The following is a transcript of our podcast conversation with Sarah Wilkins and Mikaela Kiner. You can listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Sarah Wilkins
Hello, and welcome to Humans Beyond Resources, an HR podcast by Reverb, where we cover topics from culture to compliance. Reverb believes that every decision a leader makes reverberates throughout the organization, from hiring your first employee to training your entire workforce. We believe in building healthy, inclusive cultures that engage your team. I’m your host, Sarah Wilkins.
This week we’re talking about B Corporations and in particular about Reverb becoming a B Corp. We’re really excited to have achieved this status and I’m bringing on our CEO and founder Mikaela Kiner to share more about what a B Corp is, why it was so important to us, and how you could become a B Corp as well. Great to have you back, Mikaela.
Mikaela Kiner
It’s so good to be here, Sarah. Thanks for having me.
Sarah Wilkins
Well, after our exciting news, as we mentioned in the intro, um, I wanted to, yeah, chat with you more about, you know, why we became a B Corp and the importance. And so I have a couple of questions for you and looking forward to getting started. So I’m just going to dive right in.
Mikaela Kiner
There are different impact areas that you can focus on. So for instance, us as a services organization, we’re mostly focused on how we treat our people, our vendors, our partners, and our clients, another organization might be focused on the environment. For instance, if they’re a manufacturing organization. So there are different ways that you can have that impact depending on the kind of work that you do.
Sarah Wilkins
Thank you for sharing that. And I absolutely know that Reverb does care about second bottom line with our social impact. So, you know, this really leads into my next question is why was becoming a B Corp important to you when you know we were focused so much on some of those things already?
Mikaela Kiner
Yeah, I think that is actually the answer. So there were so many things that have been important to us as a team from the beginning really of starting the organization in terms of really wanting to treat people well and create a great culture, a great work environment, a great experience for our employees and the contractors that work with us. Giving back has always been part of our mission whether that’s making donations, supporting many of the local nonprofits and nonprofit organizations that we work with as clients. And so for me, the B Corp, it was almost crystallizing those intentions that we already had. And it was something that felt really well aligned with our values and with the actions that we were already taking, which I think also made the process easier. And I’m sure we’ll talk about the process, but, you know, really going through this year -long process of understanding what were some of the formalities and things we had to do to qualify as a B Corp, but also looking at the fact that many of these were things that we were already doing or things we were doing, but maybe hadn’t articulated in our handbook or in a standard operating procedure, which was part of the criteria. But there was nothing in the process of applying to become a B Corp that we looked at and said, well, this doesn’t feel genuine or or doesn’t feel authentic to us, or doesn’t feel like something Reverb would do. It all felt actually really good and obvious and like things that would contribute in a positive way, both to us as an organization and to the community at large.
Sarah Wilkins
And then, you know, as you mentioned, there’s a series of kind of requirements and things. And so, you know, what are some of the requirements from, you know, people operations perspective to maintaining or, you know, gaining B Corp status?
Mikaela Kiner
Some of the more complex ones, just given the structure of our business and the fact that we do rely on a mix of W -2 full -time employees, but also 1099 independent contractors, is that the B Corp Association has its own way of interpreting what counts as a worker. And that’s not just a full -time employee. If you have contractors who are working with you beyond a certain threshold, they also count as a worker. And so really looking at our policies and evaluating are we treating everyone fairly is everyone paid a living wage, but also what are some of the benefits that we’re extending, not only to those w two full time employees but actually to everyone around us who qualifies as a worker, so that was something a little bit new and different for us. I think things like making sure not only you’re doing an engagement survey so we’ve always done an engagement survey but then. And are you doing that engagement survey and for instance, using benchmarks to say, well, what should some of our goals be as a services organization? You know, what are good thresholds for certain questions or categories? So that was an example of something that we were doing, but we really had to just build on it a little bit. There were other things that I think we’re learning in terms of not only having diverse suppliers and vendors, but how do we vet our suppliers and vendors? um, how do we ensure that, you know, while they might not all be B Corps, but that they have at least similar values, similar missions, that there are certain ethical practices that they’re following as well. So it just required us to do a little further questioning, um, and research into the types of partners that we work with. So those are a few examples that come to mind.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah. So while we had a lot of things, you mentioned kind of a year long process. And so, you know, how has the B Corp community helped you through this process or what have you gained, you know, through being a part of the Corp community?
Mikaela Kiner
Yeah, definitely. And why it’s a year -long process is that there are obviously things we recognize, like the examples I gave. Maybe there’s something we’re doing that we need to build on a little bit. There may have been things that we weren’t doing that we had to put into place, for example, making sure that all of our team members at Reverb are trained on sustainability and what does it mean to become a B Corp? So there were new things we had to put into practice. And what’s been really amazing is that even before becoming certified as a B Corp, there’s one organization in particular that we had a chance to partner with. And that’s a group of women CEOs of B Corp and aspiring B Corp called We the Change. It’s an organization that is supportive, it’s a group of like -minded people, so they have been fabulous at answering questions, sharing resources. They have an annual conference that we’ve had a chance to attend, and so it’s actually just been great to become a part of that, even prior to joining this sort of more formal B Corp. population of people.
