Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Here's how we're taking action.

Building the foundation

• Became an accredited member of the Diversity Council Australia, Australia's only independent, not-for-profit peak body for workplace diversity and inclusion, providing our employees with free access to a unique knowledge bank of research, best practices and expertise across all the diversity dimensions.
• Formed local and international internal Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Councils with representatives from across the company.
• Formed Employee Resource Groups for BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and working parents and allies.
• Developed ongoing audit of the full recruitment life cycle.
• Provide free, real-time market salary data to the public through our Compare My Salary Tool.
• Produced annual Salary Guide with salaries for more than 100 roles related to marketing, design, and technology. It also includes salaries based on gender to help companies address pay parity.

Attracting and recruiting Talent

• Expanding diversified talent networks and pipelines.
• Offering unbiased anonymised resumes.
• Creating gender-neutral job descriptions.
• Created a guide for our recruiters to post inclusive job ads
• Reinforcing interview best practices.
• Ensuring pay parity and equity for all employees.
• Developed three guides for hiring managers to take action on diversity, equity and inclusion in their workplaces.
• Developed a guide to help hiring managers assess the risks and advantages of integrating AI tools into their hiring process to build a more diverse workplace.
• Implemented traditional place names on all our digital assets including our job ads

Reconciliation Action Plan

• We are engaged with Reconciliation Australia to implement the second stage of our four-part Reconciliation Action Plan, “Innovate”. The first stage, ‘Reflect', was approved in 2021.
• Our Reconciliation Action Plan outlines our commitment to exploring how we can create and integrate initiatives in our business that will lead us to build effective relationships with, and identify opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within the digital and creative industries throughout Australia. Some of our initiatives include:
• Supporting significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander events throughout the year such as Reconciliation Week and  NAIDOC Week.
• Supported the Voice to Parliament referendum.
• Helping our clients recruit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander digital specialists.
• Sharing educational and significant content with our community to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
• Promoting positive race relations through anti-discrimination strategies.
• Increasing understanding, value and recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, histories, knowledge and rights through cultural learning.

Empowering and developing employees

• Developed company-wide education materials, training, and discussions around underrepresented groups, racial injustice, and its historical significance.
• Expanded our resource library and access to external courses on themes like mitigating bias and fostering an inclusive workplace through Diversity Council Australia.
• Introduced ongoing internal training, including unconscious bias, how to be an ally for Rainbow Women, The Gender Spectrum & the difference between gender, gender expression & sexuality, Accessibility and how to be an advocate alongside people with disabilities, why digital accessibility and inclusive design matters, autism and the workplace, why the Voice to Parliament was so important to Indigenous Australians, inclusive hiring—small edits, big impact, how to build digitally inclusive experiences in a physical world, and more.
• Give each Aquent employee, five ‘Make It Matter' days per year to choose a charity of their choice to volunteer their time to help others.
• Created an Aquent Cookbook with nearly 90 recipes celebrating the diversity of Aquent's multicultural employees in a simple and playful way.
• Started Cultural Clubs that foster insightful conversations about books such as The New Jim Crow, The Nickel Boys, and Who Moved My Cheese, and movies and short videos such as In My Blood It Runs, Racism in Australia, and Finding Confidence in Conflict.

Community engagement and impact

• Raised more than $210,000 in contributions to social justice organisations.
• Donations and support for charities through events, surveys, workplace giving, and donation matching such as Beyond Blue, Deaf Victoria; Mallee Accommodation Support Program, BlaQ Aboriginal Corporation; McGrath Foundation; the Indigenous Literacy Foundation; and the Moriarty Foundation.
• Run external educational events for our talent and clients on diversity, equity and inclusion such as DEI Unplugged: Real People, Real Stories, Real Solutions.
• Run quarterly Humans in Accessibility events for our talent and clients.
• Published blog posts on the Aquent blog on topics such as: Increasing Diversity In The Workplace Is Everyone's Responsibility; Why diversity is crucial for decision making, creativity and the success of your teams; Why Hiring Autistic Employees Is A Smart Business Move; How To Design Inclusive Onboarding Strategies From Day One; Unpacking The Hiring Process: Questions You Can Ask To Identify Bias; What Is An Equity Audit and Why Is It Important?; Important Steps to Review and Improve your ERG; How to Increase Diversity in the Workplace; Ways Brands Can Support Allyship that isn't Rainbow Washing.
• Developed a guide for leaders on how to approach culturally sensitive topics
• Developed free training through Aquent Gymnasium for Talent and organisations on how to ensure that digital assets are digitally accessible.
• Awarding Designing For Good grants that help bring creative ideas to life for nonprofits.
• Sharing talent art from creators of colour or that celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion across our social media platforms.
• Ensuring that the events we run and participate in includes diverse speakers and are accessible to everyone, including providing Auslan interpreters and closed captions.