DEI Summer Update

Last summer, we made a number of commitments to promote and action positive change within Full Fat in relation to ethnic diversity, equality and inclusivity. These pledges were the first step in a refreshed approach to DEI at Full Fat that led to better and fairer treatment, representation, transparency and progressive commitments to people from minority backgrounds as a whole.

Of course it was easy to make these commitments, but the real work was yet to be done. We’re now a year on, where have we got to?

We knew we needed a team to take DEI up a gear and hold the agency to account if we were to make any progress, so we launched an internal application process to found Full Fat’s first DEI Committee. This group would be made up of employees at all levels with diverse backgrounds and help the agency deliver its commitments whilst also creating an open space for any employee to raise questions, concerns and ideas to further help foster a more equitable, inclusive and diverse culture. The founding members consisted of a Partner, Account Director, Senior Account Executive, Account Executive and Apprentice, who got to work developing a strategy to deliver the team’s commitments over the course of the year.

Fundamental to the committee’s approach was that Full Fat’s DEI work will never be ‘finished’. We should always look to find new ways to grow and we should be bold and unafraid to make mistakes as long as we learn from them. With this in mind a strategy was developed focusing on three pillars: Workforce, Agency Work and Being an Active Ally.

Workforce

Workforce was the biggest focus as fostering a more diverse and inclusive team would help to positively influence the other two pillars.

We updated our recruitment policy in order to attract a more diverse pool of candidates for new roles, working with recruiters and developing a wider network of channels in which to promote job postings, which included People Like Us, Social Fixt, BAME Recruitment, Diversify.IO, Reed In Partnership and Taylor Bennett. Initially we introduced anonymous job applications but quickly found that the vast majority of applicants would ignore this, so instead revised the process to facilitate anonymous entries should the applicant wish to remain so. We then created an equality monitor to measure how effective our hire outreach was in terms of reaching a more diverse audience and if we weren’t we could quickly adapt our outreach. At time of writing 21% of all candidates that have progressed to the interview stage have been from ethnic minority backgrounds and 7% have registered a disability. This is a positive start to measuring how effective we are at attracting diverse candidates to future roles.

Understanding that we also needed to create more accessible entry points to the industry for people from different socio-economic backgrounds we raised our apprentice pay to London Living Wage, well above the national minimum apprenticeship wage, of which we currently offer three placements. We’ve also partnered with Taylor Bennett to join their Summer Stars programme, offering a London Living Wage internship for students, graduates and school leavers (18+) from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Further steps have been made to encourage a more inclusive workplace including creating a company-wide handbook outlining what we stand for and our values, which were created by the team - Creativity, Empathy, Individuality, Hard-work, Innovation and Honesty; revising all agency policies to ensure they are inclusive; increasing diversity across Full Fat’s cultural programme including the creation of a resource library from authors of different genders, sexualitys, races, abilities and socio-economic backgrounds; increased training working with external providers such as The Other Box, #DoTheWork and Lila.

We have seen a positive change in the diversity of the team, which currently consists of 68% White, 16% Mixed race/Other, 11% Black and 5% Arab employees. We will continue to strive for further ways to improve how we find the best talent for the agency.

agency work

Agency Work focused on how we could level up our inclusivity and diversity in our campaigns and with the partners we work with. We actively discuss and encourage inclusivity and diversity with all of our clients and ensure fair representation for people of different backgrounds throughout our work. In our approach to campaigns we ensure audiences and methods of communication are inclusive as well as continuing to ensure our media/influencer lists are representative. We revisited our network of suppliers and used a similar equality monitoring method as with permanent roles to help improve the inclusivity of our talent searches.

Being an Active Ally

Being an Active Ally looked to improve how the agency lived up to its ethos externally by supporting people from minority and marginalised backgrounds. Here we have made much more effort to give more representation to underrepresented groups across our own channels whether through our social channels or through our monthly newsletter; we’re having more discussions as a team about issues affecting equality and the perspectives of those being impacted.

We also started making financial donations to organisations supporting equality and recognising we could be using our skills to add value we launched a pro bono scheme in August of last year. The scheme would see us investing £2,500 per month, providing communication and digital campaigns for charities and non profit organisations supporting racial, sexual, gender, ability and social equality. Since launching we’ve worked with some amazing partners including Compliments of The House - a food redistribution charity based in South London, The Vavengers - an anti-Female Genital Mutilation charity led by FGM survivors, Not A Phase - a charity supporting the lives of trans+ adults and I Like Networking - supporting women and non-binary professionals looking for a career in the creative and cultural industry.

We’ll be looking at further ways to become a more Active Ally through more discussions within our industry about DEI, which was part of our original commitments and is still an area we could be doing a lot more with in the future. Rather than jump into this, the DEI Committee recognised that we needed to focus on improving DEI within the agency first before thinking about how to assist in tackling the wider issue that is impacting the industry.

What’s next?

Our original commitments were a starting block for what we see as a much bigger journey for the agency and DEI, which is going to continue to be driven by the DEI Committee. This team will be expanded with new members and we’ll be taking what we’ve learned over the last 12 months along with fresh perspectives, to build new objectives for the next year. Keep reading our blog for future updates on our progress.

Whether you’d like to work with us, discuss your project or learn more about Full Fat Marketing, feel free to get in touch below.

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