Sarah Wilkins
Great. And then, you know, I can think of something that, you know, we started doing. So that’s one example that comes to mind. And really, once we started doing that, because we weren’t doing that, we really could see how much more of an impact we were having, you know, by serving a lot of our clients that maybe not be nonprofits, but they do have a social impact purpose. So, you know, along those lines, you know, what is something that we did as part of the certification that we may not have done otherwise?
Mikaela Kiner
Yeah, yeah, and the one that you shared is a really great example. So I think it was twofold. One, we do serve a lot of nonprofit clients and we do offer a discount to those clients, but we had never actually tallied up and said what is the amount of discounts that we’re offering on an annual basis. That was something that we got to do as part of the application process and will continue to do going forward. The other part that you mentioned is really looking at every organization we work with and looking at Are they women led or women owned? Are they led or owned by others who are underrepresented or underestimated? Or even if they’re a for -profit company, is their whole business something that is really having a positive impact? Or is there even a portion of their business, like a buy one, give one, that we wanna just provide that extra discount and support to them. And so it’s really caused us to take an even closer look at our clients. And we always talk about our clients as being people who are mission driven. That might not mean that the business that they’re in is sort of a mission driven business, but they’re mission driven in how they think about impact, how they think about giving back, how they think about taking great care of their employees. And so that’s true. I think we’ve had much more opportunity to really recognize and hopefully give something back to those organizations.
Sarah Wilkins
Why do you think other businesses should consider becoming a B Corp?
Mikaela Kiner
I feel like there’s such an opportunity slash obligation for businesses and business leaders, which is that, you know, if you’re doing well, if you have a financially sound business and as a leader, you just have such a great chance to have a positive impact on those around you in the community, even on your own employees in terms of how you’re treating them, how you’re paying them, what kind of benefits you’re offering. So I really see it, I’m moral imperative is really strong, but you know, just a really, really good opportunity to do more than, than just make money. And I know that so many of the people we work with, they care about so many things beyond, you know, just the revenue, just the profit, just that financial bottom line. and so kind of like we did at Reverb, I think this is an opportunity to crystallize those intentions, let people know what you’re about, and then also do it in a way that is methodical and systematic, right? I think even as well -intended as we were prior to going through this application and certification process, there are things that we learned that are helping us have an even greater impact and also just helping us be even better as an organization.
Sarah Wilkins
Absolutely. Any final parting thought you would want to leave with people that are interested about B Corp or thinking about it?
Mikaela Kiner
I mean, there’s plenty of information about B Corp that is very accessible online. It’s easy to find. I would say if you’re interested and drawn to it, don’t be intimidated by the process. The process can scale up and down. So there are very small organizations that B Corps, as well as very large multinational organizations. And while it took us a year, you know, we’re not a large organization, but we do have 10 staff, roughly 60 consultants, so we’re not a small organization either. We’re also very meticulous in our data gathering and documentation processes that we use because we wanted to make sure that when we went through the application process, we passed in the end, right, and didn’t have sort of lingering things we need to circle back or follow up on. But yeah, I would strongly encourage anyone who’s interested, go do the resource. There’s a directory of B Corps that you can search actually by location or type of business. So if you remain interested and want to maybe find someone who’s running a business similar to yours and learn more about what this meant for them or what they went through. I think the community overall is very, very generous and supportive. So I would just say find who those people are and reach out. We’re always happy to share what we learned, and we’ll continue to share too as we go through that journey.
Sarah Wilkins
Wonderful. And before we end, we should give a special thanks to our team who put this together, and particularly our Director of Operations, Michelle, who set up all of our documentation and reporting. And it’s not just applying for it the first time. It’s continuing to track and manage that data to recertify in a few years as well. So I know she’ll say it was, you know, a big team effort and it was and I do think a special thanks is owed to Michelle as well.
Mikaela Kiner
Absolutely, and I’ll brag a little bit just to say that final certification conversation that we had was scheduled for an hour and our analysts told us up front that because of the high quality and volume of documentation we had provided, We would not need the full hour. I think we got through that meeting in 20 minutes. And that really is thanks to all of the hard work that Michelle put in and fastidious documentation, tracking, et cetera. So yeah, I kept saying to her, I don’t know how any organization goes through this process without someone like her. I truly don’t. So yeah, special thanks to Michelle.
Sarah Wilkins
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for listening to this episode of Humans Beyond Resources. Visit ReverbPeople .com to find free resources, subscribe to our newsletter, and connect with our team. If you haven’t already, subscribe to stay up to date on all of our upcoming episodes. We look forward to having you as part of our community.
