If bosses think employing black people is "risky" I might have the answer

“Employing black people is risky”.

“Employing disabled people is risky”.

“Employing women is risky”.

They might not say it so many words but time and again you hear TV executive producers voicing similar sentiments. It is normally couched in more reasonable language such as:

“I want to improve diversity but when it comes to employing someone I don’t know it’s just not worth the risk”.

Or

“I know it sounds bad but it’s a Catch 22, if people from diverse backgrounds don’t have the track record it’s just too risky to employ them”.

The standard response to these kind of statements to people who champion diversity is to explain why employing people from diverse backgrounds isn’t risky. They argue that the risk is imagined. They say there are lots of experienced people from diverse backgrounds that could be employed. They basically deny the executive producers’ “reality”.

Whether you agree that employing people from diverse backgrounds is risky or not, (and personally I do not believe it is risky), the way diversity champions try to persuade people that is not risky has not been working.

I talked this problem through with my wife who is a development economist and she said the problem of the executive producers’ perceived risk reminded her of the case of farmers in in northern Ghana. I know it seems like a leap but bear with me.

In economics whenever economists talk about “risk” it is usually followed by another word “insurance”.

According to aid workers and economists Ghanaian farmers could be earning a lot more money if they planted more crops and invested more in their farms. But the Ghanaian farmers  kept on refusing to do so saying it was too risky just in case there was a bad rainy season.

Like the advocates of diversity -  government officials, aid workers and economists would try and persuade farmers every year why their fears were unfounded and even if their were bad rains one year in the long run they would make a lot more money. And every year the farmers flatly refused to do so.

That was until one year one set of economists had a eureka moment.

Instead of trying to persuade the farmers they are wrong why not offer them “rain insurance”.

For a small sum of money the farmers could buy insurance against bad rains - the payout wouldn’t be large enough to cause people to ruin their crops on purpose but it would be enough to cover the loss of any extra investment they might have made. It was classic economic theory: the way to combat risk is not through rational argument but through insurance.

In the economic study the farmers who bought risk invested more in their farms, reaped larger yields and made more money. (Coincidentally the risk of bad rains never materialised and the insurance company actually made a profit).

So could insurance work in increasing TV diversity?

Instead of trying to persuade executives that their fears are not real why not offer them insurance.

The way it would work would be quite simple:

If the programme employs a diverse number of production staff they would be able to take out “diversity insurance”. If their programme underperforms by more than 5% in its audience ratings compared to the average rating for similar programmes in the genre then the production company could get an extra 50% of its production fee.

This would encourage production companies, who commissioners trust, to employ more diverse talent.

The exact sum of money would have to be tweaked - too little and it won’t be worth taking the “risk”, too large and productions could produce bad programmes on purpose.

The exact metric as to when the insurance company pays out would also have to tweaked - should insurance companies pay out when a programme’s ratings are 5% lower than the average audience in the same genre or 10%? Should we measure programmes through audience ratings or through audience appreciation scores?

But these are just details that could be easily ironed out.

Insurance was able to persuade farmers in northern Ghana to take “risks” when in reality none existed. 

The question is how could we persuade overly cautious execs to take similar “risks” even when we all know there is no "risk". Insurance might not be the answer but just shouting at them telling them that there is no risk doesn't seem to be working either.

Bridging the racial and gender pay gap

Could one simple question be the cause of massive pay differences between men and women, BAME and white people, and disabled and able-bodied workers...

"How much did you earn in your last job?"

The gender pay gap in the UK is thought to be around 19%, that means that for every £1 a man earns a woman earns around 80p.

When it comes to race the pay gap in the UK is even worse. The Trades Union Congress estimates the difference in average pay between white and black workers amounts to a gap of 23%.

Recently I realised I might have played a role in these depressing figures just by asking one simple question.

How much any particular position in the television industry is paid can be a broad range - annual reports such as the one published in Televisual will give an average but this hides massive difference. Where on this range an employer may pay a new recruit is often based on the answer to one simple question; "How much did you earn in your last job?". 

As a TV exec I have often been involved in more recruitment of employees and freelancers than I care to remember and although I have often been able to avoid being directly involved in the messy business of salary negotiations I have been aware of HR asking that very question.

The problem with the question is that it bases future earnings on what people have been earning in their previous jobs, perpetuating, and even building on, historic pay differences. What this means is that what you get paid in your first few jobs can have a massive influence on your earnings twenty to thirty years later as each new job salary is determined by the job before it. This can disproportionately adversely affect BAME people, women and disabled workers.

For example black people in the UK suffer from higher rates of youth and graduate unemployment than their white counterparts. This can lead them to taking less well paid jobs early on in their working lives to get on the career ladder. The same may also be true for disabled people and new mothers who both experience higher rates of unemployment.

But if future earnings are often based on earlier salaries how can people interested in diversity and tackling incomes gaps break the chain?

One US state Massachusetts thinks it has the answer.

In August they passed new legislation than bans employers asking prospective employees what their previous salary was.

That's right from June 2018 it will be illegal in Massachusetts to ask; "How much did you earn in your last job?".

The new law received cross-party support as well as backing from the Chamber of Commerce (possibly nervous about heading off future lawsuits).

The new law means employers will have to state a salary upfront, as the New York Times states; "based on what an applicant’s worth is to the company, rather than on what he or she made in a previous position".

There are no similar laws in the UK banning the one simple question but as an exec dedicated to pay equality that doesn't mean I can't start acting on the principle now.

So next time I am employing a new recruit I will resist asking the one simple question.

And next time I am interviewed for a job myself and my prospective employer asks me how much I earned in my last job I will answer; "on average 23% less than if I were white". 

