FIGS Director of Advocacy Jordan Vivian knows that an effective approach to social responsibility should align with a company’s values. Articulating a social responsibility program involves judicious decision making and committing to a cause that can be seen through to an end.
“You can’t follow through on every good idea,” Vivian said. “But you can land on the right initiative, commit fully, explain your decision honestly and see it through.”
In that context, FIGS “The Awesome Humans Bill” can be seen as a vote of confidence in the company’s mission and its ability to effect change. A set of policy priorities “designed to see past the surface to the deeply-rooted problems facing our healthcare professionals and our healthcare system,” FIGS’ bill articulates a commitment to tackle some of healthcare’s most pressing and persistent problems. The company’s aspirations are ambitious, but Vivian explained, they’re crucially important in addressing what U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy has described as a “long-standing crisis of burnout, exhaustion and moral distress.”
“Our priorities include increasing mental health support for healthcare professionals, ensuring safe staffing levels, providing higher and more equitable pay, removing unnecessary administrative burdens and funding more training opportunities for the next generation to become healthcare professionals,” Vivian said.
Read on to learn more about Vivian’s work and FIGS’ values. And learn how you may be able to join the FIGS team and their efforts to improve the lives of healthcare workers.
SERVING THOSE WHO SERVE OTHERS
FIGS is a digitally native direct-to-consumer company that offers comfortable and functional medical apparel crafted to improve the lives of medical professionals.
Which specific values are most integral to FIGS’ culture and why?
At FIGS, one of our core values is to “create the world you want to live in.” We owe nothing less to the healthcare community that inspires and informs us — the awesome humans who are at the center of everything we do. We believe this takes a bias toward action. It takes caring more than anybody else. And it takes a commitment to make an impact.
You can feel this common thread through every part of FIGS, pushing us to continue to innovate on all the ways we meet the needs of our community. From our founding 10 years ago, we’ve had a program called Threads for Threads — through which we’ve donated hundreds of thousands of scrubs to healthcare professionals who lack the proper uniforms to do their jobs. Guided by our community, we’ve evolved this program into a comprehensive social responsibility initiative that meets the needs of healthcare professionals.
Most recently, we’ve invested in advocacy, working in Washington, D.C., to identify and solve deeply-rooted problems affecting the healthcare community. We see this as a natural next step, grounded in the same values-driven mindset of our longstanding philanthropic programs.
Over the last three years, employees and consumers have sought clearer stances from companies in the wake of upheaval and current events. How have those values helped your company respond proactively?
While FIGS has grown rapidly over our 10 years, our commitment to standing up for the healthcare community we’re so honored to serve has never changed. However, as anyone with a family member or friend in healthcare knows, our community is under severe strain. A recent U.S. Surgeon General report called it “the long-standing crisis of burnout, exhaustion and moral distress.”
To do our part in addressing these challenges, we’ve crafted a set of forward-thinking policy priorities we call “The Awesome Humans Bill,” which is designed to see past the surface to the deeply-rooted problems facing our healthcare professionals and our healthcare system. Our priorities include increasing mental health support for healthcare professionals, ensuring safe staffing levels, providing higher and more equitable pay, removing unnecessary administrative burdens and funding more training opportunities for the next generation to become healthcare professionals.
Last fall, we brought nine awesome humans to Washington, D.C., to advocate for these bold solutions. We’ll continue to find ways to elevate the voices of healthcare professionals to the policymakers who most need to hear from them.
What advice would you give to leaders who want to shift their social responsibility approach from reactive to proactive?
The first step is identifying a social challenge in the world that is aligned with your company’s mission and where you can truly make a meaningful difference. This means being as innovative as you would be throughout the rest of your business, not just attacking the problem in the same way everyone else is.
We’ll continue to find ways to elevate the voices of healthcare professionals to the policymakers who most need to hear from them.”
Next, listen. Your community will always tell you what matters to them, so you have to be set up to hear what they’re saying, process that information into actionable steps and set aside the resources needed to follow through.
It’s important to have a strategy-first approach. You can’t follow through on every good idea. But you can land on the right initiative, commit fully, explain your decision honestly and see it through to the end.
Involve every part of the company. Be transparent at each stage of the development process for new initiatives. And always welcome input. Effective social responsibility initiatives can come from surprising places, and every member of your organization should feel the responsibility, and the privilege, of helping to craft and implement your plan.
