How does your organization make decisions? If yours is like most, return on investment (ROI) is often the primary metric, and that’s generally not a bad thing. As the saying goes, we are all on “Team Revenue.”
Yet ROI is not the only criteria you can use to make difficult decisions, especially when it comes to potentially divisive issues like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Determining your company’s values—the ideals held up as important by employees, customers, community members, and other stakeholders—and using those to guide your actions can be a powerful tool.
Without information on company history and feedback from stakeholder groups, performance numbers often lack essential context and can therefore tell only part of the story.
“The most effective leadership teams make decisions based on a deep understanding of what their core constituencies value,” said Dr. Amy Dufrane, CEO of HRCI. “When they take action, they can do so with confidence. If your organization doesn’t have that kind of confidence—if you are guessing—then there is work to do.”
To help organizations better understand their values and how to use them, HRCI created Beyond ROI: A Guide to Values-Based Decision-Making. While the strategic process differs in every organization, the guide presents a basic framework to assess organizational values and use those values to evaluate strategic initiatives. The guide evolved during development the HRCI whitepaper HR Weighs In: Diversity Initiatives in 2025, which offers detailed information on important questions HR professionals face when addressing DEI initiatives.
The corporate landscape is littered with companies that ran afoul of stakeholder values and paid a price, whether in declining sales or reputational damage. Anheuser-Busch and Target are only two.
Yet there are also companies that followed their values and came through difficult situations unscathed. There are few better examples than Costco.
When activists tried to get shareholders at the membership-driven warehouse store to roll back DEI efforts, Costco looked to its company values and held firm to its position. The company’s board wrote a forceful and articulate argument urging shareholders to reject the proposal. They said Costco’s practices are in line with company ethics and laid out the business case for the initiatives Costco supports.
“As our membership diversifies, we believe that serving it with a diverse group of employees enhances satisfaction,” they wrote. “Among other things, a diverse group of employees helps bring originality and creativity to our merchandise offerings, promoting the ‘treasure hunt’ that our customers value. That group also helps to provide insights into the tastes and preferences of our members. And we believe (and member feedback shows) that many of our members like to see themselves reflected in the people in our warehouses with whom they interact.”
On January 23, 2025, shareholders voted overwhelmingly against the effort, and Costco saw no negative impact. When it reported quarterly earnings on March 6, revenue and net sales were both up at least 9% over the same period in the previous year. Fees supplied by the company’s 78.4 million paying members also increased, and the company reported a renewal rate of more than 90%.
HRCI’s guide to value-based decision-making contains powerful ideas on how to determine organizational values, undertake a planning process, and communicate effectively.
The whitepaper on DEI initiatives included survey responses from hundreds of HR professionals worldwide to determine how organizations are addressing diversity and how HR professionals feel. It covers what companies and nonprofits are doing, who is helped and who is hurt, how strategies are being adjusted, and what HR professionals think about what they see. It also contains case studies, suggestions, and a full discussion of how companies can assess and adapt their efforts.
Dufrane said that because Costco upheld the values expressed by its leadership, its employees, its customers, and its shareholders, the company has largely avoided criticism over its DEI stance. By contrast, many other companies have made decisions out of alignment with company values, sending stakeholders mixed messages and leading to problems. The lesson, Dufrane said, is that values matter.
As she put it, “Understanding how employees, customers, and shareholders feel about DEI is essential for making decisions that align with both organizational values and business goals.”