The Hobbs Consultancy’s view on The Great British Diversity Experiement

THC’s view on The Great British Diversity Experiment

Emily Philp, Head of Marketing and Operations, The Hobbs Consultancy

 

 

I attended The Great British Diversity Experiment Report Launch on Wednesday 25^th May at BBH London with over 250 fellow advertising folk. As you walked into the room, you could feel the nervous energy bubbling below the surface, what findings were in store for us… For those who don’t know what The Great British Diversity Experiment is, it’s the first diversity initiative conceived for, designed and launched by the communications industry. Over 20 teams of truly diverse individuals took part in an experiment, answering a brief from Tesco to attempt to solve problems of food wastage. The winning team received an all-expenses-paid trip to SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, and a weeklong placement at BBH London. Meanwhile the findings of the diversity experiment were collated into a report, which were presented on the evening of the report launch along with talks from industry leaders on the very specific and practical insights the experiment uncovered and a review by the winning team on their individual poignant experiences, challenges and self discoveries.

One particularly interesting, but not surprising insight for me was that the teams that performed the best in the experiment were those where the individuals could be themselves. Furthermore, it is emphasised in the report that diversity works for the creative industries because working with a diverse group of people allows individuals to show up as their authentic selves, which means you can contribute more creatively and effectively in your job.

As mentioned this isn’t a surprising insight for me as one of the main focuses of our energies and offering at The Hobbs Consultancy is to enable people to show up as their true selves in both personal and professional life.

The Hobbs Consultancy’s mission is to bring a more inclusive culture to the workplace and coaching is a core part of what we believe can deliver that mission. It is through coaching that individuals can work out who their authentic self is, understanding what makes them tick, what holds them back and what enables them to be the very best version of themselves when they enter the workplace.

Of the 5 practical actions that the report sets out for businesses to do now, the one that resonates the most for me, is ‘retrain your leaders’. It’s vital that leaders of organisations take action. Without the buy-in and demonstration that company bosses will put their money where their mouth is, without inclusive leadership, we wont have the power to transform the industry, making it one that thrives with creativity, connection and innovation, that attracts and retains the best talent and ultimately delivers game changing work for clients. Here at The Hobbs Consultancy, we offer executive coaching and Leadership Programmes, which focus on leaders doing their own internal work, recognising and then accepting responsibility for our circumstances and taking action to create a more inclusive culture.

The GBDE report also calls out that there is a huge need for more diversity training in the industry – in order to change the creative process and leadership styles. We agree and believe passionately that Diversity and Inclusivity training is key to helping companies create a more creative and innovative working environment, which is why one of our main product offerings is a Diversity 3.0 workshop which gets participants behind the business case for D&I, looks at what their unconscious biases might be and finally moves into action.

Alongside D&I training and Leadership Programmes, we offer Mentoring training, Conflict Resolution workshops and a D&I audit – this product offering has been designed to help businesses provide a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

My biggest take out of the report launch was that there is hope; to quote the founders “if every leader across the communications industry implemented the recommendations of the report, we would build a better communications industry” – I believe collectively, we are on the way to making this happen.

To read the full findings of the Great British Diversity Experiment, click here.

For more information on The Hobbs Consultancy’s products and services, email Emily@thehobbsconsultancy.com

The IPA Employee League Table – How We Can Help

The IPA have recently announced that they will publish a comprehensive agency employee league table listing measures such as gender and diversity versus department and seniority. ‘This table will be part of positioning the industry as enlightened and progressive in order to attract and retain the best talent.’ This comes at a time when clients are also demanding information on diversity as part of the RFP on a pitch brief.

The Hobbs Consultancy welcomes this move on a number of levels.  It positions diversity as a key metric for business success – via the attraction and retention of the best talent. And clearly what gets measured tends to get done – without data we simply don’t know the extent of our business challenges and whether we’re moving in the right direction.

Many diversity initiatives focus on the push factors – identifying what barriers can be removed or what additional support can be provided to individuals to encourage and enable their success.  Examples of this kind of diversity intervention would be mentoring and coaching.

What the IPA are doing is creating a PULL factor.  This is something that is going to create traction and energy at the very top of organisations – creating a stimulus for change. Understanding the business case for diversity is a pull factor and recent research by EY found that ‘companies that say they are good at ensuring that teams are comprised of individuals from diverse backgrounds and experiences tend to have higher EBITDA* growth rates’. (*EBITDA : Earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation)

And the publication of positive statistics in itself brings clear business benefits. When Daren Rubins (CEO of PHD) recently said, ‘We’re 40 per cent female on our board and at Exec level there are four of us and two of those are women.  So a 50/50 split exec team..’, women all over the industry sat up and listened.  When we shared his comments on our facebook page, one industry female commented, ‘Great article Daren Rubins, when can I come and work for you again?!’

Clients may well also be sitting up and paying attention to any published statistics – in addition to the emotional appeal of the ethical case, it may be that agencies who get this right are going to be better at understanding clients target audiences.

The Hobbs Consultancy offers a data audit to support companies in the lead up to the publication of the IPA league table, helping you to understand where you are now in terms of diversity.

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The Hobbs Consultancy Diversity Data Audit

What is it:- A deep dive in to your company’s data to build a picture of your key diversity metrics, key areas to focus on and position vs industry norms.  The audit will also include a confidential, short all staff survey to measure the correlation between diversity and inclusivity in your organisation.  The audit will provide a detailed report pulling out the key statistics, stories, hypotheses and recommendations that can be shared at a senior level. A powerpoint version will also be supplied that can be shared more widely within the company, suggested to be used to on board key stakeholders or as part of wider training.

