Target CEO to asks to meet with Rev. Al Sharpton; PwC’s HR lead calls skills ’currency’ amid AI’s rise

Greetings, comms pros! Let’s take a look at a few news stories from the past week and see what we can learn from them.

1. Target’s chief requests meeting with civil rights leader amid DEI cut backlash.

After months of backlash against Target for cutting many DEI programs, CEO Brian Cornell will meet with civil rights leader Al Sharpton to discuss the decision to roll back the diversity initiatives. According to CNBC, the meeting, which Target requested, comes on the heels of boycotts and slowdowns in foot traffic after the retailer’s heel-turn on DEI after the 2024 election. The meeting will discuss the fallout of the DEI cuts as they relate to the brand, customers and employees.

The meeting request reveals that Target might be feeling some pressure from its DEI rollbacks, and Sharpton’s threat of boycotts from the African-American community are significant.

“You can’t have an election come and all of a sudden, change your old positions,” said Sharpton. “If an election determines your commitment to fairness then fine, you have a right to withdraw from us, but then we have a right to withdraw from you.”

While on the surface this might seem like an external communications issue for Target to solve, there are also internal issues to consider. For example, Target’s turnaround from being openly accepting of DEI initiatives in the early 2020s is a major cultural shift for employees.

“We have to be the role models that drive change and our voice is important,” he said at a 2021 event at the Economic Club of Chicago.  “We’ve got to make sure that we represent our company principles, our values, our company purpose on the issues that are important to our teams.”

Target’s request for this meeting is a clear sign that it’s aware of the backlash coming its way. It’s also a signal to its employees that it knows there’s a perception of a heel turn on its cultural statements from a few years ago. While the Cornell-Sharpton meeting has yet to take place, it’ll be worth watching to see what comes from it and how Cornell communicates about it to the retailer’s employees. When major changes to culture and policy happen, they need to be explained from the top. This meeting will give Cornell his chance to speak about the changes to Sharpton and by extension, internal audiences that have their eye on the meeting of the two leaders.

2. PwC’s HR top brass says skilled workers are critical amid AI’s rise

One of PwC’s HR leaders said that even as employers put more emphasis on AI, skilled workers will be able to carve out a lane for themselves.

According to Fortune:

In a pre-AI world, consulting firms would grapple with creatively building teams for projects. During what Kimberly Jones, PwC’s managing director of talent strategy and people experience, jokingly calls “the olden days,” employees would typically pick people they knew to join them for certain work.

But now, with the firm relying on AI to help upskill and track the skills of its hundreds of thousands of employees, workers at PwC are taking a different approach and selecting teammates based on the expertise needed for the project–whether they’ve worked with them before or not. This kind of collaboration is necessary, she adds, in an environment where “skills are currency.”

“It more transparently allows people to be seen. It’s not about who you know, it’s what skills you have, and it truly is supporting that kind of skills-based economy.”

We’ve written extensively here at Ragan about how communicators can reassure their employees about AI, and this report emphasizes that importance. Internal comms pros should emphasize the fact that employees are brought on for their skill sets, even as AI becomes more prominent in workplace processes. Communicators should seek opportunities to drive home the fact that on-the-job skills are what make great employees in their messaging. Doing so can help raise the confidence of the employee base and create a more vibrant and culturally unified work environment.

3. Metlife study: Employer health and productivity is at a low, which emphasizes the need for employee-employer connection

Metlife’s 2025 Employee Benefits Trend Study revealed that economic uncertainty and rising medical costs have employees across America concerned, which is in turn impacting their productivity. However, the study also identified that employees are 1.5 times more likely to trust their employer than other institutions, and drew a direct connection between employee wellbeing and performance on the job.

Internal communicators are conduits to employee connection, and through their messaging efforts, can build the foundation for employee trust in their organization. That means creating proactive messaging campaigns that help employees feel engaged at all times, even economically pressured ones. The more you, as a communicator, reach out to your employees and show them that you’re considering their successes and needs, the more likely they are to perform well in their jobs. That’s not just good for culture either. It’ll help the bottom line of the business, which is comms’ ultimate goal anyway.

4. How about some good news?

• Kermit the Frog will be this year’s commencement speaker at the University of Maryland.
• A set of dinosaur footprints found in Canada is the first of its kind to be discovered in the world.
• A Philadelphia police officer overcame his fear of heights to rescue a child from a roof.
• Ragan Training is great for communications pros to find inspiration and resources.
• You should be rewarded for your work. Find out how to earn an award here!

Have a great weekend comms all-stars!

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and trivia.