The Pan Macmillan Diversity Equity and Inclusion Pledge

At Pan Macmillan, we are committed to taking Diversity, Equity and Inclusion seriously, ensuring it is at the heart of everything we do. We want to foster a fully inclusive culture and an environment where our employees can be their authentic selves at work, and where the books we publish and the audiences we reach are fully diverse.

We have, and continue to make, progress with DEI:

• Our Staff Networks (Employee Resource Groups) RISE and Pan Mac PRIDE work closely with our Senior Exec and HR Team to address issues that may exist and also to support their members. We hope to establish more ERGs in the coming months with the aim of having safe spaces that encompass everyone at Pan Macmillan.
• With the support of Creative Access, an organization committed to increasing diversity in publishing, we have brought some brilliant paid interns to Pan Macmillan, and, in a number of cases, we have extended those contracts. We know we need to do more work to support those individuals long term and to develop them within the business.
• Our partnership with Eric Festival has connected us with thousands of people from the Black and non-Black POC communities who we hope to inspire to pursue careers in publishing. We will continue to work with them on events and other means to engage with diverse audiences and attract more diverse applicants to our business. Moreover, we will build on this partnership and work with them on several new initiatives. 
• To encourage diversity among our freelance proofreaders and to support newcomers to the industry, we sponsored, in association with the Publishing Training Centre (PTC), an industry-recognized proofreading course for trainees from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in publishing – including, but not limited to, Black, Asian and ethnically diverse candidates, disabled people, neurodivergent people, and transgender and genderfluid people. This was a positive action proofreading traineeship that provided 8 placements on a proofreading course run by the PTC. Following the completion of this course, the placements had the opportunity to complete paid digital proofreading work and received mentoring and feedback.
• We have formed a partnership with the Black Writers’ Guild, the purpose of which is to create a strong connection between Black stakeholders in publishing and senior decision-makers in the industry, and to discuss concerns and trends in the output of publishers.
• We have engaged with Stonewall, who have delivered Trans Inclusion Training to our staff, and we will be participating in their Workplace Equality Index to assess Pan Macmillan’s achievements and progress on LGBTQ+ equality.
• We monitor our press coverage for authors of colour to ensure campaigns are benchmarked against white authors. We also measure our reach into readers of colour to ensure that our campaigns are fully inclusive in terms of readership.
• Pan Macmillan were the headline sponsors of the 2022 Black British Book Festival. Founded by Selina Brown, the event aims to demystify the publishing industry and assist in removing barriers for Black authors. As part of the programme, Pan Macmillan staff members mentored festival goers, providing advice on how to edit submissions and giving an insight into jobs within the industry.

We have just recruited our first DEI Specialist whose remit is to develop and implement a DEI strategy which will enable us to be more equitable in our practices and thus create a diverse and inclusive place to work.

In the next few months we intend to publish our strategy with a set of specific goals for the next 2–5 years. These goals will not only help us attract and recruit a diverse pool of talent, but also ensure our books and authors appeal to everyone. Our strategy will help us to focus our efforts on making a real change within publishing. We will endeavour to work with relevant organizations that represent people from all ethnicities, races, gender identities, sexual orientations, ages and socio-economic backgrounds to ensure who we are and what we publish is fully inclusive.

We know there is a lot of work to be done at Pan Macmillan, but we are committed to achieving our goals. We will continue to update our progress here and will also publish our DEI strategy once it has been developed.