Strategic HR BBC profile
the challenge is defining class. “We were
advised that the best question to ask is
parental occupation when someone was
aged 14,” she says.
The BBC has met all its targets apart
from gender in leadership (tracking at
around 44% currently) and BAME
leadership (11.5%). The BBC’s work
around better representing the regions,
kickstarted with the establishment
of MediaCityUK in Manchester, is now
feeding strongly into content, feels
Hughes-D’Aeth.
“We’ve now got Glasgow offices,
Wales, Belfast, Birmingham… The real
test is can we make programmes
relevant to those audiences? I think
definitely that’s manifesting now. If you
just listen to the radio and TV there are
lots of voices over the past few years that
weren’t there before,” she says, pointing
to a recent BBC Two programme
featuring the BBC’s media editor Amol
Rajan on How to Break into the Elite.
But there’s still much more to do on
D&I, she says: “It’s something we need
to keep really focused on because more
than ever the country is divided.”
The BBC now has five work streams
on different characteristics with an exec
committee member or senior leader
sponsoring each. And last year each
published a report, available for anyone
to find online, on what it’s like for
women, BAME individuals, LGBTQ+
staff and other minority groups to work
at the BBC.
“We have 128 recommendations from
those,” says Hughes-D’Aeth. “I track
them every Friday: red, amber, green…
Virtually all are in progress, half
are completed.
“Really standing back it was decided
there were seven big things our people
want”, she says. These have now formed
the BBC’s culture programme. Relating
strongly to D&I, and particularly
socio-economic status, one of these
seven was fair recruitment.
“We had always advertised all of our
vacancies publicly. It’s not like you could
just suddenly covertly fill a vacancy. But
there was a perception that even if we
advertised it there was already someone
in mind,” she reports. “So we worked
with an external organisation that went
through all our job descriptions to strip
out all the hidden bias. Then we did
work on how we interview… stressing
the importance of potential.”
The organisation has also sourced
and trained 250 ‘interview champions’.
“They’re people, not necessarily
managers, who are very interested in
this area and who want to ensure
diversity on interview panels. We want
to make sure it’s not three white men.”
There’s also been significant work on
career progression and transparency of
job opportunities. All jobs are now
clearly outlined – with supporting
career path frameworks – on the BBC’s
intranet. Some feature vox pops from
those currently holding the roles about
how they got there.
“We also have something called
Hot Shoes,” Hughes-D’Aeth adds.
“That’s where you can go and try
It’s certainly required a lot of hard
work on the culture and unions front.
“One of the things I was very much
asked to focus on was what we called
‘the BBC ethos’,” says Hughes-D’Aeth.
“I had a lot of feedback from staff
and unions early on about consistency
on that. On the back of what had been
happening with bullying and
harassment just prior to me joining
evidence provided to MPs in January
2014 showed eight BBC staff were
disciplined over allegations of bullying
and harassment in the first nine
months of 2013, but only one was
dismissed, the general secretaries of
some of the unions very much wanted
me to focus on the experience of the
BBC not being different from one part
of the organisation to another.”
This took the form of putting
various speak-up mechanisms in place
and better promoting the BBC’s values.
“We did look at our values and asked if
they needed modifying or updating. We
didn’t think they did but we needed to
articulate them better.
“I don’t really like the term but we’ve
developed a code of conduct: the way
we work around here. There were
various things but it was rather
fragmented, so we needed to pull it all
together in one place and reissue it.”
D&I targets
Critical to this endeavour has been the
HR team’s work on diversity and
inclusion. Targets were set back in 2016,
all designed to fulfil the mandate set out
by the charter around giving ‘greater
focus to underserved audiences, in
particular those from black, Asian and
ethnic minority backgrounds and from
the nations and regions that are
currently less well served’.
On gender a 50/50 by 2020 target was
set. This was 15% for BAME, 8% for
LGBTQ+ and 8% for disability (revised
up to 12% by 2022 a year-and-a-half
ago to reflect that mental health issues
are now categorised as a disability).
All targets are for senior level as well
as overall.
The trickiest characteristic, admits
Hughes-D’Aeth, has been socioeconomic
status. “We’ve been doing
lots of work particularly on outreach.
Because some people think the BBC is
not for them,” she says, revealing that
Blue Planet II reached
threequarters
Making roles
more accessible
to different
groups has been
a key part of
HR’s work
34 HR November 2019 hrmagazine.co.uk
of
a billion
people globally
£153
millionworth
of savings were delivered
in 2018/19, taking
cumulative savings since
the beginning of the
Royal Charter to
£397
millon
/hrmagazine.co.uk