We are made up of more than 5,000 passionate, dedicated, and inquisitive people. We want all our colleagues to make their mark, be inspired, and embrace fresh thinking. To do this, we strive to provide a working environment where everyone can thrive, belong, pursue equal opportunities, and develop their skills and careers.
Diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing
When it comes to establishing a diverse and inclusive workplace, we understand that real change takes time. We continue to work towards the following representation aims:
- 50% women in leadership positions by 2024
- Improve ethnicity representation to mirror in-country demographics
Women's representation at leadership level has increased to 45% in December 2022.
We have two guiding principles at the heart of what we do:
Inclusion First: Creating an inclusive environment where we acknowledge our differences and seek diverse perspectives.
Conscious Diversity: Acknowledging and addressing our unconscious biases to help us to build diversity within OUP.
Our efforts are aligned with the Gender Equality and Reduced Inequalities Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Underpinning our work in diversity and inclusion (D&I) is our flagship Global Inclusion Programme, which helps colleagues to learn, reflect, and better understand unconscious bias, active allyship, and inclusive behaviours. 92% of colleagues—including 97% of managers—have now completed the programme.
In 2022 the programme was recognized in both HRO Today's Inclusion Awards and the Great British Businesswoman Awards.
We also continually strive to enhance our recruitment processes to bring the best talent and skills into our organization:
- We advertize our jobs on platforms for underrepresented groups, including Creative Access, Vercida, and many others.
- We use a gender decoder to make sure our job postings showcase inclusive language and expand our pool of diverse talent.
- We shortlist applicants based on applicable and transferrable skills, rather than just job title, education, or previous employers. This has helped us to recruit diverse talent in a variety of roles across OUP.
Our efforts are helping us increase our diversity:
- In the UK, hires from minority ethnic groups has increased from 10% in 2021 to 18% in 2022, mirroring similar growth in the publishing workforce according to The Publishers Association.
- Colleagues declaring a disability in the UK has increased from 3.5% in 2021 to 5% in 2022.
Our Inclusion Index* improved by 8 points since 2021, and is currently higher than the market benchmark of 70.
We firmly believe that everyone at OUP has a personal responsibility to make OUP a more diverse, inclusive place to work. Following employee listening sessions and our strategy commitments, we launched D&I guidelines which set out employees' individual roles and responsibilities in role-modelling inclusive behaviours and shaping a more inclusive culture.
The health and wellbeing of our colleagues is extremely important to us. Along with their family members, they can now access our global Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) which is available in regional languages. In 2022, our EAP assisted 132 cases across all our regions.
Supporting career development
Since launching last year, our Learning and Development Hub has been visited almost 45,000 times. The hub is designed to help colleagues explore growth opportunities available to them, including how to apply for:
Our ELEVATE programme, which supports underrepresented groups to grow and develop in their careers. Since joining the scheme, 67% of participants said they feel ready for a more senior role.
External mentoring opportunities for both women and underrepresented groups, as part of Mission Gender Equity and Mission Include.
Workplace coaching opportunities to help colleagues navigate change, provide focused career development support, and make coaching available to a broader spectrum of people through a diverse pool of internal coaches.
We also provide free, unlimited access to LinkedIn Learning—a catalogue of over 15,000 quality courses to help build software, creative, and business skills.
In 2022, we identified 33 colleagues to take part in our professional development programme, ASPIRE. This programme supports our future leaders to deliver change, deepen their leadership capability, increase inclusivity, and meet our organization's future needs. 78% of participants on the programme are female.
Since launching in 2021, more than 2,000 colleagues have now been trained across our Sales Development Programme, which offers a suite of skills-related blending learning to, primarily, sales colleagues. The programme has been endorsed by the Institute of Sales Professionals.
Case studies
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