Hachette UK’s Valuable 500 Commitment:
Our mission at Hachette UK is to make it easy for everyone, everywhere to unlock new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity. To achieve this, we have to attract and retain talent that is fully reflective of the world we live in, and become the employer and publisher for everyone. ‘Changing the Story’ is one of four pillars of our business strategy and it puts diversity and inclusion at the heart of everything we do. It’s a programme of employee networks, policy changes, partnerships and initiatives through which we will achieve our mission. We want to build a talented staff base that is representative of all readers and culture.
We believe greater diversity and inclusion enriches creativity and means better books for everyone. Changing the Story has organic, grassroots energy at its heart. We empower our people both to take ownership of the change they want to see, and to hold the leadership team accountable for that change.
We recognise that we are at the beginning of our disability inclusion journey, and we are, therefore, proud to be a member of Valuable 500. This gives us a unique opportunity to take the lead in changing lives, to remove barriers and foster a culture of accessibility to actively include people with disabilities.
We are committed to creating a workplace where people of all abilities can succeed as well as to mainstream disability issues to ensure everyone can achieve their full potential and contribute to our business in a meaningful way.
Supported by an executive sponsor we have a very active Accessibility Network at Hachette UK, which has pioneered many interventions around disability and representation.
In partnership with our Accessibility Network, we will work towards achieving a Disability Confident accreditation and continue to review our recruitment practices to ensure our opportunities are accessible. We acknowledge that we are in the very early stages of the work we need to do to increase representation and inclusion of staff with disabilities.
- This year, we have partnered with Mencap, the UK’s leading learning disability charity, to deliver talks, and run fundraising activities and awareness-raising events. The partnership aims to raise awareness and improve understanding of learning disability by generating as much visibility of people with a learning disability as possible, to reduce the everyday stigma and misunderstanding this group faces.
- In partnership with our Accessibility Network and King’s College London, we have been running a ‘Turning Pages’ internship since 2018, which provides a four-week placement for a King’s College London student with a disability.
- In 2020, Hachette UK became the first publisher to win a British Dyslexia Association (BDA) Smart Award, in recognition of our efforts to promote good practice and support the needs of dyslexic and neurodiverse individuals. This has included creating a set of guidelines for producing dyslexia-friendly texts and workplaces, which was written by Hachette UK’s Accessibility Network and Jessica Kingsley Publishers, in consultation with the BDA.
As part of our Diversity and Inclusion strategy, we will continue to champion our Accessibility Network to raise awareness and promote disability, inclusion and equality. We will also commit to ensuring that disability inclusion remains a priority on our board agenda, together with taking robust action, with monitoring and evaluation, to ensure that progress takes place and that our ongoing work programmes and initiatives supports positive change.
