How Channel 4 translated its on-screen diversity into workplace inclusion
It’s the television channel that brought us the first lesbian kiss with Brookside; the first black sitcom, Desmond’s; and round-the-clock coverage of the 2012 Paralympics – so you’re probably thinking Channel 4 has got its diversity agenda sorted.
But amid increasing pressure to improve diversity across the UK media, Adam Lancaster, learning programme specialist at Channel 4, had to ask: are the channel’s successes on-screen reflected off-screen, through its employees? “It’s easy to think we’re really good at this because we are Channel 4 – but we need to be a lot better than we are,” says Lancaster. Last year, the broadcaster launched its 360° Diversity Charter, setting itself the target that, by 2020, the workforce would be reflective of the UK population when it comes to gender; black, Asian and minority ethnic; sexual orientation; and disability.
To communicate its commitment to improving diversity on and off screen, a list of 30 planned activities were published publicly, with targets ranging from ‘ensure 15 per cent of the production team or crew are from an ethnic minority or have a disability’, to ‘ensure a female holds an executive role on every entertainment programme’. Channel 4 also launched ‘Born Different’, an e-learning project designed to bring to life the scale of the challenge to its 800 in-house staff.
“The hardest sell wasn’t so much ‘why are we doing this?’ People understand the benefits and importance of diversity,” says Lancaster. “It was more a question of ‘aren’t we already really good at this?’”
He admits the organisation had to be candid with its staff when communicating its current position on diversity. With a ratio of 53 women to 47 men, Channel 4 was overrepresented by female employees. And while 6 per cent of the UK population class themselves as LGBT, just 2 per cent of the channel’s staff reportedly fell into this category.
The Born Different online training modules were created with the help of learning consultancy Acteon, and combine a range of text, graphics, video and audio to provide interactive fast-paced scenarios, scrolling stories, practice role-play sessions, ‘talking head’ accounts, quizzes and a bank of further reading and resources. L&D specialists partnered with the wider HR team, and a further 20 to 30 members of Channel 4 staff, to hone the messaging and create a bespoke learning campaign designed not only to communicate the broadcaster’s aims, but also to provoke a reaction.
“It had to be an authentic and realistic portrayal of what colleagues would see in real life,” says Lancaster. “E-learning can sometimes be too passive if you don’t challenge people enough.” But there is a fine line between creating a programme that genuinely feels ‘Channel 4-y’ and not scaring off new recruits, or getting the organisation into legal hot water, he adds. “At Channel 4, we make an effort not to be too politically correct. You can get away with saying stuff here that you wouldn’t in other organisations, but that isn’t an excuse to cross that line.”
While the e-learning programme wasn’t compulsory (rather “heavily recommended”), Lancaster says staff had to feel compelled to complete it, and personally involved in the campaign for it to have the intended effect. “It was important that it wasn’t just a bunch of HR bods sat around a table telling people how to be more diverse. So the message became: how can you have an impact on diversity within your role, and within the building, and what does that actually mean to you?”
A process of self-declaration helped to gather the relevant data needed to base the campaign on. “Often, people don’t bother to fill in those forms you get when you start a new job because they don’t realise the positive impact of self-declaring,” Lancaster says. Every new starter at Channel 4 is now asked to divulge a personal profile including gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and disability, while current staff are encouraged to regularly check and update their personal information.
“Diversity is a massive topic, but understanding what is going on internally, and where the Channel 4 population is really at, allowed us to understand where we should be spending our time and focus,” says Lancaster. This year, the organisation will be focusing its efforts on increasing its representation of disabled employees, from 1.9 per cent of the workforce to 6 per cent by 2020.
Further face-to-face diversity and inclusion training for managers, recruitment workshops and diversity breakfast sessions were created off the back of the Born Different programme, helping to keep the issues relevant and campaign momentum going. Two staff-initiated employee networks – one for LGBT colleagues and another for women – are now helping keep the L&D team on its toes with their suggestions for achieving the channel’s ambitious targets.
By tracking the training completion rates, and the level of detail updated in the employee information profiles as a result, the HR team was able to determine whether the launch had resonated with the whole of the workforce. As Lancaster concludes: “We might have come up with 30 aims, but how we execute those is down to everybody across the business.”