Commentary
The Shooting Never Stops
Gun violence exacts a steep toll on all aspects of life
18We live in a country with more guns than humans. More mass shootings than days in a year. And a significant misconception about how survivors of gun violence can heal and move on with their lives. The truth is that time does not heal all wounds. And unfortunately, there is no playbook for victims of…
Moneyball
Want to get the most business from baseball? it’s simple: win more games
Baseball isn’t just a great sport to play and watch. It’s also an economic engine. Cities often help major league teams build stadiums in hopes of boosting economic activity in surrounding neighborhoods. But there’s one ingredient that really brings in the bucks: a winning team. Last season, for the first time since 2001, it seemed…
Disability inclusion: Seattle companies take steps to include all employees
One in four adults in the United States has some type of disability. Still, disability inclusion is not always part of workplace diversity efforts. Thoughtful accessibility practices help with new hiring opportunities and ensure current coworkers can bring their whole selves to the job. I recently learned that an employee has a non-apparent disability only…
Second chances: Why Seattle companies should hire people with criminal records
2023The law firm I founded, DuBois Levias Law Group, is a “second chance” employer for people who were formerly incarcerated. We hire those who have served time in prison, carry a felony, or have close family members in prison. Given that one in four Americans has a criminal record that can impact their ability to…
Doing the DEIB
Involving workers in diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging creates engagement and enthusiasm
Everyone, regardless of title, can advance diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes in the workplace. One way to accomplish this is by creating employee-led resource groups, or ERGs, which often consist of members who share similar demographics or lived experiences. Here are some frequently asked questions. We are a relatively small business. We care deeply about…
Space Case
Workers demand a range of experiences in the workplace
The responsibility of the workplace is to double as a dynamic community hub where work and life intersect — always for the better. In conceptualizing the positioning of a property, owners should focus on incorporating the best elements of work, home, and hospitality into the experience, establishing the workplace as a destination. Workers themselves are…
Culture in a Post-Covid World
A human-centered workplace will retain employees and spur success
In business, perhaps branding is the only term that can compete with culture as the most nebulous to define and elusive to measure. But in today’s post-Covid world, culture has become more critical than ever. The companies that crack the culture code attract and retain the best people and gain a growing segment of conscious…
Turning Back to Timber
Look to Washington’s history to tackle the climate crisis
We can thank lumber for the success of Seattle and many of the towns that have sprung up across the Puget Sound region. From the logs that rolled across Skid Road in the early days of Pioneer Square to the mills that supplied the country’s hunger for Washington’s wood, nothing is more quintessentially Pacific Northwest…
Building Back Better
In the two decades that preceded the Covid-19 pandemic, downtown Seattle outperformed nearly every major urban center in the country in job and residential growth and overall investment. To find a comparable period of transformation, you must go back to the early 1900s when Seattle benefited as the provisioning city for those heading north to…
Make DE&I a Priority. Your Future Depends on it.
Why every business needs a plan for diversity, equity and inclusion
Last summers social justice uprisings, spurred on in large part by police killings and the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on communities of color, shed a light on what businesses should be doing to strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in their operations. The ROI on DE&I is not new, of course. Research from McKinsey, released…
Rebuild, Don’t Fix: Too many DEI efforts in the workplace completely miss the point
The murder of George Floyd during a global pandemic, when people had time to witness and sit with a race crime that mirrored many before it, changed everything. People began to seek accountability from everyone, including those at the helm of companies and organizations. A surge of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives was born. …
We All Need to Step Up to Stem the Economic Carnage of the Coronavirus Crisis
Its time to have a national conversation about the path forward for our way of life
At Gravity Payments, we process $10 billion a year in credit card transactions, and we just finished going through the data on how COVID-19 (the coronavirus) has affected businesses. In Washington state (mostly the Seattle area) the epicenter of the outbreak total revenue for all businesses is down 10% just in the last 3 weeks….