Global digital advertising agency Wunderman Thompson has announced a pledge to support LGBTQ employees across its 1,000-strong UK workforce, focusing on inclusion within its culture, policies and infrastructure.
It has announced a commitment to six key pledges around LGBTQ inclusion, with the view to honouring these before the end of 2019.
The six commitments made by the organisation include providing diverse and inclusive learning opportunities for all employees, supporting the formation of an employee network group for LGBTQ individuals and allies, and ensuring the working environment is inclusive and employees feel valued and comfortable.
Charity organisation Stonewall has commenced an independent audit of Wunderman Thompson's workplace processes to identify gaps or inequalities, which will continue over the next three months.
As part of its commitment to inclusion, Wunderman Thompson has also pledged to complete the charity's workplace index, with the aim of featuring on Stonewall's list of the top 100 employers for 2020. The organisation aims to complete a dummy run of the submission in September 2019.
Pip Hulbert, chief executive officer at Wunderman Thompson UK, said: “Although we already consider ourselves to be inclusive, it’s important to step back and be entirely objective. Like any business, we know can always do better. We’ve begun working with Stonewall because we want to use its specialist knowledge to empower positive change.
“The partnership with Stonewall is one part of our [organisation-wide] focus on diversity and inclusivity. However, [LGBTQ] issues shouldn’t be something you pay lip service to once a year around Pride Month. We want to ensure each and every one of our employees feels valued and included every day, regardless of their background, gender or sexuality.
"We want to inspire more businesses in the sector to think about how they can better support the [LGBTQ] community, both through their work and in their internal cultures.
“This isn’t a box-ticking exercise for us and it’s much more than putting a logo on our website. We want to embed Stonewall’s recommendations into every aspect of the agency. The new [LGBTQ] network group will play a key role in helping us to build an open and accepting working environment for everyone.”
Molly Byrne, client account director at Stonewall, added: “We’ll be supporting Wunderman Thompson to make changes that will positively impact [its] employees and clients and work with [it] to embed LGBT inclusivity across [the] organisation.
“We know that people perform better at work when they can be themselves and that diverse teams lead to more creative and productive environments. The advertising sector is gathering steam with its LGBT inclusive work and we are thrilled that Wunderman Thompson is making it a priority.”
