Havas Group Releases Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Status Update

Advertising and communications company Havas Group has improved the number of diverse faces across all career levels within its U.S. offices by 3% between July 2020 and June 2021, according to its first annual progress report. These figures are concentrated on the American workforce due to global privacy regulations, though the company's global "All In" DEI effort includes 150 action plans in 33 countries. “We will have a lot of work to do, and it is going to be a major focus for our business,” Patti Clarke, chief talent officer of Havas Group, told Adweek. “We have a motto: Do more, do better. That is where our focus is as we share our year and move into the next 12 months.” This past year has been a time of reflection and action, Clarke explained, that built on last summer's seven-point change to overhaul its team. "When it came to do something specific in the U.S., we did a lot of listening and working with advocacy groups to get as much input as possible before putting together our plans." Extraordinarily competitive job market "We have some learning around tracking of these numbers because the population can change due to numerous factors, including promotions, role changes, hiring and attrition," Clarke explained. “There [are] a lot of things moving around in these numbers.” The pandemic undeniably hindered its “multiyear” journey, according to Clarke. "We have seen [a] very competitive job market, so everyone is competing for this talent," she said. She expanded by noting that in the beginning, a lot of these jobs were on hold and now it has opened up to become an extraordinarily competitive landscape. "Workers have a multitude of opportunities, particularly those from nontraditional agency backgrounds," she said. As with most holding companies and their respective DEI initiatives, Havas’ approach included bolstering the “education” side by introducing numerous tools and programs aimed at helping leaders better understand their multifaceted workplace, said Clarke. “We are teaching our leaders how to use their equity more differently.” She said that more than 3,300 employees completed four hours of learning on managing bias and 900-plus leaders participated in live, interactive seminars. At the same time, the network concentrated on the lower end of the funnel to spend time with those on the nontraditional industry pipeline. Havas Open House serves as a free virtual internship offering advertising experience for anyone, regardless of background, career or location. The company has been involved with the Multicultural Advertising Internship Program (MAIP) for 10-plus years and increasingly hires interns into full-time positions. Clarke explained Havas has separated the racially underrepresented out of the traditional review process to further develop metrics to better relate to their needs. “Part of the onboarding and process of bringing into people in has been very 'how do we ensure this is a [successful] hire, and how do we ensure we retain them?'” Looking forward, the company is currently developing the entry-level hiring program in partnership with city colleges as well as the three-month crash course “Platform” designed for those in career transition. Next, Havas intends to restart some multicultural programmatic changes that would require the network to gather workers in its "villages" in person to execute properly, Clarke said. Plans are moving forward to restart these ideas when it is safe for Havas staff to return to company offices. While there are many terms which define people, Havas defines "racially underrepresented" as the following: Native American, Asian, Black/African American, Native Alaskan, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Latino/Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern and multiracial individuals. Terms like BIPOC, POC, and AAPI also fall under "racially underrepresented.” How to find diverse talent?