Diversity, equity and inclusion are important to any organization—and as we unify our teams across disciplines, backgrounds and skillsets, it’s become an important connector between our people, all around the world.

“As a business, we aim to represent the communities we live in and encourage a diverse approach in everything we do,” says Sir Martin Sorrell, Founder and Executive Chairman of S4Capital. This ambition has translated into a number of bold initiatives throughout the organization, including our recently launched Fellowship, which aims to address the imbalance in employment for underrepresented groups in the creative and tech industry.

But the work is never done: cultivating a more diverse and inclusive workforce remains a goal we strive toward to more accurately reflect the communities in which we work. While organization-wide initiatives play a large role in reaching that ambition, individuals and local teams also feel empowered to start initiatives of their own. “Our people care deeply about diversity and inclusion,” says Imma Trillo, Senior Vice President of Global HR/Talent at S4Capital, “and we’re seeing more and more initiatives being developed at the local level in many of our offices.” That’s why our Wellbeing team in London decided to launch DE&I week, a weeklong virtual event focused on diversity, equity and inclusion inspired by similar wellness-focused events, including Mental Health Week.

A Bottom-Up Approach

What began as a local initiative—a small group of colleagues meeting to determine what was important to talk about in the current climate of our pandemic and increasingly polarized world—grew into a company-wide initiative in which people around the globe engaged with difficult workplace subjects: What are microaggressions? What biases are we inadvertently imposing on others? How do we address people of different cultures, backgrounds, and gender identities respectfully? When should you call out someone, and how?

“What I really like is that it came from the bottom up,” says Martin Verdult, Managing Director of the London office. “People said, ‘This is something we want to talk about and take action on.’” And while these topics are anything but trivial, Verdult likens them to serendipitous conversations that have been hard to replicate without a physical office. “I really value that in this time of COVID that we take an hour of day to think about something that isn’t about the budget or deliverable—something people normally talk about over coffee,” he says. “We created this to drive topics we don’t always talk about.”

This drives home an important lesson for leaders: employees want to have these conversations, and you shouldn’t shy away from not having it all figured out. “It’s okay not to have everything solved internally,” says Liam Osbourne, Client Partner, Fashion & Luxury and DE&I lead in London. “Lean into external experts who can help.” Below, we offer a few of the insights experts have shared with our team throughout the week’s programming.

Creating a More Inclusive Workplace

To move toward a more diverse and inclusive workplace, employers must attract more diverse candidates—and if they’re not, it’s very likely their recruiting process is flawed, says Jane Hatton, founder and CEO of UK-based Evenbreak, a job board that connects disabled candidates with inclusive employers. “Talent doesn’t discriminate,” Jane says, “Recruiting with an eye toward diversity means removing the inadvertent biases and barriers in your process so that you’re reaching out and inviting all talent to come through.”

This point hit home for Osbourne. “One of my personal passions was changing the recruitment process,” Liam says. “How do we assess capabilities when we look at a CV based on past opportunities, not future potential? We need to find different ways of vetting candidates and support them in ways tailored to their needs.” One way to do that is to stop relying on CVs as a means of shortlisting candidates. Instead, Hatton suggests isolating three or four key strengths a job requires and highlighting them in the job ad. Ask them to answer a handful of questions or execute work-related tasks to showcase their skills and use that information to shortlist candidates. Removing personal information from the first step in the process—gender, age, schooling, and even past experience—levels the playing field for all applicants.

Get Comfortable with Uncomfortable Conversations

But hiring with an eye toward inclusiveness is just the first step in creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace. Nichole McGill-Higgins, Founder and CEO of management consultancy Changez Life posits that everyone in an organization is responsible for driving the diversity and inclusion agenda. And that means finding ways of not only changing the way we treat each other but openly talking with each other about race and racism—something that can be difficult between people from different cultures.

It’s important to understand that no matter how well-intentioned we are as individuals, it’s human nature to have biases. And when left unchecked, biases in the workplace can manifest as microaggressions—statements or actions that are indirect, subtle or unintentional instances of discrimination against members of a marginalized group. Awareness of our own biases, defensiveness, and potential microaggressions is essential to being able to openly communicate with each other, especially about race.

Understanding Social Impacts

Just as with everything else, COVID and other disruptors of the past year—the US election, Brexit, increased awareness of racism and activist movements that have come out of it—have accelerated the need for more diversity and inclusion. “This is a journey we need to continue all the time,” says Verdult. “These events have accelerated the need and increased the urgency for those changes.”

