Welcome to Episode 66. We’re talking about diversity and inclusion in creative agencies with DE&I expert, Tutu Popoola, Lead HR Consultant and Managing Director at Sleek HR. She shares so many tips and advice and insight into how agency leaders are navigating their way through the topic in their agencies. If you’re an agency leader, she shares:
- the areas of your recruitment systems and processes that you need to pay attention to
- how you can inadvertently exclude team members when it comes to agency social events
- the importance of consulting with your team, particularly before you talk about these topics on social media
- how to help your team talk about mental health issues by setting the example
- and lots more.
I would encourage you to get in touch with Tutu if this is a topic where you think some external counsel might be helpful.
Jenny 00:02
Today, I’m absolutely delighted to be talking about a topic that I haven’t covered on the podcast yet and that is diversity and inclusion. I’ve invited Tutu Popoola to come and talk to me about it. Tutu owns a people and culture company called Sleek HR and as well as her many HR services, she actually happens to be an advisor for any issue about diversity and inclusion. She works with a lot of creative agencies, so I thought this was an opportunity for me to learn about diversity and inclusion and also for the audience to learn more. So, Tutu, a very warm welcome to you.
Tutu 00:39
Thank you, Jenny. Thanks for having me.
Jenny 00:42
It’s an absolute pleasure. I love following you on LinkedIn and I recommend anyone that’s listening to do the same because you put out some really brilliant content and educational video, so well done. So, would you mind starting off by just telling us a bit about you and what Sleek HR does?
Tutu 01:06
Okay, so once again, Jenny, thank you very much for inviting me on here. Your podcast is amazing and I’m just grateful for the opportunity. My name is Tutu and I’m an HR diversity and inclusion consultant. I started off my career working in HR mainly and I’ve done that now for, well it’s just approaching my 15th birthday. And further down the line I branched out to also identify as a diversity and inclusion consultant. Although the two are interwoven it’s not exactly the same thing, they’re quite different. But there is an element of diversity work in HR. Or should I say there should be because HR is not actually the most diverse industry either. That’s a story for another day!
Jenny 02:06
That’s another podcast.
Tutu 02:08
Exactly. So, the work that I do with creative agencies around diversity work is something that I initially stumbled on. I was doing quite a number of HR consulting for creative agencies, mostly smaller ones, and then the gap was just everywhere I turned that there is need for this service. And I started doing a D&I test and that’s how I just basically got into it. So, what does this actually mean in simple English without going into too much detail? It’s just ensuring that workplaces and agencies are inclusive, and they represent different people from different backgrounds. That’s gender, that’s age, that’s race. That’s all what the law describes as protected characteristics in the UK. Gender identity, just all of that to ensure that there is a representation there for agencies. Now I’ve worked with quite a number and the creative industry as a whole and this is not me telling people off but it’s not the most diverse industry really. And there’s a number of reasons why that is. But generally, you would find that, and I’m sure you know all about this already Jenny, you don’t need me telling you, but the diversity of age is not there. I mean the creative industry is as old as God knows what but that is not there. Sometimes there is also the gender issue as well in terms of people in senior roles not being white male. Basically, I think the biggest one probably or shall I say probably not the biggest but the most obvious one is around race and ethnicity. And as things have unravelled over the years, especially in the last two or three years there, there seems to be an appetite for change. And the wheels are slowly turning, very slowly, but something’s happening. I think that answers your question. I do talk a lot of Jenny, so you must stop me!
Jenny 04:38
I love it, please don’t stop. I was so tempted to dive in there with my own story because funnily enough I interviewed Danny Turnbull, who’s an agency growth consultant, only a few days ago and he mentioned that his father had said, ‘If you’re going to get into advertising, make sure you’re out by 30 because you’ve got your ceiling’.
Tutu 04:59
Yes, it’s a bit sad really. You’re just getting into your career at 30 you’re not thinking of getting out.
Jenny 05:07
No, exactly. But let’s not get side-tracked because I know that I will. I was just curious; you’ve obviously sort of developed your consultancy business on the back of this demand that you’ve seen from people coming to you with questions. So, would you say are the typical questions or challenges or queries that people come to you with in terms of this topic?
Tutu 05:31
I’ll probably say the biggest one is, ‘How can we become more diverse?’ And when I get that question, I always ask, ‘What do you mean, you are diverse now? You have men and women, non-binary people? Yes, you are diverse. So, what exactly do you mean, by how can we be more diverse?’ That’s the big one. And
agencies say things like, ‘We advertise our jobs openly, we interview everybody that applies, we just employ the best’. And my question is, ‘What do you mean by the best? What are the metrics with which you are assessing people? And when you bring them into your organisation what’s the level of progression? And are they diverse people at senior level because their role modelling is very important’. If I’m coming into an organisation as a black woman and there are no black people in management, no black people in senior management, what are the chances that I have when I join? Am I going to actually have any career progression within your organisation?
Jenny 06:41
Interesting.
