Vote for diversity and inclusion!

An election is looming, a divisive referendum in the UK’s recent political history. There are many issues that have been overshadowed by Brexit, and we want to take a moment to highlight one of them. We want to promote inclusion.

In recent months Manifesto has proudly become an active member of the Stonewall Diversity Champions programme. This election, Stonewall are encouraging people to #ComeOutVoting, to use your voice to support the LGBTQ+ community.

We’ve always been a company of open-minded, open-hearted people but we recognised we needed to do a better job of promoting Manifesto as a fully inclusive place to work. We now wholeheartedly and unashamedly wear our value of inclusion on our sleeves, on our social media and in our email signatures. Using our communication channels, like this blog post, to support LGBT equality.

We’ve aligned all of our practices to Stonewall’s recommendations. This involved a  review of our internal policies to make sure that our value of equality isn’t just an inner value that we hold as a cohort operating in the commercial world, but that it’s actively communicated to all our staff and any new starters.

Overarchingly our policies now reflect that:

“Here at Manifesto, we want great people in our team. However you identify and wherever you’re from, you can belong here. What’s most important to us is having a creative, dynamic team who live our values of collaboration and excellence every day. We’re 100% committed to fostering an open, supportive and inclusive culture where everyone can focus on just being themselves while reaching their full potential”

As part of this, Manifesto line managers will receive refresher training to ensure equality is always at the forefront of human interaction. We also have an active LGBTQ+ working group that is there to be the voice of equality as well as arrange celebratory and social action within the East London community.

Manifesto’s design team has created a suite of expressive logos to be used during key times of the year to celebrate diversity. Apart from providing greater visibility across our networks, this was also an exercise in brand representation and positive evolution. 

Day to day, many Manifestonians already include the Stonewall Diversity Champion logo in their email signature. We now have our very own diversity logo for our email signatures so that clients, partners, and suppliers are equally aware that here at Manifesto “However you identify, wherever you’re from, you can belong here”.

Talking about the value of unity is important, and as important is talking about it to our law makers and leaders to support the hard-won rights of the past 30 years.

If you want to #ComeOutVoting, or if you’re interested to know more about what Stonewall is doing to make sure MPs are talking about inclusion. Please go to: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/come-out-voting