This week, we recount the insights gained from an AC Community event hosted by Nathan Nalla, Founder & Director of Be The Riot.

In this post, Nathan discusses how we can, as agency owners, actively fight discrimination and provide opportunities for everyone.

Be The Riot have extensive experience in working with all kinds of organisations. Their work is helping to shape future organisations and ensure that Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) becomes more accessible to small businesses and charities.

The past few years have been eye opening in learning about how different groups have been affected by ongoing discrimination.

It is our place, as agency owners, to ensure that not only are we actively fighting discrimination and providing opportunities for everyone, regardless of who they are, but to ensure that we are not perpetuating discrimination ourselves in the way we communicate.

However, it can be tempting to avoid addressing such matters, due to our own discomfort at the possibility of getting it wrong.

I spoke to Nathan Nalla, Founder and Director of Be the Riot about why facing these fears and reviewing the language we use is vital to our success as a business.

“People talk about diversity of thought or recognising the different experiences that people bring to a team.

The different sort of backgrounds or industries that they’ve worked in, all coming together and how valuable it is to have diverse perspectives and experiences in the room, in the conversation, and how that can lead to innovation.

There’s been a lot of research and studies that highlight the benefits of diversity and also creating an inclusive workplace.”

So how can being inclusive benefit the business as whole, rather than just traditionally underrepresented people?

Nathan gives the analogy of the London Underground to show how accessibility and inclusion helps us all:

“A perfect example of this might be trying to get around London if you have any sort of mobility issue.

I think of the 300 stations that we have on our underground system, only around 50 of them have sort of fully accessible, step-free.

When you have step free access, it doesn’t only benefit people with disabilities – If I happened to have an accident that I’m on crutches for, then getting around the city will be much easier with step free access.

If I’m travelling and I’ve got two massive heavy suitcases or I’m travelling with kids and a pushchair, right?

It makes life easier for a lot of people. So thinking more broadly and being inclusive tends to benefit a lot of different people.”

To find out more about why language matters, you can see the whole subtitled webinar (and it is an EXCELLENT one) on the AC Hub.

A full transcript is also available.

Nathan Nalla, Founder of Admire PR
Nathan is the Founder & Director of Be The Riot, an agency with a mission to help our society become free from inequity and truly representative of the diversity within it. Be The Riot deliver learning workshops that focus on the practical tools needed to create inclusive culture, supporting businesses on the journey of culture change, providing insights and practical steps to inclusion.

The Agency Collective

The Agency Collective

A peer support community for agency owners. A safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. An opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.