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How an allergic reaction to Katie Hopkins inspired an award-winning diversity programme

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According a snapshot poll of recent graduates from the prestigious Brixton Finishing School, 71% value the diversity of the organisation’s current employees when asked what they value most from a potential employer. The figure even rose to 76% among non-white respondents.

This is a very obvious reflection of the way our industry feels about the importance of diversity hiring. So, with the diversity of an organisation’s current employees being held above competitive salaries and career progression paths as a desirable trait, why do we still have so much wrk to do?

As part of our diversity month, we caught up with Brixton Finishing School Founder Ally Owen. A Digital Leader with over 25 years of tenure in the Media & Advertising industries, Ally shared her thoughts on what we’re doing right, what we’re doing wrong and why we should be optimistic rather than cynical about the immediate future of diversity in the creative industries.

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Can you tell us a little about the Brixton Finishing School? How, why and when it was founded and what its overall goals and ambitions are for its students?

Brixton Finishing School was created in 2017 as an allergic reaction to Katie Hopkins having a voice in our industry when so many others were systemically excluded from our ecosystem. Our first program was in 2018 with 24 students. We now have 4 programs and a national footprint of thousands. 

Our two core products - Brixton Finishing School & The ADcademy, are award-winning London & Nationwide Employment Programmes. We find, train and place talent from communities underserved by employers into a wide spectrum of entry-level roles at brands/agencies/tech companies and media owners - across the advertising industry and beyond.

We’ve also built out a schools outreach program called ADventure which aims to reach 100k this year and a collaboration with WPP & The Univisbility project for women over 45 called Visible Start. 

We are built to change the industry’s talent ‘blueprint’ from its current homogeneity to an inclusive one. We work to dismantle the barriers to entry to our ecosystem.  BFS targets the 'underserved' by industry employers - our key target markets are Multicultural, White Working Class and/or Neurodiverse talents. 

Lack of industry awareness, low perception of attainability and unclear access routes contribute to the continued industry challenge of connecting with and attracting all voices. Our extensive national outreach program works to resolve these challenges, feeding a free superhighway into the industry that removes barriers and delivers change. 

What do you feel is the key thing that sets legitimate diversity hiring apart from the “box-ticking exercise” that so many companies treat it as?

I feel sharing the lived experience of a graduate student who openly told of their experience of tokenism would be the best insight here. During an internship, she was the only Black member of staff, and this was particularly apparent on global zoom calls. 

Here are her words: 

I decided not to turn my camera on so colleagues wouldn’t see I was Black on Zoom meetings. Especially when I was in spaces where I was the only Black face. You see your face standing out against a sea of white. You stand out. Post-BLM, it’s a sensitive time – it’s not helpful to be the only one.”

She said to start solving the problem, it starts with “hiring more Black people and other ethnicities, recognising that there is a problem and checking in to see if people are OK[… ]It’s also about having a proper plan in place and not running with the excuse that the company is busy. But it’s about the people at the top. If they aren’t fixated on change then it won’t happen”

But the problem is deep-rooted and often perpetuated by laziness and apathy. The graduate argued, “It shouldn’t have taken seeing me in a sea of white to realise what a problem they had. But then I realised that a lot of people don’t put energy into things that don’t affect them.”.

Do you think the creative industries are pulling their weight as far as diversity in the workplace is concerned?

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Let’s define who is pulling their weight in the Creative Industries by looking at the makeup of the heavyweights in the workplace. The data is rather telling. 

Only 17% of creative directors are female, less than 3% of CEOS aren’t white (mostly centred in London, a city that’s 50% multicultural), only 6% of creatives are over 50 (and these are mostly male) and less than 2% of our workforce identifies as disabled (18% of the working-age population are). 

Until we see diversity at a C-Suite level that represents the breadth of our communities, rather than domination of a single type who possesses a singular group of physical and class characteristics, the industry simply isn’t doing enough. 

Are there any specific agencies or companies that you think are doing it right?

We’ve got some basics that need to be done right across the board. 

At the (very) least, London Living Wage as an absolute minimum needs to be applied to all roles (including internships). There also needs to be a proper cultural change and inclusion plan (that is PROPERLY funded and led by those who have power). 

We work with many agencies that are on their journey to being better. For example, Saatchi Home arranges and subsidises accommodation for our graduates who join their Saatchi Open programme. This helps to counteract the financial penalty for talent relocating to London in terms of the need for deposits and actually finding somewhere safe and affordable! 

55% of the young students you surveyed believed that diversity actions are generally done for the sake of PR. That could be seen as quite cynical but do you think it’s true?

Cynical? I think it’s optimistic. Let’s face it, the data points on what types of people inhabit our workplaces, especially in the C Suite, would support an even less positive view. We are moving towards inclusion at a glacial pace. Let’s not forget the pace at which any business moves towards a goal is controlled by decision-makers. Covid has shown how quickly behaviours can pivot if they are viewed as business-critical. 

I'm blessed with support from a wonderful number of decision-makers who are committed and working hard for authentic, non-performative change. They understand change isn’t easy, requires long term investment and that being serious about growth in this area can mean coming to terms with some uncomfortable truths about your behaviours, and learning from them. 

I view the industry as split into thirds - a third who are open to growth and on an authentic journey to change, learning a lot along the way. Another third are beginning to get to grips with their legacy challenges and starting to invest. And the last third seems to have no interest at all or feel being performative is sufficient. 

If the whole of the industry wished to have real, authentic change then it would have happened by now. It just isn’t a priority for some businesses, despite the clear financial benefits and need for social justice. We don’t seek investment from performative employers as our talent will arrive there and be gaslighted in cultures that are not inclusive. 

Can you tell us about the OHH creative campaign by Keda Bamber?

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Keda Bamber can tell you about the campaign herself:

“The latest campaign was created to show off our best assets, our graduates. Based on the brilliant design work by Mother, we wanted our ads to be bold and bright, and straight to the point, we helped these young people get their roles, we could do the same for you.

We thought it important to show the underrepresented communities we work with smiling and thriving, to highlight what an asset they are to our industry.

Our animated ads even feature some copy inspired by our 2021 graduates Lily Barclay and Ruby Randall-Cutler, so really this project was a collaboration of work from graduates across the network.”

Do you think there’s a culture of diversity hires stalling at the low-mid rung of the career ladder? 

Yes. The shocking ‘bounce rate’ for talent from underserved communities was evidenced clearly in the All In survey. A third of Black respondents were considering leaving the industry because of lack of inclusion. 27% of Asian talent felt the same. It’s not just the low mid rung that behaviours hold talent back from their potential - 53% of women felt parental leave disadvantaged their career.

If you change industries because you don’t like the work, that's acceptable. If talent leaves because of how you’ve been treated at work, it is the employers’ responsibility to change their practices and culture to prevent this. Otherwise bringing in diverse hires is performative and potentially transformative.

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Thanks to Ally for her time and her insights.

Header image by Zara Picken

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