What the PR industry can learn from the Lionesses

“We changed society today”

That’s how Sarina Wiegman, England women’s football coach, closed yesterday’s press conference, and she’s not wrong. After 56 years of pushing for inclusion, representation and acknowledgement finally, the women have brought it home.

Whilst watching the game with my twelve-month old daughter, I had a thought. She can be a football player, she can actually pursue that career.

It’s ridiculous that thought even came to me. Of course she should know she can do anything she wants, but sadly that was not the case for me just 35 years ago and if we’re honest, isn’t always the case now.

Full Fat has recently been shortlisted for a PRWeek Diversity and Inclusion Award, and the feeling is bittersweet. I am truly proud and excited for the team's work to be acknowledged by a leading PR body, but frustrated that this award even exists and that our work will likely never be finished throughout my lifetime.

In 2021 PRWeek launched the Pay Gap Project, which aims to challenge research found by the PRCA that in October 2020 men were paid, on average, 21% more than women.

This coupled with last night's win, reminded me of starting Full Fat in 2012. I embarrassingly remember doubting how I, a young woman, could compete with the major male big wig agency owners having seen many of them give talks or cross paths via mutual clients. As a result I would often hide behind my previous male co-founder, allowing him to provide ‘gravitas’ to a situation. I am reeling in my chair as I write this and I’m happy to say this is now absolutely not the case.

With that in mind there are three things we can do as an industry immediately to help close that pay gap and create more diversity, equality and inclusion in PR.

1. Take representation seriously

What the spectacular win of our Lionesses reminded me of yesterday was that representation matters. If I had seen or heard from one agency owner all those years ago that was a bit like me, I think my confidence to build what we have done today would have been stronger and as a result, Full Fat would have grown quicker and been less mentally agonizing for me personally.

At Full Fat we take representation seriously. We want people to know that if we can help it, you will never be the first or the only. In order to do that we have to hold ourselves accountable and in 2020 we launched an agency Diversity, Ethnicity and Inclusion committee which has ongoing commitments across internal agency policies, client work and more.

Since its launch we’ve made our recruitment process much more inclusive by only working with recruiters that have a strong DEI policy like People Like Us, Social Fixt and Diversify.IO. We also now offer optional anonymous CV submissions for candidates and we’ve created an equality monitor to measure how effective our hire outreach was in reaching a more diverse audience, in 2021 we found that 21% of candidates who progressed to interview were from ethnic minority backgrounds and 7% registered a disability. Having this knowledge, understanding where we need to do more and change quicker, has been invaluable to us.

2. Remove barriers to entry

In 2018 I was on a panel with Sarah Hunter (MBE), currently Englands Womens Rugby Captain and previous winner of Player of the Year. I have a clear memory of my shock at how little Sarah was getting paid. Jim Waterson and Philippa Kelly recently wrote in the Guardian that “a second-tier [women’s football player was offered to another] English side, only for the club to offer her a full-time salary of £21,000 - less than many male premier league players earn in a week.”

I mean, how can women realistically pursue a sporting career?

On the panel I had a similar thought - “of course not many women pursue this - there is a major barrier to entry - money.” I know this is a very cynical view, money isn’t everything, but how can the disparity between mens wages in the same sport be so huge? We need to eat! Until you get to the highest professional level in women’s football it appears eating isn’t accounted for (and even then the pay gap is still considerable).

Similarly in the PR industry, it continues to be fueled by work experience placements and interns who are lucky if they get their expenses paid. How is this conducive to creating a diverse and inclusive environment we ask? Well it's not.

At Full Fat we know apprenticeship wages are not high enough to allow for accessible entry points into the industry for people from low socio-economic backgrounds. So in 2021 we raised our apprentice pay to London Living Wage - well above the national minimum apprenticeship wage - which has increased the number of entries. Plus we reserve apprenticeships for those who have not gone through higher education.

This scheme has been hugely beneficial to the agency talent, and out of the five apprentices during 2021/2 we have promoted three to Account Executive level on permanent contracts.

We have also partnered with Taylor Bennett’s 2021 Summer Stars programme: an initiative offering paid internships to students, graduates and school leavers (18+) from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds in agencies and in-house communications teams.

3. Build a supportive community

So often in the PR industry I think people choose the quick and ‘easy’ over the ‘hard’ and fruitful option. Whether that is as little as doing a job yourself, because it's quicker than giving someone an opportunity, or looking for ideas through tried and tested eyes. This approach does not foster a supportive or inclusive environment, without opportunity and support there is simply no progress.

Whilst England’s players celebrated on screen, I saw hundreds of girls in the crowd joyously crying, arms in the air, proud of their team and their role models. I also noticed their mothers, elder siblings, guardians all crying as well.

Perhaps with relief that these courageous women on the pitch have encouraged their daughters to strive for more. Or perhaps because all their hard work, supporting something that wasn’t widely celebrated, turning up to matches, following the players on socials, engaging in their children's aspirations, has become worth it in a way they only dreamt of.

At Full Fat we have worked very hard to create a supportive, kind work culture which focuses on inclusivity and learning. We have delivered over 25 training sessions from PR 101 to Crisis Management to Influencer Partnerships since 2021 and continue to do these on a monthly basis.

We have also implemented a Mental Health programme alongside our Mental Health policy, delivering mental health first aid training for the agency and managers. These sessions have equipped the team with tools to help better understand their own mental health and how to spot and respond to mental health challenges faced by others.

Full Fat+ was launched in 2020, an employee programme to support the team’s wellbeing and has included sleep workshops by sleep psychologists, Emotional Freedom technique workshops, baking, drawing, origami, yoga and more. The agency also provides Headspace subscriptions and 24/7 access to an Employee Assistance Programme, delivered by Health Assured – the UK’s leading wellbeing provider.

Life is so much more daunting when you’re alone. The conversations you have to have, the things you have to do to prove yourself. There is only so much you can do by yourself, when you have others providing pathways, support and ideas, the impact will be so much greater and so much quicker.

I’m hoping sharing what we’ve done will help provide support and ideas that can be utilized by others.