People Like Us

What a special night at People Like Us x The Romans. An incredible collection of stories from talented individuals who did themselves proud. Vibes were on point too, thank you to everybody that rolled through! You can connect with our amazing speakers here, do drop them a line: Sam Narr, Lateefah Jean-Baptiste, Sachi Gamage, Geoffrey Chang, Sabrina Trinquetel, Kelly Yip, Eyimofe Okuwoga, Aishwarya Tardalkar, Ade Sanusi and Lena Ahad. Shout out to the team for their support Mikael Buck, Working Wonder Ltd, Sharon Aneja, Joel Harvey, Darain Faraz. And special thank you to the wonderful Joe Mackay-Sinclair, Katrina Lockwood and The Romans team for their ongoing support. We’ll be back in action on December 12, save the date for us! It will be our fifth birthday and we have a very cool next host we're excited to reveal in the coming weeks.

Lots of people would love there to be more tickets, and are keenly waiting on the waiting list for this week's event! If you can no longer attend, please cancel your ticket on Eventbrite as soon as possible so someone else can take your spot 🙏

Very excited that our founders, Jasvir Singh CBE and Dr Binita Kane, will be speaking at this event: Make Comms Great Again: How to Use Your Comms Skills for Good, will take place on Thursday 28 November 2024 at London’s Conway Hall. The conference will feature keynote presentations, panel discussions, and workshops delivered by a host of experts including journalists, content creators, activists and comms specialists. #MarComms #CelebrateDiversity #Marketing #Communications

One week to go till we hear stories from our community! 🎉 Thanks for the kind words Edwin, Katherine, & Carol - and Joel for capturing🙏🏽

We're proud to unveil the fourth edition of the Pay Gap study in partnership with PRWeek UK. The good news is that the number of agencies taking part increased to 41. It's important to celebrate the participating agencies for their transparency and being open with their best EDI practices 🎉 Three key takeaways from this year’s Pay Gap report: 1️⃣ Proportion of ethnic minority employees was virtually flat YoY at 20%, though the proportion in senior roles fell slightly from 13.9% in 2023 to 11.1% in 2024. 2️⃣ Remuneration for minority ethnic employees from participating agencies grew just  2.4% last year (vs. 7.7% for women, and 8.2% overall)  3️⃣ Across participating agencies, ethnic minority staff were paid 75.8% of the average PR person's salary It's important to note the data comes from a self selecting group, it's likely they are outperforming others in the industry and the figures aren't reflective of the wider industry at large. We have some way to go to achieve pay parity, but it’s great to see more agencies creating action plans to close these gaps ahead of the government introducing ethnicity pay gap reporting as a draft bill. More info at: https://lnkd.in/euCpWn6r

Time to have a moan. This week’s PRWeek UK gender pay gap report is out. Thank you to John Harrington and his team for continuing to push and press for change. We’re not perfect at Woodrow. But we’re damn trying. And we found the time and resources to ensure our data was compiled and shared. A pathetic amount of our industry shares this view. There’s no excuse. If you have time to parade around the awards circuit, or submit your revenue numbers for top 150 lists, you have time to do this. This includes every single one - yes, wait for it - of the large agencies in the ‘Best Places to Work’ final in this year’s PRWeek UK awards. You know who you are. Our industry has a problem with gender pay inequality. It’s up to all of us to do our bit. Here’s a novel solution. You can’t apply for a ‘Best Place to Work’ award without being part of PRWeek UK’s gender pay report. I urge next year’s award judges to stand firm. Enough agency peacocking, more action. https://lnkd.in/e2VkUU7j

What are PR agencies doing to close their gender and ethnicity pay gaps? Today we hear from agencies about steps they're taking as part of the 2024 Pay Gaps Report from PRWeek UK and People Like Us. View a summary of the most popular actions here: https://lnkd.in/e69uCUF7 And click on the article in the comments to hear from agencies directly. Thanks to everyone who gave their insights PrettyGreen John Doe Group Forster Communications Blurred Lansons | Team Farner WPR Agency Wildfire Milk & Honey PR Cirkle Hope&Glory PR Fight or Flight Missive Manifest Group Grayling Teamspirit Harvard Woodrow Proactive International PR PLMR Splendid Communications #PR #Comms

Today we unveil the PRWeek UK x People Like Us gender and ethnicity pay gap study. Beaming with pride as the study is now in its fourth year. We invited UK agencies to voluntarily submit their gender and ethnicity pay gap data. Beyond the numbers, it's a brilliant opportunity to share best practices in EDI, learn more about wider industry trends and most importantly, provides agencies with an evidence-based approach to develop action plans to address disparities head-on. Shout out to the agencies that have voluntarily shared their data, we know it's a step that their teams, clients and wider industry will appreciate. The elephant in the room remains that no large companies entered this year, especially as ethnicity pay gap reporting was included in the King's speech over the summer, meaning they will be required to soon in any case. Expect lots of great analysis on PR Week across the next couple of weeks. Always a joy working with the legends John Harrington and Mike Levaggi on this important study which will hopefully help in making our industry more inclusive where everyone has a fair opportunity to succeed, even in a small way.

Not been to one of our events? Well don't just take our word for it. Hear what Jonathan Reid and Whitney Simon had to say about our last event in partnership with Penguin Random House UK. Tickets for our next event in partnership with The Romans have sold out, but do stay signed up to the waiting list in case of cancellations freeing up spaces....!

We are proud to unveil tickets for People Like Us x The Romans on 3 October. Join us to hear from wonderful journalism, PR, social and marketing talent from ethnically diverse backgrounds at all levels. We'll have 10 speakers - each with a three-minute time slot to tell their story. There will food and drinks (on us), and also plenty of fun to be had, including an opportunity to freshen up your professional headshot (thank you, Mikael Buck), career crash course sessions with the team from Working Wonder Ltd, sessions on avoiding burnout with Sharon Aneja, meet our friends from the Living Wage Foundation, some stand up comedy and more. The event is open to people from ALL backgrounds and levels. It will be a fun evening with good vibes. Let us know if you're worried about attending alone and we’ll happily pair you up with a friendly face nearer the time if it helps make you more comfortable. Don't stress if you didn't grab a ticket in time, pop yourself on the waitlist and we'll do our very best to squeeze you in. If you are on the waitlist, please keep eye on emails from Eventbrite where you’ll have a 24 hour window to claim your ticket when one frees up. Thank you to Dan Green for looking after our branding as always. And to the brilliant Joe Mackay-Sinclair and Katrina Lockwood for all their support on this event.