Key outputs:-

1. A summary of your company’s performance vs a number of key, pre agreed, diversity metrics
2. An understanding of where you don’t have meaningful data and recommendations as to how you can start measurement
3. A summary of how you perform versus industry norms and benchmarks, other sector benchmarks and UK population
4. An understanding of the correlation between diversity and inclusivity, i.e. how engaged and included people feel in your organisation sorted by gender and ethnic background.
5. An understanding of the story behind the numbers (for example – is a low number of senior women driven by female leavers, or females stalling in their careers?).
6. Recommendations for next steps.

Cost: from £2500 + VAT

This includes three key milestones – a briefing meeting, a data request session and a findings meeting.  The length of the project will depend on how readily accessible your data is, but it can typically be completed in 4-6 weeks.

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Testimonial

“Roxanne completed an audit of our data so that we could see how we performed on various diversity measures versus both industry norms and the wider population.  This enabled us to identify where we wanted to focus our efforts and also showed us where meaningful data was currently not available.  Most importantly it has given us a benchmark so that we can now track progress over time”. Tracy de Groose, CEO Dentsu Aegis

Diversity and Inclusion in advertising: Moving from talking to doing

Diversity seems to be a bit of a buzzword in the industry at the moment. There is a general sense that we must be able to do better and that diversity and inclusion are organisational imperatives that we should embrace.  We look around us and see that the current make up of our agencies and our boards are not reflective of the make up of the London population around us.  Recent panel debates at Adweek, Bloom and WACL have highlighted the need to change, along with some tactical successes of a few forward thinking individuals.

Yet what do we need to do to embrace long term, systematic change in this area? How do we move from talking to doing? Sometimes when I attend these excellent panel debates, I wonder if we are preaching to the choir – as to attend such an event implies that you have some understanding of why this change is so important to our industry.  It’s the people that don’t attend that we need to convince.  Organisational change cannot be effected by a few enlightened individuals at each agency. It requires the majority of the agency population to lean in, to be convinced of the benefits of that change and to seize their responsibility in making that change happen.

My perspective is that the conversation needs to shift.  We currently believe that diversity is a ‘nice to have’ and will probably have a net cost.  We think we are going to have to invest in expensive training, policies and compliance programmes.  In short, we think we should get involved, but there are always more pressing concerns on the ‘to do’ list and for the budget.

And then, at other times, the debate becomes centred on the group that stands to directly benefit.  The business case might be articulated through the advantages that group might bring to the table – especially true in the case for women.  ‘Women seem to be better at dealing with people and are more empathic’, we muse and that becomes the business case for having more female, senior leaders.  Unfortunately this approach is the very antithesis of inclusivity.  It creates a further stereotype for which women need to conform so as to be successful (excluding those that aren’t naturally like this), it focuses on one angle of the diversity debate (excluding ethnicity, geographic and educational background, LGBTQ etc) and, frankly, is only ever going to get the empathic females aligned behind it.

My call is that we change the conversation and put diversity and inclusivity at the heart of business strategy.  We need to focus on creating the holistic business case and aligning whole organisations behind that, not just a D&I consultant.  All employees, believing in the business case, could take a role in championing inclusivity.

So what might be the true business case for Diversity and Inclusivity in today’s advertising industry?  I personally believe this is a conversation every agency in town needs to be having in its boardrooms.  To use a coaching analogy, teams will have more of a stake in its progress if they design its benefits themselves and together.   But here are a few starters for ten.

 1. We will understand our client’s audiences better.

Probably the most obvious and yet also the most powerful.  Consumer insight is critical to our industry’s success and whilst we can use tools, surveys and research there is a nuance of consumer insight that can be best gained through multiple experiences in the room.

 2. We will attract and retain the best talent

Our employees are also our customers.  To attract and retain the best possible talent, we need to ensure that we are perceived as a diverse and inclusive company.  I’m reminded about how Antonio Simoes of HSBC talks regularly about gay issues in public and at in house events and says, ‘It’s amazing the number of people who email me from HSBC around the world to say, “I thought your speech was really motivational and I feel really excited about working for a bank that truly values diversity and meritocracy”’ (as told in The Glass Closet, by John Browne).

 3. To increase productivity

Unconscious bias, implicit associations and homophobic / sexist attitudes are all deeply inefficient. Quite simply, we will increase our productivity if we seek to reduce our own (natural) bias.

 4. For attracting new clients

I’ve seen a number of RFP’s in recent times asking what an agency is doing in the area of Diversity and Inclusivity.  Having a clear point of view and strategy will increasingly be a part of pitch submissions and will help you to win business, much like the sustainability case has done in recent years.

There are many more.  Believing in the business case perhaps requires a shift from short to medium term thinking.  It requires our agencies to reflect the society we are serving.  Inertia is not enough – we need our leaders to clearly articulate the business case and align everyone in their agencies behind this change.

Roxanne Hobbs is the founder of The Hobbs Consultancy – which is on a mission to transform business via inclusivity.  They offer Inclusion 3.0 workshops which seek to build the business case and raise awareness of our own unconscious bias.   Prices from £1000 + VAT for a half day workshop in your organisation for 10 people.  Email me for more information… www.thehobbsconsultancy.comroxanne@thehobbsconsultancy.com