Tutu 06:42
So, if I come in, let’s assume that you can’t see my colour, which I know you can and I’m just coming in and I’m a woman. No one person is one single thing but let’s leave that to the side for a minute. Let’s just say, I’m coming in, I’m a woman. And it’s all white male in senior management, mid-level. The question that’s at the back of my mind – where are the women? Where are the women in middle management, in senior management? And if I don’t see that and if I have to make a choice between companies, I’m probably not going with the one that’s got no diversity because I’m thinking five years down the line, I’m likely to be basically in the same job. Or will I have an opportunity as a woman to do different projects and progress and obviously make more money. So that is usually the big, the most popular questions that people come to us with. But then also,
sometimes they’re not doing it to be altruistic at all. It’s because they are bidding for work and now stakeholders are asking questions about the policy. They’re saying, ‘What’s your policy? What policy do you have covering diversity and inclusion?’ So, they want that competitive advantage as well because they’ve got agency C and D, they know what they’re doing, or at least they look like they do and they say, ‘Oh, we’re doing this, we’re supporting LGBTQ people, other organisations, this is how we attract black and brown people. This is the level of progression of our women. This is our gender pay gap’. And you’re just there, you haven’t got any of this stuff. So, at some point, it’s like, okay, let’s find a diversity and inclusion consultant because we can’t afford to keep losing out on big projects.
So sometimes, that’s another reason they come to us. Now diversity, it’s not actually easy should I say. Because of the politics that surrounds the talking about the issue of diversity, sometimes people don’t necessarily want to do it. So, they’ve avoided it for this long because you don’t want to put a foot wrong. You don’t want to say something, and you trend on Twitter for all the wrong reasons! And then you’re going to release a statement explaining why you said what you said and why you didn’t mean it and you’re apologising or whatever. So, I think because of all that drama around it, sometimes people just don’t want to bother with it at all. So, they just want to find somebody who can just say to them, and they say, ‘Listen, this is what we need, how can you help us?’ And that’s where we get involved.
Tutu 09:25
You’ve covered so much in such a little time, and I’m sure there are lots of agency owners listening, or anyone working in an agency, nodding their head along about what you’ve just said. People wanting a competitive advantage, wanting to avoid the conversation, not wanting to put a foot wrong or seeing that other agencies are doing it or they’re being put pressure on by maybe procurement from a client perspective, saying, ‘Well, what’s your policy?’ ‘We don’t actually have one. So where do we start?’ So fantastic. I love what you said about, if you’re looking at a company then and they’re all white males, and I’m joining as a black woman, what are my thoughts on how I’m going to be progressing within that agency? So, wow, okay. Are there any legal metrics currently because most creative agencies that I’m dealing with lately are independent? So, anything up to 50 people. So, for such a small company, are there any particular legal requirements yet?
Tutu 10:37
So, on the issue of numbers, I would say that most of the clients we work with around that number. So, you don’t need to wait until you have 200 employees to start working on your diversity and inclusion. I think you do it before then. It is much easier for you. So, in terms of metrics, so the law, this is where my HR experience comes in, the Equality Act, which I’m sure you’ve heard about many times, talks about different protected characteristics that are protected by law- gender, pregnancy, your race, disability. I think there’s about eight or nine listed in law. So, I will say that’s like the general metrics so to say. What that only really covers, this is where there is a bit of a delineation between my DI work and my HR work. The law says these people are protected and they should have equal access as anybody else would. I’m kind of paraphrasing here, but that basically is the gist of it. However, it doesn’t account for things like socio economic backgrounds. So, I might be a white male and automatically people might say that I’m privileged, as an example, but I’m a white male from an economic background shall I say, that’s not very good, not very great. So, in that sense, I am disadvantaged as well. So, when the law says gender/race because I’m a woman and I’m white does not necessarily mean that my life is perfect and I will never suffer any disadvantage, that economic part still puts me at a disadvantage. Now, the sort of discrimination that this person would face would be different from the one I would face, for example, but there’s still something there. So that’s why it’s important to look deeper. Not just look at this is what the law says and as long as we’re compliant in that area, we’re fine. But no, look at people from underrepresented backgrounds, socially economically deprived areas, for example. There is a lot of work to be done there, especially in the UK. So that assumption that if you have a job, from nine to five or whatever times you do, you’re doing okay, but people that work that still go to food banks and things like that. So, there are metrics, I’ll use the word loosely, but it’s still important to ensure that you’re looking closely. What I would usually advise is that you consider, if you’ve got under 50 people, and this advice actually is valid for those bigger as well, look at these areas and you will cover a lot during that.
Check your systems. What systems do we have in place in terms of how we capture data when people come and work with us or want to come and work with us or how they progress? Check your processes that you have in place. What’s the recruitment process? It’s 2022 but are we still recruiting our friend’s children for internships? Okay? If that if we’re still following that process, or we’re still giving jobs to our mates? Let’s face it, we know this will never end I think until the end of time, that will still continue to happen, but what formal process do we have in place to ensure that the impact that these kinds of decisions will make is minimised? Because this is how people lose out on opportunities because jobs are basically being given to mates.
