Our statement on Black Lives Matter & D&I

There is an urgent need for individuals, and companies such as ours, to be better allies to the black community, to educate ourselves on black issues and to commit to sustained and effective action to oppose racism and ensure that it has no place at Pan Macmillan.

 

We have pledged that we will accelerate and expand this vital work. We have listened this week to the important conversations happening around us and to the thoughts of our colleagues, and have taken stock of what this means for our business.

 

These events have come as a brutal jolt, and they have caused us to revisit our plans and conclude that we need to do more in order for Pan Macmillan to be a more diverse company and to champion black, as well as other under-represented voices in our publishing and in our community. We are taking the time to educate ourselves on what it means to be effective allies to our diverse population and in addition, on how we can more effectively support our diversity and inclusion groups.  

Please see our Diversity and Inclusion pledge, below.

 

Our Pledge

Pan Macmillan must become through our committed and more urgent efforts, a more inclusive and diverse place to work, and an enterprise which better reflects the world we live in and the markets we serve.   

• Our Diversity and Inclusion group established in January 2020 has been set up to provide safe and productive spaces for people to have a voice on issues of race and diversity within and outside the business. This group will be supported in the work it was set up to do and it is instrumental to the way we tackle these issues.
• With the support of Creative Access, an organisation committed to increasing diversity in publishing, we have brought some brilliant interns to Pan Macmillan, and in a number of cases we have extended those contracts. In the future we know we need to do more work to support those individuals long term and to develop them within the business.
• Our partnership with Eric Festival has connected us with thousands of people from diverse backgrounds who we hope to inspire to pursue careers in publishing. We will continue to work with them on events and other means to engage with diverse audiences and attract more diverse applicants to our business.
• We will publish a clear action plan, with specific measures and targets, on diversity and inclusion at Pan Macmillan by the end of September 2020.
• We have previously committed to ensuring that people of colour comprise 20% of our workforce and we remain a long way short. To achieve that goal we will continue our work with Creative Access and Eric Festival, and pledge to strengthen our hiring practices to ensure equity and mitigate potential biases.
• We are proud of all the POC authors and illustrators we publish, and are committed to increasing the diversity of our lists.  We are clear that our lists are not representative enough of the diversity of the society we live in and that we must address this: We will provide detail on how we’re going to do this in our action plan coming in September 2020.
• We will increase our engagement with industry organisations to bring them together to effect change within our wider publishing community.
• Over the next year, everyone who works at Pan Macmillan will receive unconscious bias training and training on how to be an effective ally.
• We will also give each member of the company one additional paid day off per year, to give back to our communities.
• We the leadership team pledges to take the time to educate ourselves, to hear what our colleagues have to say and to develop a deeper understanding.
• We will provide the opportunity for our colleagues to speak to the leadership team or to provide feedback anonymously on what we can do better.