Agencies fall short on cultural diversity: report

News 11 Nov 2021 - 2 min read

Agencies fall short on cultural diversity: report

By Freya Morris - Writer

Diversity and Inclusion report from Scanlon Foundation and ThinkHQ

"The fact that half of agency workplaces don’t have a D&I policy reflects a stark gap between awareness, rhetoric and practice,” Jen Sharpe, Think HQ Managing Director, says.

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Tags: diversity agency

Despite the talk about diversity and inclusion from Australia’s communications agencies, a new study has found almost half of agency practitioners aren’t aware if their company has a diversity and inclusion policy.

What you need to know:

Communications agencies aren’t doing enough to promote cultural diversity, a new report says.
The Framework for Agency Inclusion and Representation (FAIR) report found only 49.6 per cent of practitioners surveyed said they had a diversity and inclusion policy.

There is a “stark gap” between what Australian communications agencies say and what they do when it comes to cultural diversity, a new study has found.

Less than half of agency employees surveyed (49.6 per cent) said they had a diversity and inclusion policy and about three quarters don’t recommend clients cater to culturally and linguistically diverse audiences, according to the Framework for Agency Inclusion and Representation (FAIR) report.

The report, produced by the Scanlon Foundation and Think HQ, surveyed 131 agency practitioners and help in-depth interviews with nine senior agency leaders.

Almost all (97 per cent) of those surveyed believed diversity to be very or extremely important, but 43% said client briefs only sometimes included multi-cultural audiences.

“Despite great awareness of the importance of diversity and almost universal agreement the industry needs to do more, the fact that half of agency workplaces don’t have a D&I policy reflects a stark gap between awareness, rhetoric and practice,” Jen Sharpe, Think HQ Managing Director, said.