The following statement was released on behalf of GMMB:
Just as we have spent our existence as a firm working to address a wide range of social inequities, we also recognize that self-examination and a determination to always do better is our responsibility, too.
Over the last few weeks we have been listening to staff share their concerns, recommendations and perspectives. Today, we are deepening our commitment to a culture that is inclusive, and representative of people of color throughout our organization, including our partners and other senior staff and announcing the following actions.
We will:
- Hire a full-time Growth & Diversity Officer, a senior level professional whose responsibilities will include guiding our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion in a manner that ensures our intent always translates into action and permanent result;
- Continue its work with an outside diversity equity and inclusion consultant – a black-owned business with extensive experience in this field – to assess all GMMB’s internal systems and structures and help foster an even more equitable and inclusive workplace for all of our colleagues;
- Redouble outreach to communications professionals of color and announce specific recruitment and retention goals to ensure that we significantly improve the representation and retention of people of color at all levels of our firm;
- Step up partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) to help increase participation by people of color in both our internship program and our permanent employee candidate pools.
- Devote 30% of the content on our social channels to elevating the voices of people of color;
- Establish in-house Employee Resource Groups for GMMB colleagues who are people of color;
- Redouble our efforts to partner with and source work to qualified Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs);
- And redouble our focus on making diversity and inclusion a substantive part of every manager’s training, day-to-day responsibility and performance assessment.
The timeline for the above actions will vary. Some will begin immediately and progress toward all of the actions will be tracked in an ongoing basis. We will build on these efforts, but we will also listen and recognize that there is more to do.
