In Summer 2020 we embarked on an especially important journey, one that saw the establishment of our very own Diversity and Inclusion Council. Composed of passionate and determined individuals spanning across all our offices, ranging from apprentices right up to our CEO, our Diversity & Inclusion Council’s aim is to create a space where everyone feels respected, valued, included, and represented regardless of age, gender, class, disability, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

After signing the 10 commitments set out in the Adland’s Commit charter, our D&I team, made up of various sub teams and spanning across our three offices, come together every month to continually review our progress and ensure we remain accountable to these commitments, as well as discussing future DEI policies.

One major change we introduced that has positively impacted our workplace was the decision to overhaul our recruitment process and introduce blind CVs, panel interviews, and ensure DEI statements are prominent across the interview process. We asked all hiring managers to complete training to recognise their own unconscious biases before recruiting, and we started working with different recruitment partners who source and recruit from a more diverse pool of people and networks. As a result, we have seen more non-white people join our agency and the number of women in senior roles increase.

Internally we ran regular cross cultural awareness workshops with the aim of bringing our people together to reflect on their cultures, backgrounds, and experiences, and how these have shaped who they are today. These workshops touched on microaggressions and unconscious bias, and how as an agency we can help foster a positive cross-cultural environment. This type of training has been key to our agency’s DEI journey, with employees saying it has made them feel “recognised and understood” as well as teaching them to be “mindful of everyone’s background and culture when communicating with each other”.

We wanted to make sure changes were being encouraged from the top-down, delivering a Senior Leadership Training session for all board members on inclusive leadership which focused on weaving DEI into strategic business planning, making sure our DEI initiatives were being understood by our senior staff. Our team heads and associate board were placed on the IPA’s managing through life events training course, with the aim of learning how to become more empathetic and knowledgeable in supporting those going through life events.

Aside from our workshops and training, we wanted to create and foster a culture that celebrates people of all religions and ethnicities. We introduced ‘Faith Days’ to encourage employees to take time off for religious holidays that may not be recognised as national public holidays, as well as running a book and film club during Black History Month to share resources across employees.

Ensuring that we are inclusive of everyone, each month, our D&I Council focuses on a particular area of D&I at work to highlight the challenges our colleagues can face and to break down barriers. The topics have varied from LGBTQ+ allyship to understanding Neurodiversity in the workplace, with talks from inspirational people helping to engage everyone.

We also put a focus on improving some of our existing policies. We understand the impact some personal life changes can have on our employees, and recently have introduced menopause, miscarriage and bereavement leave. We also created an enhanced 12 weeks paid shared parental leave to sit beside our industry leading maternal and paternal leave.

Our focus on DEI has seen us shortlisted for many awards, most recently the IIP Awards where we have been shortlisted in the Diversity and Inclusion category! Although we are always humbled to see our efforts receive recognition, and more importantly proud of our team who are dedicated to improving this inclusivity in our agency and culture, we do realise we still have a long way to go on our journey as an agency and as part of the advertising industry.