Nothing happens all the time, but we know that it does. So, what are the process you have for recruitment? What do you do in terms of progression? Is there an active plan or are you leaving it to chance that when people come and work within your agency, they go from Account Executive to Senior Account Executive and what’s the career progression path? What does that look like within the pay? Also, what does pay look like when people are starting? Are you benchmarking your salaries within your organisation? Or are you basically offering men and women the same thing? Now, this may sound really obvious, and some people will say, ‘Of course, we do all this.’ but are you? Do you really? Is this noted? Is it written down somewhere? Are people following it? Because most agencies start off as founder-led businesses, they start getting more people on board and then it’s just growing and then you just focus your attention on the business development getting across. Obviously, that is important otherwise there are no contracts, there is no agency. But as you’re growing, what are you doing in terms of making sure that things are documented, processes are in place, you have actual process and you’re not winging it a lot of the time. The time will come when you can’t deal with your HR yourself as an agency founder. Find people who can do that for you, because let’s face it, you are one person and things are likely to slip through the net no matter how great you are. So, think about your systems, think about your processes, think about your people and what kind of culture you’re creating. I know it sounds really simple, but they are the factors that affects diversity within the creative sector. Are all your social events in the evenings, for example? And they all about drinking? Now I have nothing against drinking, I love a drink myself, but these things have an impact if everything that’s social is for evenings. What about the parents in your team? Especially the women. We know that women have the majority of the care and responsibility. I’m not saying all, I’m not saying that men are not involved but when we look at it overall, women are impacted more with childcare responsibility or looking after a disabled person within your family and all of that. And if everything that you do socially is in the evenings, every single thing, what do you think is going to happen? At some point, there’s bound to be a feeling of exclusion there. And then if you have people who are religious, so around Ramadan, for example, if you’ve got Muslims within your agency and everything is around drinking, again, it’s not a very inclusive environment. Now, I’m not suggesting for a minute here, that everything gets changed but consider those things and see how can we have a bit of a mix to make sure that this is a truly inclusive environment because these are the things that make a difference between attracting diverse people from diverse backgrounds and retaining them. It makes a difference. If somebody has thought about all of these things, it is more likely you will retain them than if you haven’t really given it much thought. I’m not saying that there’s any perfect organisation but start somewhere is what I would say.
Jenny 18:43
Can I just pause you there because I think you’ve shared so much insight already? This has been brilliant. And you’re right, in fairness, a lot of agencies are started by a freelancer and then you start growing your agency and there’s a million things to think about – keeping the lights on, keeping the business coming in, let alone stepping back and thinking about your processes and are we being inclusive enough? So, there’s a huge amount of pressure and I can see why you recommend to get someone in early on who specialises in HR to consult with and then maybe take some of the thinking away that they could be doing on your behalf. I wanted to pick up on a couple of points you said. You started off by saying systems, i.e., capturing data. Can you give me an example of what you mean by that?
Tutu 19:32
Okay, so let me use a recruitment process as an example because most of us would have gone through some kind of recruitment process at some point. When you’re hiring, who are the people that are applying to work with you? When people think about having diverse people within the organisation or underrepresented groups, we start thinking from the point of when they’re actually employed. What you need to be thinking about the attraction stage. So, are we attracting enough women to work with us? Are we attracting enough black and brown people? How would you know that if you don’t capture data? Now, you can’t make assumptions on their names because my name might be say maybe Alice Kirk and you make an assumption that I’m a white woman or I might be Jamaican. Do you see what I mean? So, you don’t actually know by the name. So, when you have a recruitment system with a recruitment process, start thinking about diversity and inclusion already, start thinking from the attraction stage. So, you have to capture that data somehow. I would recommend having some sort of application tracking system. The good thing is there are so many of those now and they’re not expensive at all. I mean, there are silly expensive ones but for different budgets you can find them. So, capture that data because then you know, if we’ve had 50 people who have applied to work with us we will be able to know that maybe 15 are from this particular background because we’ve asked them that question at that stage. Now, if they make it to the interview stage then we can then track – did the 15 get through to interview? Probably not, five did. Good. At what point did we lose that five?
Jenny 21:46
Gotcha. Okay, gotcha.
Tutu 21:48
Do you see what I mean?
Jenny 21:49
That’s why self-evaluating, you’re seeing how good are we or what is happening in our process? Is there a clear pattern here of any kind of lack of inclusion?
Tutu 22:01
Yes. So, if the five people that you’ve got, let’s say you’ve got five black and brown people, and all five jump off at the first interview, you need to be checking why.
Jenny 22:14
Yes, gotcha.
Tutu 22:16
Same with disability. How many disabled people apply to work with us? How do you know if you don’t ask the question? So, you’re saying we don’t have disabled people here or we want to increase the representation of people with disability? But disability, again, is not always visible? If we haven’t asked the question, they haven’t told us, then how can we make adjustments for them?
