It’s easy to say ‘we’re an anti-racist agency’. But to stay true to those values is a journey that spreads across everything we do.
We publicly pledged our allyship to people of colour back in 2020 and continue to hold ourselves accountable to that promise.
Our pledge means walking the talk and sharing our learnings (the good and the ugly). We feel like it’s on us to discuss what we’ve done and, more importantly, what’s still to do.
Acknowledging that white privilege and racism manifest themselves throughout our society and in our daily lives is an uncomfortable truth. Still, it’s a necessary acceptance before you can effect and embed lasting change.
In our efforts so far, we’ve actively:
- invested in our education
- strengthened our policies, so they clearly state what we stand for and against
- overhauled our recruitment processes
- advocated against unconscious bias.
You can read about our progress here.
Our next step – and a shout out to Lucy at Changeout.org for her stellar advice on this – was working on the ‘why’ that drives our actions in this area and keeps us pushing forward.
We brought the team together for some deep thinking and focused discussion.
It was such a valuable exercise. It helped us articulate our thoughts, codify our position, and continue to create community around our core values.
Here’s what we talked about.
Why is anti-racism and equality important to Platypus Digital?
As well as being the right thing to do, an equality-focused workplace is a better place to work, something incredibly important to us and one of the reasons we went for B Corp status.
A company culture built on equality helps our team feel welcome, valued, supported, comfortable, true to themselves, and happy.
Platypus benefits from a positive, welcoming company culture. A safe, inclusive environment means that our team is more creative and innovative, explores and produces more interesting ideas, and does better work for our clients.
We also believe that everyone comes from a different level of opportunity. Anyone with the right skillset can progress from the most junior to the most senior positions at Platypus.
What happens next?
Understanding our ‘why’ left us with more questions.
There’s plenty we feel we need help with to move forward, including:
- How do we add anti-racism and equality into our induction and training?
- How can we further improve our recruitment policies and practices?
- How can we share our progress externally?
- How do we inspire others to join our efforts?
- How can we amplify the work of anti-racist charities?
- Should we increase our pro bono efforts in this area?
We know we need expert advice on what to do next.
So, we’re commissioning an external organisation to review our work so far and guide us on what needs to happen.
Doing this will ensure our anti-racism becomes, and stays, a reality. We’re excited to see where we’re headed next.
We’ll keep you updated along the way.
