Diversify Your Staff For Deep And Meaningful Results For Your Clients

Despite its roots in liberal San Francisco, Uber lacks equality. Uber's diversity report revealed minorities are underrepresented, especially at higher positions. Blacks and Hispanics fill only a small percentage of company roles, and other Silicon Valley giants have similar demographics. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau discovered Silicon Valley’s workforce is 2.2% black and 4.7% Hispanic, which are minute compared to other tech hubs' workforces, like Houston (11.9% black and 12.6% Hispanic) and New York (7.3% black and 9.6% Hispanic). These companies have received poor PR for their homogenous workforces, but it’s important to identify why diversity is so important in the first place. Pepsi was criticized earlier this year for its commercial that unintentionally belittled the Black Lives Matter movement, and the marketing team behind it was, in part, to blame. A recent poll found 42% of marketers feel the brands they work for don’t reflect a racially diverse or contemporary society in their marketing efforts. Clearly, there’s room to improve here. Still, it’s never a good idea to hire minorities for diversity’s sake. Diversity brings value to a company through its connections to a broader range of customers and clients. Especially for advertising agencies, customer connection is the name of the game. Who wouldn’t want more? Unfortunately, agencies aren’t known for being the most diverse workplaces either. These days, clients can catch agencies off guard with questions and conversations about diversity. Mad Men painted the advertising industry as overwhelmingly white, male and heterosexual; many clients want to know whether that’s still the case. Agencies need to be on their toes and explain how they’re representing other genders, ethnicities and sexual orientations. It’s No Longer Just A Man’s World Researchers who study diversity break it down into two [...]