Jenny 22:41
So, a naive question alert, are we allowed to ask people, ‘Do you have any disabilities?’ Is that permitted?
Tutu 22:52
You can ask that question. They don’t have to tell you, but you can ask the question. And also, this question you’ve just asked, I’ve answered this question many times.
Jenny 23:04
Thank God it’s not just me.
Tutu 23:05
It’s not just you. It’s why are we asking what are we allowed to ask this? It’s how you ask it that matters. When you’re asking the question, say why you’re asking the question. So, for example, for disability, we would like to make adjustments to our recruitment process, if needed. So that’s why we’re asking, ‘Do you have a disability?’
Jenny 23:32
Right.
Tutu 23:33
That would help us frame it along the lines of, ‘This will help us to be able to make adjustments when needed’. Now, when you ask the question and somebody says to you, ‘Yes’, make sure that you make adjustments. So, if I’m a disabled person or neurodiverse and I have ticked the answer as, ‘Yes’, then there should be a section underneath it where you can then ask me, ‘What adjustments do you need?’ Then I can tell you, maybe I need some sort of modified sec to go through this process. It may just be I need wheelchair access to your buildings. So, you need to know, if it’s a face-to-face interview and I’m coming in a wheelchair, can I actually get in there without being carried up the stairs or anything? That’s so undignified. But if you haven’t asked those questions, you don’t know. Yes, you are allowed to ask those questions. People don’t have to tell you, but you’re going to ask.
Jenny 24:37
This is brilliant info Tutu, keep going because this is fantastic. One question about the processes. You said, ‘Are we stepping back and thinking, are we just recruiting our friends?’ Do you think sometimes people do that just to avoid recruitment costs?
Tutu 24:54
Yes.
Jenny 24:54
You know, ‘Does anyone know anyone?’
Tutu 24:56
Let’s face it, we are humans at the end of the day, sometimes it’s just easy. Okay, James, my friend, is looking for a job or his son’s just graduated. I need somebody, this is somebody here, I just offered them the job. It’s easy. But the truth of the matter is, one year down the line, two years down the line, this is how all organisations end up looking the same because your friends are people from your social group, most likely you have more in common with them than somebody who’s going to apply from Sheffield or somewhere where you don’t even know anything about. So, everything just begins to look very monolithic and homogeneous in nature, if you see what I mean. So yes, I would agree with you, it’s easier to just offer the job to somebody.
Jenny 25:55
Brilliant. And talking about inclusivity when you’re doing any kind of team-building exercises or social events, I thought that was very insightful, you know, don’t make it always in the evening, don’t make it always alcohol-related, don’t make it sports-related. Just being sensitive I think is what you’re saying. Don’t not do it, but just be sensitive to it. So amazing. This is fantastic. Now, do you want to keep going or can I start referring to this census that came out?
Tutu 26:28
Yes please, let’s do the census.
Jenny 26:30
I didn’t want to interrupt your flow, but I just wanted to pause and just say that the World Federation of Advertisers conducted recently, as you told me, a global DE&I census last year, and it led to a charter for change. It was launched at Cannes Lions this year, we’re recording this in June 2022, so it’s around now and they basically have identified 11 main action areas. What I’d love to do Tutu, is maybe not go through every single action area that they’re talking about but certainly get your point of view on this. First of all, just in terms of the actual initiative itself, what’s your view on what they’ve done here?
Tutu 27:19
I think is amazing. I think it’s fantastic. I absolutely love it. That’s because coming from such an established organisation, an event that brings together everybody basically within the industry, for them to be saying this, I’m sure there’s nobody now that doesn’t know that it needs to do diversity work or inclusion is important. We all know that now. But I think it kind of solidifies it again in people’s minds and then makes it something that you definitely need to look at within your organisation. And also, clients would also be wanting to ask questions around this, ‘What is it that you’re doing?’ So, it kind of lights up the fire a little bit more than it was burning before. So yes, I think it’s great.
Jenny 28:15
Great. And the first four points actually cover talking about actions for leadership which is something you brought up at the beginning. The first point was create a diverse leadership team which you’ve already spoken about. And also, you’ve covered understanding and democratising your company’s data. So do you want to speak a little bit more about this and anything about particularly the leadership teams’ responsibility for creating psychological safety and support for their teams. Anything that we haven’t talked about in terms of the responsibility of the leadership team because I’m sure there are leaders listening to this and it would be lovely to hear from you any kind of further insight that you had for them.