In times of crisis, true colors show. As an organization, your response to a crisis has to come from a place of authenticity not in response to social pressure. When the murder of George Floyd put increased pressure on companies to speak up and change the way they were handling diversity, many companies made missteps because they weren’t coming from a place of authenticity. But when a brand goes beyond purpose and truly embraces its role—transforming the business from the inside out—it can make a true impact.

Combating Bias in Advertising

Marketers should understand well the influence that creativity has on our audience. For this reason, it’s critical that we’re each equipped to identify and combat our own personal biases. “Having bias is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just human behavior,” says McGill-Higgins. “It’s just that we need to become more conscious about it,” and take the steps to combat them.

Rich Miles, CEO of The Diversity and Standard Collective, agrees and suggests that when approaching client work, creatives focus on intentionally injecting diversity into the work. “If you’re creating an idea that doesn’t have any descriptors you may be inadvertently inviting bias in, because—given human nature—bias will always be applied,” Miles says. Instead, he recommends that at the very early stages of an idea you incorporate diverse descriptors for characters or settings so that diversity is baked into a project from the start. “We’re all very worried about getting it wrong,” he says, “So if you’re stuck, speak to people from various communities to learn about them, or involve them in your work from the beginning.”

So whether you’re looking to communicate more openly and effectively with co-workers or create more diverse and inclusive work, starting the conversation and creating a roadmap is key. When it comes to the workplace, several potential conversation starters for talking about race can center around whether individuals have experienced discrimination, whether the organization is doing enough to build an inclusive culture, and what can be done to further Black and POC inclusion in the workplace. Through this process, teams can catch harmful biases before perpetuating them through the creative and products they put out into the world.

That’s what the Wellbeing team in London did, and to great success. Feedback has already rolled in suggesting topics for the next DE&I Week, reaffirming that the work is never done—and that people are eager to carry the conversation.

A special thanks to the Wellbeing team in London for organizing the event and unearthing the above insights: Nafeesa Yousuf, Charlotte Igharo, Maxine Penney, Maithili Jalihal, Brendan O’Conner, Matthew Brett, Liam Osbourne and Nimo Awil.

We understand that the power of creativity is amplified by diversity of background and thought. Still, the technology field historically lacks the diversity needed for true innovation–a problem that’s compounded by the impact that digital has on all aspects of our lives, ranging from education to work to socialization and more.

That’s why we’ve built the S4Capital Fellowship Program, which aims to mitigate these challenges by empowering young, exceptional students from traditionally underrepresented communities to leave their own mark in shaping the path of technological innovation–interested candidates can apply now. To better understand the program’s significance, we checked in with MediaMonks Founder Wesley ter Haar, who is one of the S4 leaders that Fellows can expect to apprentice with.

What’s the S4 story to you, and why do you personally care about what we do?

I personally care about S4 being a platform to innovate, which spans the work our industry creates and produces, the way the work is done and delivered, and who does the work and where. Each of these fuels the excitement and energy of our team culture. There are few opportunities where you’re offered a platform to make real, lasting and meaningful impact on an industry you love, and that’s S4 to me.

What’s the fellowship story, and how did it come about?

It’s really a continuation of Sir Martin’s career; he knows better than most about what it means to break into an industry as an outsider, and how important it is to create opportunities. He made them for himself, he made them for others at scale throughout his career, and I’m proud to see that focus continue at S4. It’s a doubling down on our promise and pledge on diversity, equity and inclusion, and I’m excited to see the careers that will launch at S4–and hope to see the program continue to grow!

Why is the fellowship important to you, and what will your contribution be?

I hope I can be a useful mentor, first and foremost, and give people a strong start that gets them excited by our industry–which, for all its faults and foibles, can create amazing opportunities. That’s important, because our core promise to our people and clients is that our teams are a reflection of the communities we work in, and the end-consumers that we’re trying to reach.

What should the fellows expect?

The access to senior leadership as well as our agility as an organization means you can be anyone, and you can be anywhere–but you can’t stand still.

What do you want the Fellows’ impact to be on the company and its clients?

I want our fellows to become the future CMOs of our clients! But just so we’re clear here: we want to be an open door for more diverse talent to join an industry that has historically been exclusive to so many. I expect we’ll have some very impressive Fellows joining the team, and I’m excited to see how they will influence our work as well as our ways of working.

For the start of the S4Capital Fellowship Program, we’re seeking U.S. graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities who boldly question the status quo and rip up the rulebook when confronted with challenges, using creativity and analysis to launch new ways of thinking, working and doing. If you’re energized by a passion to build on the foundation of a new era, we encourage you to apply.

