With National Inclusion Week just around the corner (27th September to 3rd October) we wanted to remind Pact Members about the Pact Inclusion Tool – our online resource custom designed to support you to embed inclusive practices across your productions and businesses.
The Tool is available 24-7, all year round and can help you to build a workable diversity and inclusion strategy through resources, action plans and templates. Here are five highlights to look out for on the Tool…
1. Get to know the basics – diversity and the law
In the diversity and the law section of the Tool, we outline the basic principles of equality law in the UK. The sub-sections cover the 2010 Equality Act, positive action, and disability and the law. By exploring these sections you can give yourself a solid foundation from which to move forward in the Tool and start to develop your own D&I strategy.
There are also useful links at the bottom of each page of this section to further information and guidance for employers. (Useful links can be found across the Tool – usually at the bottom of a page – and are also rounded up in the Resources & Links section).
2. TV and film targets and standards
Each UK broadcaster sets its own specific targets for increasing on-screen and off-screen diversity and inclusion: these targets apply to all commissioned content, and are updated on an ongoing basis.
In the TV and film targets and standards section of the Tool, you will find targets for the BBC, ITV, C4, C5 and Sky, as well as the Diversity and Inclusion principles, standards and targets for the British Film Institute (BFI) and British Academy for Film and Television (BAFTA).
3. Creating an inclusive culture
Image by Anthony Shkraba, Pexels
Inclusion isn't a box ticking exercise. The key aim is to drive real change in your workplace culture across the board.
The inclusive culture section of the Tool has information and useful links related to a wide array of areas, including inclusive language; inclusive leadership; racism in the workplace ; disability; mental health for employers; pregnancy, maternity, parental and caring responsibilities; social class, bullying and harassment, and more.
There's also a link to a workplace culture survey, which you can use to capture a snapshot of your workplace culture when you begin to measure diversity and inclusion in your organisation.
4. Monitoring your organisation and productions
Before you build a more diverse and inclusive workplace, you first need to understand where you are now.
While equality monitoring is not legally mandatory for employers in the private sector, it is recommended by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Increasingly, it is also a requirement for broadcasters, commissioners and financiers.
This section of the Tool covers how to monitor, how to benchmark, and what you need to know about data protection legislation in relation to monitoring, to make sure you stay within the law. There’s lots of information available for you to read, and you can download our TV Diversity Monitoring Form to start monitoring your organisation, or create one of your own from scratch.
5. Action plans and company strategy template
Our action plans and company strategy template are designed to help you create practical solutions for your organisation and individual productions.
They cover inclusive leadership, inclusive hiring/crewing, inclusive casting (for scripted, factual and factual entertainment), a monitoring template, stress management policy, and company strategy template. You can replace the outline wording in the templates with your own wording, setting out your company’s strategy clearly and simply.
We worked with indies and external stakeholders to create a framework for the action plans that works for the TV and film production sector specifically. Not all of the actions mentioned in the plans will be suitable for your particular indie and/or genre of production, so you can choose the relevant actions that apply to your needs and add them to your company strategy template.
Start using the Inclusion Tool today
Those are just five sections of the Pact Inclusion Tool for you to explore, but there are plenty more once you get going. You can work through the Tool step by step, or dip in to particular areas of interest as and when you need. And don’t forget that the Inclusion Tool is accessible to anyone who works for a Pact Member company – all you need is your regular My Pact login to access a link to the Tool here.
While you're here...
Join us for National Inclusion Week webinars from Tuesday 28th September
We've lined up a series of sessions over the course of the week to help you and your teams to engage with a number of inclusion topics related to the indie sector, including inclusive hiring and leadership, disability awareness, and how you can make your casting practices more inclusive in both scripted and factual genres.
All of our sessions are designed to be practical and engaging, so that you leave with actionable takeaways to drive real change in your businesses and on your productions.
Find out more and register for sessions here.