Tutu 29:01
So, this is really important because people need to feel like they can say things. And they may ruffle feathers but it’s definitely not going to cost them their job. And that comes from knowing that if the leadership is at the forefront of these conversations and they start with transparency on their side and sometimes this transparency can just be as simple as, ‘Look, I don’t know enough about this.’ So, I think sometimes there’s a lot of pressure on and
I observed this when the George Floyd issue happened, when he was murdered, that a lot of organisations wanted to do something or leadership teams felt the pressure to be able to address their team around this, and they didn’t know what to say because they don’t want to say the wrong thing. And a lot of us were also getting our heads around what’s just happened, and it was like a global explosion. So sometimes you need to be vulnerable which for some leaders is really difficult by saying, ‘I don’t know much about this right now, but I want to hear your experiences, having worked with us, what’s your assessment? How do you think we’re doing as an organisation?’ You’re not going to love everything you hear, in fact, you might not even like the majority of what you will hear. But conversations like that will create that psychological safety where people think, ‘Okay, since you’ve asked now’ and when they then tell you, don’t be defensive and try and immediately to defend your position, take it as feedback.
I always say that feedback is a gift, okay? Might not be a wanted gift, it’s still a gift but it is a really good opportunity for you to listen to what your team is saying and be able to then act on it. Not to say you’re going to be able to do what everybody wants, that would be really difficult in fact, it might be even impossible. But you will then ensure that whatever strategies you’re putting in place, if you then go down the route of having initiatives, it would be the right one because you’ve actually listened. That active listening is very simple but it’s also very difficult because sometimes employees might say something because they don’t understand the full picture of what you see, what they don’t see. You might want to quickly jump in and say, ‘Oh, no, no, that’s not true. This is not what we…’ No. Resist the urge to do that. Just listen in that moment and go and have a think about it. Sometimes, the facilitation of these kinds of conversations, you need to bring somebody in to do it for you because they would need to be able to hold space in that moment and just allow people to express themselves and then guide the conversation in a way that is safe for everyone. When I say safe, I don’t mean acceptable, I don’t mean that we’re all going to love it but it’s really important to do that work. And I think a lot of agencies, some have done this work and some haven’t, sometimes it’s probably just fear.
Jenny 32:46
Two questions really coming out of this. Do you think typically, agencies do this – carrying out some kind of formal feedback loop with their staff? And if they do, do you think in the majority of cases they attempt to do it themselves, rather than getting an external person to do it?
Tutu 33:05
So, I wouldn’t say they always do but then I think that’s representative across other industries as well so I’m not knocking anybody now. It’s not an easy thing to do. And even I will tell you, upfront now, the way that they might have gone about it from what I’ve observed, is around particular events. So, Pride Month, for example, sometimes they might put us on communication because everybody is changing their logo to the rainbow. And also, I don’t know what’s going to happen for Black History Month this October but I’m looking forward to it. They might publicise like, two years ago it was black squares that everyone was posting on their social media pages. So that’s what they’re doing externally. Internally, they may be talking about, ‘We want to do better, we would like to do better, we want to increase representation.’ So might have announced targets that this is what we’re doing. And usually, it’s that window, I think that some would use to ask for feedback from their staff. Usually, I see one open conversation about it, I’ve seen it once or twice. Usually, they ask for feedback. It’s not something that’s kind of discussed openly within the team. That also might be because of culture. So different cultures, within every organisation has their own personality and culture on how they do things. And so, some might just want to go with what they used to say for them but what I would say in that kind of situation is try and rock the boat a little bit. You might get a little bit more out, get somebody external, let that happen. Ask for that as part of your feedback process, somebody that doesn’t really know that this person and that person don’t get along together. With that person I will just throw the questions out there and see what comes back and also because they’re external there might be a level of trust where they think, ‘Okay, maybe this is going to go somewhere as opposed to it’s just Dave the founder asking us again.’
Jenny 35:20
Oh, you’re so good. I think this is fantastic. And I think you’re going to get much more rich information from your team if they’re talking to an external person because the point you said about Black Lives Matter days or black awareness or the rainbow for LGBTQ. If your company is putting out any kind of social media but as a person working inside your agency you know that there are problems and they’re not diverse and they’re not open-minded it’s kind of a bit crass, isn’t it and it’s a bit inauthentic. So that’s going to wind you up even more. And by asking people for feedback, at least you get the opportunity to vent a little bit. I suppose Tutu, I’ve been in enough toxic agency environments and maybe I’m coming at it through a little bit of a lens here so sorry, but there are conversations that I had between team members, you know these individuals within the senior management team and their way of working and their behaviours and what they say to the external world isn’t how they are internally. And how they treat people, for example. So, I think this is great advice.
Jenny 35:25
I think that’s happened. And the same thing with mental health as well – mental health awareness. We’re posting about mental health, mental health tips. We’re supporting this charity and there are people working with mental health challenges in-house, in your company!
Jenny 37:07
They’re crying because they’ve been working on a pitch for 24 hours and someone says, ‘Well, are you going to be in the office at nine tomorrow?’
Tutu 37:14
Exactly. You work late and then expect them to come in early. They’re asking for adjustments to the way they work just to accommodate their mental health and all of that. And you’re not making the adjustment you’ll say, ‘Oh this is what the client wants.’ Or if you have a client that’s clearly bullying your account exec manager or whoever and this is having an impact on their day-to-day life and you’re not giving them that support that they need. This is where your work should start. People that actually work with you will see your post on your Twitter page so before you put it on Instagram -Think. Pause. This is Mental Health Awareness Week we’re about to talk about this. How have we supported the mental health of the 15/20/40 people that work with us? What are we doing to support them? Then you post.