Are you ready to launch a career that pushes the industry forward?

It’s easy for teams to become set in their ways over time, falling into patterns of thinking that become hard to break from. This not only inhibits innovation; it can also limit viewpoints around approaches to leadership, collaboration, work/life balance and other aspects of work that affect team members’ day-to-day activities and cohesion.

To avoid these missteps, organizations should strive to create a culture of diverse viewpoints—and ensure team members feel comfortable and supported in sharing those perspectives. In our own efforts to create such a culture internally, WoMMen in Tech, an ongoing podcast series from MediaMonks, serves as a catalyst to kick off these conversations and give viewers access to ideas and approaches they might not encounter otherwise. You can watch teaser videos for each episode on YouTube, and catch full episodes in audio form on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

While the series is called WoMMen in Tech, the idea isn’t just to profile women in the industry. Beryl Chung, who was part of the inaugural team spearheading the initiative and is a Senior Creative at MediaMonks, notes that one of the biggest challenges the series aims to tackle is to connect with women who feel isolated in the workplace.

In a panel discussion with MediaMonks founder Wesley ter Haar, Beryl Chung, Senior Creative at MediaMonks, discussed how early in her career she had no role models whose experiences she could relate to besides her mom. “I’ve certainly noticed that the more senior I become, the more rooms I enter where I’m one of very few, either as a person of color or as a woman,” she said. As a space where women share their experiences, WoMMen in Tech serves as a resource and pool of knowledge for anyone who feels they’re in a similar position.

Opening a Dialogue

While WoMMen in Tech was originally conceived as an external content series, it’s more than just that. “Above all, we’re a team (of not just women) and a network across offices,” says Chung. “So, if someone comes to us with an idea for a project or an initiative within diversity and inclusion, we help make it happen and connect to the people who can help build it.”

Her point shows how creating such a space to exchange perspectives and ideas benefits everyone. “I think in my idea of an ideal world, the best way to have a company culture is not to have any dominant culture,” says Chung. “That’s what I would really love to see, is a place where there isn’t a mold of what that employee looks like that they have to fit in, and then they don’t feel like they have to fit this box. They can come in as their authentic self and feel valued and feel heard.” In bringing different perspectives to light and encouraging conversation, the WoMMen in Tech initiative brings us a step closer to that vision as our team grows.

Enriching Team Culture

A year after its founding, ter Haar frames WoMMen in Tech as an experiment to use digital to promote empathy—a challenge that’s taken an entirely new relevance when the majority of MediaMonks is working from home and communication has become largely centered on work across borders and timezones.

“What the internet has done is connect people, but it probably hasn’t upped the empathy,” says ter Haar. “So, you can see some of what happens when you connect people without context, what happens when you connect people without giving a clear understanding of what we expect in a culture: you get a lot of friction.”

The Shift, our internal communications platform designed to unite all of S4Capital through inspiring and engaging content that ranges from thought leadership to workplace wellness, aims to counteract those concerns. The platform’s launch coincides with the release of the latest episode of WoMMen in Tech, available for the team to watch on the platform, which features an interview with Executive Producer Nathalie Visser.

In her interview, viewers get a sense of the significant influence and the personal touch that Visser brings to the MediaMonks culture—for example, raising the idea of a company ski trip and working with fellow Executive Producer Brook Downton to establish the New York office. Now with the New York team working from home, Visser is still thinking of ways to keep the team culture alive, like monthly picnics where everyone can meet safely in-person to gossip and enjoy a meal together.

Today, her role has evolved to include integrating the various teams that make up S4Capital, helping ensure we can collaborate smoothly. “The one big portion is tooling—we’re all using different tools which sometimes makes it challenging to become more integrated,” she says. “So, we’re trying to align on that and make everyone’s life easier when it comes to working together.” Visser’s responsibilities will lay the foundation for healthy and happy collaboration throughout S4Capital both now and well into the future, bringing teams together in an increasingly shared offering—processes that benefit not only clients, but the employee experience as well.

Projects like WoMMen in Tech open up a space where everyone can feel comfortable in making themselves heard and drive change—and its grassroots origin, spurred by women who acted on the need to highlight women’s experiences, stands as a testament to how teams can build a better, stronger culture by having a dialogue. “How can we open more space to share more discussion? How can we make everyone feel included in our workspace in a way that’s constructive and not so defensive?” asks Chung. A good first step is to speak out—and to listen.

Get to Know WoMMen in Tech