Continuing the important work of championing workplace diversity in the advertising industry, The Agency Circle is getting ready to release it third diversity benchmarking survey on Monday, October 22nd.

It carries on from last year’s survey results that unearthed valuable insights into agency employees’ experience in the workplace when it comes to diversity, and perceptions of diversity.

Launched in 2016 as a response to increasing frustrations around the lack of diversity found in creative agencies, this year’s survey is open to all agencies, creative, media, digital or otherwise, and spans all aspects of diversity, including ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, disability, gender and age.

Appointed this year as The Agency Circle chairman is Leo Burnett Australia head of talent, Sarah Palmer. She takes over the role from Clemenger BBDO Sydney managing director, Emily Perrett.

Palmer is encouraging more involvement from agencies with less than 100 staff to also take part.

Says Palmer: “Taking the talk around improving diversity and turning it in to action, I’m proud to be in a position to help lead The Agency Circle initiatives.

“This year we have run several workshops as a collective on age stereotypes, flexibility and sexual harassment, to name a few, as our purpose it to provide agencies with the tools and processes to enable the change our industry deserves.

“I urge all agency leaders to take part in the upcoming survey and be prepared to share how they are each helping to improve the state of diversity in our industry.”

Industry aggregated scores are released, however the agencies that take part this year will have the ability to monitor their progress against their own benchmark (from the previous years’ surveys), as well as the industry average, and will be expected to provide their key metrics to demonstrate their efforts.

The Agency Circle does not release individual agency results.

Each member has bought into the charter and an honesty system, and agencies that are members will need to demonstrate affirmative progress to remain part of the group.

The Agency Circle launched with 15 member agencies and this year has 24.

The Agency Circle wishes to thank all its member agencies, and those who work hard to pull the survey together.

To register your details to complete the Workplace Diversity Survey please email Sarah Palmer.

If you’re interested in signing up for 2018/2019, please contact us here.