Jenny 38:20
I think maybe there’s this lack of self-awareness. I think maybe there needs to be a self-awareness day of some kind because I think I’m kind of laughing, only because I’m being triggered by this conversation. I think it’s just the reality and paying lip service to something and then the reality of what actually is happening and their behaviours. And I suppose the other thing too, I work very closely with a lot of account managers, I get very close to them, and they share things with me. And not only do they not get asked for their feedback on an irregular basis, they’re not even supported, they don’t have that feedback loop. They tell me stuff that they’re worried about telling their boss or senior management team and it breaks my heart actually. So, this is really good advice. So, anything else that we haven’t talked about around the role of the leadership team?
Tutu 39:20
I think that a diverse leadership team, having representation there, I think is really important as well. Look at your leadership team. Why are people there? Now sometimes when we say things like, Well, the first thoughts for some people might be, ‘Well, I can’t sack them to replace them with someone else.’ I’m not suggesting that you go and think okay, four white males I’m going to fire two of them and employ two women. No, this is not what we’re saying. What we’re saying is that when an opportunity opens up, think about who you’re replacing them with. Are you basically recruiting like for like, again? Now also look at the people just below them, what is the pipeline that you have within your organisation? Is there an opportunity for progression for people on to the next level because sometimes when you have the leadership team there’s really not much chance of people growing into that role from the more junior roles. And they can helicopter people in from outside, but what about your homegrown talent? And if you think that they’re not ready, why are they not ready? Sometimes the answers you get to that question is quite revealing. It might be people who have decided that at the moment, I’m already working 60 hours and if you’re saying to me, there’s an opportunity for me to step up, how many hours am I going to be working? I have caring responsibility, I have young children, I have a disabled person that I look after within my family. I can’t work more hours than I’m already working. So, it kind of goes to the heart and the culture of your agency; how are you looking after your people? And these things are very challenging. So, as I was saying earlier, it’s just about one thing without it feeding into all the other different things as well. If people are not ready to step up, how can you support them for this to happen? And think about maternity, for example, maternity pay. Anytime I see an announcement on LinkedIn or somebody saying that they got promoted when they were on maternity leave it just makes me happy. Or they’ve just come back from maternity leave, and they have been able to step up or how their company has supported them. Sometimes we look at these things as the fluffy stuff. But this is part of how you build your diversity within. You’re keeping moms or dads are people who are carers within your company, it would enrich your brand because they have a separate life outside. They will bring the richness that they will bring into your culture is different. It’s just gives a little bit different, it makes it a little bit more exciting. So yes, sometimes you might say these things are like just being fluffy and it’s not the real stuff that we do. But is it not? Or is it?
Jenny 42:58
So, you’re saying make sure that you’re looking internally as well. And also, I think the other thing that I’ve picked up just recently actually, is when you’re perhaps looking to hire from the outside, think about your team as you might be recruiting for the role that someone is in line with, but you just haven’t even considered them. As you’re saying, make sure you’re thinking about how that’s going to make them feel because that is the quickest route to de-motivation I’ve ever known. Yes, if suddenly someone else appears and you think, ‘Well, that was my career path.’ So, you’re right, make sure that they are given a pathway.
Tutu 43:40
And even if you think that they’re not ready now, they might be in 12 months. But why are they not ready now and how can you support them to be ready?
Jenny 43:53
To that point Tutu, so this is going a little bit micro now, but I get a lot of agency owners asking me this question and I’d love to hear your view on this.
Tutu 44:04
I’ll try.
Jenny 44:05
The biggest leap in the account management space is going from account manager to account director. Possibly because all of a sudden you’re in charge of a team, possibly because up until this point it’s been very operational and getting projects through the agency rather than understanding the client’s business being more strategic. So, in lots of senses there’s a big leap and a lot of agency owners say this account manager’s not ready for account director and they struggle to come up with a pathway. They struggle to pin it down. What’s your approach for creating that pathway?
Tutu 44:45
That’s a good question. If you say that they’re not ready, why are they not ready?
Jenny 44:52
I mean, it could be in a number of things. Sometimes they say, ‘Oh, they haven’t got a lot of executive presence.’ So, if I’ve got to think that that person is going to be suddenly dealing with the C suite or the CMO and up until this point they’ve been dealing with the marketing managers, they’re not coming with any presence, or it could be a number of things. But they’ve got it in the back of their mind.
