complete overhaul of its global visual identity. McDonald's focused on decluttering, highlighting, and simplifying its messaging, via: • Freeing the arches. Historically, McDonald's golden arches were tied to the wordmark of the brand. Today, McDonald's has liberated the golden arches to stand on their own. • Flipping the palette hierarchy. Historically, McDonald's colors were red with touches of yellow. e brand has shied yellow to take center stage. • Typography. McDonald's is using a single font in three weights. is unifies and helps make the iconic marketing much more recognizable. Rebrand like McDonald's McDonald's has overhauled its mar- keting plan as its customers, and the environment around it has changed. If you want your brand to grow, you'd do well to add a bit of strategic plan- ning to your brand strategy. Specifically, here are a few things you'll want to consider: • How to write a marketing plan. If you've never written a marketing plan before, learn how to do market research for a business plan. A great marketing plan provides structure for your rebrand, while marketing plan sections ensure you're targeting your intended demographic effectively. • How to roll out a new logo. Your visual identity is critical to the health and wellbeing of your business. If you're going to change that visual identity, you need to do it intentional- ly, intelligently, and with the assis- tance of a skilled branding team. • How to pivot your voice. If you want to target a new audience, learn how to extend your brand voice in an authentic, natural way is essential. An brand change, made simple What doesn't bend breaks, and that's as true for brand identity as it is anything else. As your demograph- ics, customers, and services change, your brand identity should as well. Fortunately, brands like McDonald's are demonstrating you are never too big to reinvent yourself. All you need to do it well is a bit of imagination and vision. Kham Inthirath is the founder and president of Worcester marketing firm InThink Agency, focused on helping local businesses find and connect with their target audiences. Reach him at kham@inthinkagency.com. BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal By Johan Romero Luna Romero Luna is assistant vice president & area manager for Workers Credit Union in Worcester. Reach him at JRomeroLuna@wcu.com. Z O O M F A T I G U E W W W

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