Diversity - A Super Nanny Special?

Praising good practice isn’t enough often you need to define what bad looks like too.

As a TV executive you often watch TV programmes and, whether you mean to or not, deconstruct their structures. You can see the patterns that repeat themselves in factual formats, you can see where the narrative jeopardy has been inserted and where the tidy resolutions are created to tie up the end of a programme. Whether you are more used to making “Strictly Come Dancing” or “Dispatches” any exec worth their salt has spent enough time in an edit to recognise the tricks of the trade.

One of the formats I particularly used to admire for its sheer simplicity is "Super Nanny". Every programme is the same:

1.  Watch children behaving badly having tantrums.

2. The parents are at breaking point with their misbehaving children

3. Bring in Super Nanny.

4. Super Nanny tells parents to ignore the bad behaviour but reward the good behaviour.

5. Lesson learnt  - children learn it is in their interest to behave well, everyone lives happily ever after.

6. Roll Credits

Earlier this year in May Diversity was written into the White Paper outlining the BBC's Charter. And much of the television industry seems to be approaching the problem of diversity as if it was an episode of Super Nanny.

In the Diversity Special Super Nanny episode the broadcasters' bosses seem to be the parents who despite their best efforts have been unable to increase diversity.

The different productions are the misbehaving children who keep misbehaving and not employing enough people from diverse backgrounds.

And Ofcom seems to be Super Nanny who is watching the whole thing.

Like Super Nanny Ofcom likes to praise good behaviour/best practice.

So can the Super Nanny approach work for increasing diversity?

The problem is the broadcasters are doing exactly what Super Nanny tells parents not to do.

When the production companies act badly and "throw tantrums" by not employing people of colour or disabled people the broadcasters do not do step 4: ignore the bad behaviour but reward the good behaviour. Instead the broadcasters all too often reward the bad behaviour by still giving them commissions.

The BBC has taken the Super Nanny approach to panel shows and women - they simply ignore panel shows, refusing to commission them, if they do not have at least one woman on the panel.

I was talking to an American drama exec a few years ago and for a lot of their programmes they seem to take a Super Nanny approach when it comes to on-screen diversity. Programmes that do not show diversity in front of the camera are not chastised - they are simply ignored and not commissioned. The result, according to the exec, is that productions all come with black, Asian and Latino characters written into their programme pitches.

The problem is when it comes to diversity behind the camera no one wants to really take the Super Nanny approach and ignore bad behaviour.

If productions really were badly behaving children - broadcasters are buying them the equivalent of a bag a sweets (giving them commissions) whether they throw a tantrum in the middle of the shopping aisle (do not employ a single black person) or are the best behaved children in the world (are fully diverse).

And as we know from Super Nanny that is not how you get to the "happily ever after" and "roll credits" 

Lonely at work? The big diversity secret

I have tried to write this blog post a few times and each time given up halfway through. That is because it is a very personal confession, but a confession that I hope a lot of people from diverse backgrounds working in television can relate to but rarely acknowledge:

My name is Marcus Ryder and for large stretches of my adult life I have been lonely at work.

No one likes to admit being lonely. It is seen as an admission of failure.

I have also been worried about admitting to loneliness just in case any of my colleagues take it as an insult.

The truth is while there have been periods of my working life I have been lonely I have rarely worked on a production, or been part of a team, where there hasn’t been at least one friendly face or someone I would consider a friend.

The apparent contradiction goes to the heart of one of the unspoken issues regarding diversity.

I’ve observed women working in all male teams, I’ve seen the one disabled member of staff working with all able-bodied people, the problem even applies to parents of young children working in teams of young childless colleagues. There are large parts of your life that people from diverse backgrounds simply find difficult to share with their co-workers when their experiences are so different.

Having large parts of your identity you cannot share with your colleagues can distance you at work and ultimately it can create loneliness.

And loneliness at work is a real problem.

Gallup regularly conducts employee engagement work surveys, one of the key questions they ask is “Do you have a best friend at work?”. Steven Mirander of Cornell University commenting on people without “best friends at work” said in an interview in 2014  “I would bet my bottom dollar that people who are lonely and disengaged at work deliver far less discretionary effort than people who have a support system or a go-to person [at work].”

This not only affects the performance of the company the lonely person is working for but in turn also affects the career prospects of the worker.

Although anyone can suffer from loneliness at work it is disproportionately a diversity issue.

According to a collection of essays published in 2014 by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch) titled “Alone in the crowd: loneliness and diversity” people from diverse backgrounds such as ethnic minority groups and disabled people are more at risk of suffering from loneliness and this loneliness can perpetuate or aggravate many of the problems faced by these people already.

Another study by  Sigal Barsade and Hakan Ozcelik also concluded that “co-workers can recognize this loneliness and see it hindering team member effectiveness.” However they rarely understand the reasons behind this loneliness and instead just want to get rid of the “underperforming” colleague.

Loneliness can be tackled through good management. Organising support networks for employees across an organisation, or even pan-industry, that are wider than the immediate team someone happens to be working in where they are the only BAME, disabled, female of LGBT worker.

It helps to acknowledge the reality that a manager might not want to promote someone from a diverse background who is underperforming but instead of demonising them give them the tools to recognise why the person is underperforming.

Finally in writing this piece I have googled the subject of workplace loneliness and while you can find people talking about the issue no one wants to admit experiencing the problem themselves often writing pieces anonymously. And even my “confession” is slightly cowardly as I am only making it now when I am in a period of my career when I am not experiencing loneliness. But until people from diverse backgrounds can admit all the work place obstacles we face, loneliness included, we will not be able to make the progress we deserve.