Tutu 45:14
Help them to be ready, is what I would say. At the moment retention is one of the biggest issues that organisations are facing. People are just basically jumping ship. That would always happen anyway. But we’re seeing it at a level now that’s so high that I do wonder whether that’s going to be sustainable long term, but that’s another story. But if you see someone who would be the potential and I don’t even like using that word because I believe that we all have some level of potential but let’s just take that on face value. And this is the natural progression for them, help them before you actually even have that opening. For example, you’re an agency owner or you’re an account director and you’re going into these meetings, and you know that this person has really only dealt with marketing managers before, ask them to come with you. They will learn by observation. They will learn by observation and have a debrief before and after. This is what we’re going in there for, this is how I think it will go. And when they’re at the meetings, when you feel like they’re ready, let them contribute as well. So not just going as observers. This is how they’re going to learn; this is part of your work. This is part of learning within an organisation. Let them observe you doing those things, let them observe the senior people doing those things. So, when you have people at the leadership team, when they’re networking as well, do it with your thing, bring them along on your journey as well. Because the time is coming when you’re not going to be able to do everything, depending on the rate of your growth but because you’ve prepared them for that time they’re ready to step into those roles. But if you basically keep everybody in there at their own level doing their own thing and then all of a sudden you’ve got this huge gap and then you then expect them to just come in and do it, it’s going to be challenging for them.
Jenny 47:28
I think that’s really practical advice. Come in and be the observer, let’s have a pre-meeting plan, let’s conduct the meeting and then let’s have a debrief. I think that also points to the systemisation of internal meetings and external meetings. As part of my programme, we have a pre meeting plan template where you’re able to all get on the same page, make sure everyone has a role and responsibility in that meeting. And also, who’s the client? Have we done any research? What are we anticipating the questions being etc, etc? So, I love that you’ve pointed to a very practical approach to helping them develop.
Tutu 47:28
I also like what I’ve seen of your accelerator programme as well. So that’s a bit more formal type learning process that they can go through. So, something like that and also similar types of programmes, will be really useful in terms of helping develop in your people. So would it be great if you have somebody join you as an intern and then they’ve kind of just progressed through the ranks and they’ve built with you. There’s a level of knowledge that those kinds of people have that somebody new coming in wouldn’t have because they understand the whole DNA of the organisation. Why would you want to lose that, just like that, because people are just leaving because they can’t really progress. And something that we’ve observed is that sometimes people feel like they have to leave to be able to get a pay rise or to be able to get promoted. That would always happen, not much you can do to change that. But sometimes there is a place for developing talents that you already have and making sure that there’s that clear progression path for them within your organisation. We creatives, especially with the younger people, sometimes it’s really difficult to nail down what they’re best at because they come in as so creative. There’s so much information out there and they do so many different things and they do so well and it’s like, ‘Oh, where does this person fit in here? Do I want to pigeonhole them here?’ But roll with it and use their talents in that way. Let them have the opportunity. There’s something that’s been said about the Gen Z and how they work, and they just know so many things, they want to try their hands are so many different things. I think there’s a real opportunity there to be able to roll with and not just say, ‘Okay, this is how we’ve always done it and you either here or you’re there. And that’s it.’ Because then you’re missing out on that knowledge as well.
Jenny 50:20
So, think about building the role around the individual strengths, rather than trying to pigeonhole them into one thing?
Tutu 50:28
Yes.
Jenny 50:28
Let them try different avenues but also then see what they’re accelerating at and see what they’re enjoying when they’re in flow and then just crafting. That is being quite progressive with your kind of business model as well, isn’t it?
Tutu 50:43
Yes, it is. It’s not easy. I can probably hear somebody in my ear now saying, ‘It’s easy for you to say because you do the HR, you do the diversity, it’s not quite the same.’ But if you start thinking along those lines it would be something useful for you to do,
Jenny 51:04
I think, particularly for the audience that we’re talking to at the moment, it’s typically agency account managers, a lot of people with that title have what we call a hybrid role where they do project management, like timelines, estimates in resourcing, tracking, trafficking. But the other half is the pure account management which is a lot more commercial. It’s a lot more about developing the client relationships, growing the account, understanding the client’s business, making inroads to sell more stuff and to see opportunities to add more value to the client. So often you find people that have a leaning towards one side of the role or the other. They frankly prefer one side, or they just have a natural bias for it. So, it’s about spotting that and not trying too hard because you could have a super-duper project manager there that you don’t want to lose instead of a pure account manager. Listen, I’m just conscious of time. Tutu you’ve just shared knowledge bomb after knowledge bomb and I’ve just been thinking, ‘Yes, yes!’ We haven’t talked about underrepresented groups a lot in terms of age or mental health. You did touch on mental health because mental health recently is quite a big topic, isn’t it?
Tutu 52:33
It is.
Jenny 52:34
Are there any tips or insights that you can share for agency owners where this might be the topic that’s coming up for them?
Tutu 52:42
I think around mental health, it can be challenging to talk about, but you need to do it. Now, around mental health, there needs to be support in place. Sometimes we don’t really get very involved when you start talking about people’s mental health and things like that. But if people ask the question, ‘Is everybody okay?’ sometimes we think about big grand gestures. We’re going to have a strategy, have a plan around mental health and sometimes start with, ‘Is everybody okay?’ And it kind of removes the air of formality a little bit and people think, ‘Actually, am I okay?’ And also, transparency for leaders. You’ve had a bad day, feel free to share that with your team. They see you – you’re perfect, you do everything, you know the answer to everything. There is a level of pressure, but surely that’s got bugs for your team because now they want to be perfect as well. Consciously or unconsciously, you never share any bad moments. Everything’s great. Everything is perfect. So having a level of vulnerability as a leader is really important. ‘Today is not a good day for me. This has happened and that has happened. I’m not doing great at all, but I will be okay. I’m going take the afternoon off or whatever.’ That is not just you oversharing, okay? What that does is it humanises you as a leader.
They don’t see you as a leader- now you’re Tom. And that then gives them permission as well. On the days that they’re not feeling great, they’ll feel like they can express it. But if they see you all the time never have a bad day, you’re always great, it is then difficult for them to be able to say, ‘Well, you know, things are not going well.’ And sometimes you get to know people more when they share these things with you and then you might find out some things about them that you didn’t know before that actually would impact how they work, who they are, to know them a little bit better that way. So, as a leader, be vulnerable, be human, ask people how they are and when it’s shared with you, don’t feel like you have to come up with a solution to it. Sometimes they just want to talk. Stop for a minute and talk and listen to them. If you get to a point where you think, ‘Okay, this is really serious’ get help. Refer them. I think the mental health first aid course I’ve been on is a really useful resource for leaders. So, think about people within your company that can go on that. You don’t need to be super big to do that, it doesn’t cost that much. What they do is they learn strategies on that course. How to listen when people come to speak to you, how to hold space for them when they want to disclose their mental health and all of that. So, and it doesn’t need to be HR that does this, it can literally be colleagues. So, invest in that. And then signpost people when they need it and then promote it within your team to say, ‘Oh, we have two Mental Health First Aiders, if anybody wants to talk, come and speak to me. Or if you prefer, go and speak to these two people’. You will be surprised at the things that happen when you do that. You also empower your team as well because they then know that you really care about this stuff. And then they want to be a bit more open, and things don’t get to crisis point. because then it gets really challenging. And then everyone’s trying to find a solution or take six months off work. If there are things that can be done before then, it needs to win. Put in some investment behind it, if you can.
Tutu 54:01
Great advice. Thank you so much. I’m so glad asked that question because that was super helpful to anyone listening, I’m sure. So, thank you so much. Listen, I have taken so much of your time, this time has just gone. like that!
Tutu 57:20
I can’t believe how long we’ve been talking! I told you, I tried to warn you at the beginning!
Jenny 57:28
You’re so easy to talk Tutu, you’re absolutely delightful. This has gone really fast for me. Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you would like to add just as a parting piece of advice for agencies? Or any topic that we haven’t covered that you think is really, really important that we share before we wrap up?
Tutu 57:48
Okay, so a few things. First one,
the world of diversity and inclusion is very layered. And it’s not always about what’s visible and it’s not always black and white. So, when we talk diversity, when we talk inclusion, when we talk equity it’s not just about having more black and brown people, although within the creative industry a lot more can be done about that. But it’s very layered. But I will say take some time to educate yourself on this and also particularly around your systems and your process within your organisation, what you do within your agency. And try not to worry too much about having a bit of a misstep and then because of that just avoiding it altogether. Sometimes we are going to get it wrong. And that’s part of the learning
actually, when we get it wrong then we think okay, what is the right way? And then we learn, for example, with the LGBTQ+ community, sometimes I might say some things that somebody will correct me then I say, ‘Great, thank you. Tell me more, then next time I know better.’ Do you see what I mean? But if I avoid it altogether, then I don’t learn anything. So just use that as an example. And yes, just start somewhere. Usually, start somewhere and you will find as time goes on, it will grow. But start somewhere. If you’re not sure where to start from, ask your team, get external advice. There’s always help available.
Jenny 59:30
And to that point about getting external advice. If someone has listened to this and thought, ‘Oh my goodness, I could really do with talking to Tutu about my particular situation’ how can people get hold of you?
Tutu 59:41
So, I’m on LinkedIn – Tutu Popoola or you can send me an email tutu@sleekhr.co.uk. Go and watch some of my videos on there. I’ve been told they’re good. They’re short. Just to get this kind of sense of who I am, what I do. I do try to post there sometimes.
Jenny 1:00:07
We’ll put those links in the show notes. And I think, hopefully, people have got a sense for you as we’ve gone through this conversation because you’re so open, so straight-talking and you clearly have a lot of experience in this area. So, I would urge anyone that’s got any kind of situation that they’d like to discuss around DE&I to talk to Tutu. So, Tutu, thank you so much for joining me. This has been absolutely brilliant.
Tutu 1:00:34
You’re welcome. And thank you for inviting me as well. Who would have thought that meeting on LinkedIn would lead to this? We are where we are now, it’s lovely. I really enjoyed talking to you Jenny and very much appreciate it as well.
Jenny 1:00:47
You too Tutu. Thank you so much.
