Framestore is an Academy Award-winning visual effects company combining talent and technology to reframe what’s possible in advertising, film and the wider Creative Industries. Famed for working on blockbuster movies like Paddington, Wicked, and How to Train Your Dragon, Framestore has multiple sites around the world but in this case study, we focus on the approach to engaging future talent in the UK and the work experience programme, run four times annually, to open access for young people and underrepresented groups.
We interviewed Amy Smith, Global Director of Recruitment and Outreach at Framestore to learn more about Framestore’s future-facing approach to EDI, the importance of strong outreach and how neglecting equity runs the risk of us losing not only minoritised talent but also dominant talent that wants to work with organisations striving for social justice.
What are your motivations for addressing diversity and inclusion within your organisation?
I think our big-picture motivation is that we are a creative business and true creativity and innovation only come from having true diversity. We need a diversity of perspectives, skills, experience, and background knowledge—all these things—because if everybody thinks the same and behaves the same, you're never going to innovate anything.
On a more personal level, I suppose the other 'Why?' is because we absolutely acknowledge that talent in our sector exists in all places and if we're not tapping into all places, then we're losing out on talent in a competitive marketplace. At Framestore, we call this work social equity instead of diversity and inclusion. That's because, as a business and as a management team, we believe in social justice and that all businesses and all people have a responsibility to social justice in the spheres they can influence.
How are those motivations embedded in your wider company strategy?
It is stated in our overall company strategy. In our current five-year plan, there are 12 overarching goals. One of those is specifically that we will reach, employ, progress and retain the best, most diverse talent we can to ensure our other goals are met and to be the most creative, innovative business in our sector.
At Framestore, we have a social equity board made up of about 20 individuals representing all our sites and all sorts of different levels, job titles, identities, etc. It's their goal, annually, to set and document the social equity strategy, which includes short-term, medium-term and long-term aims. These are shared with our employees so they can see our social equity strategy and, every time we roll one out, we run workshops to allow anyone who wants to come with feedback or suggestions.
In your opinion, what are the risks of not addressing EDI in your organisation?
There are lots. Starting from the top - not being as innovative and creative as we could be. There is also the pressure from clients. Some clients will not give us work unless we can prove we're active in this space, so the ability to even win work in the first place is a risk. It's also about ensuring we are delivering culturally appropriate work. If we're working on a project based in a particular cultural heritage and you don't have the right people in the room, you're going to get that really badly wrong.
So, there's the quality of the work, and then there's the people level. If we don't get this right, we run the risk of just not being able to retain the best talent because either the talent is from an underrepresented group or it’s people who think, 'I don't want to work with a whole bunch of people who are like me and I want to work for a company that is actually active in this space'. When I say the risk of losing talent, it's not just the underrepresented talent, but also the dominant talent because there are lots of people in that space who believe in social justice and want to work for an organisation that shares their values.
Can you tell us more about Framestore’s approach to EDI?
There are two main parts that I want to share. One is the external piece, which is the outreach and how we make ourselves visible to the right talent at the right time. The other is the internal inclusion piece, so once you've managed to recruit more diverse talent, how do you then actually retain them in the business? It's well-known that the whole visual effects industry struggles with diversity, which means we're not in a position where we can simply hire in diversity at intermediate and above levels because they don't exist in any of our competitors either. So, we've really got to grow our own talent and that's why my job title has 'outreach' in it and why outreach is so important to us because we've got to be filling in opportunities from the bottom. That's why our outreach work takes so many forms.
Our target for 2024 was to reach out to 2,500 young people and we smashed that goal. We reached out to over 3,000 young people during that year and wanted it to be at least 60% female or non-binary, 50% minoritised ethnic groups, 20% from low-income backgrounds and 40% with disability. The only one of those we didn't hit or exceed was disability but we did hit 63% female or non-binary, 50% minoritised ethnic groups, and 28% from low-income backgrounds. We also set ourselves a target to prioritise working with schools or colleges that have more than 60% of their students on free school meals. We hit that target as well because we're really clear with our outreach intent - it's not scattergun or arbitrary. We’re absolutely trying to make sure we're targeting the right people.
How are you reaching your target audience?
In the UK, the way we started was to partner with third-party organisations that already have access to schools, like STEM Ambassadors, Speakers for Schools or the Discover Creative Careers Programme. That's how I started building our connections with schools. If you participate with a school through one of those programmes, they often contact you directly the next year to see if you'll do something with them again. You don't need to keep going through the third party. However, the third party is good for building that network, so I still do both. I have schools that I am now in direct contact with because I've been working with them over time but I'm still building my network through being a STEM ambassador. For me, it's a combination of the two.
Can you share an example of the sort of outcomes you're seeing that show this activity works to drive diversity and inclusion?
One of our work experience students who was 17 years old went on to get herself a job in computer graphics in Japan through the confidence she gained through that work experience. Then, also, there's a young lady who reached out to me on LinkedIn who did our work experience quite a few years ago and is now graduating from Escape Studios Visual Effects course and has got herself a job offer at ILM (Industrial Light & Magic). She reached out to me on LinkedIn to say, 'None of this would have been possible without you' and she said, '[your work experience] changed everything for me because I didn't think there was a career for me in this industry but now look at me'.
Those kinds of stories really make you think, okay, this really is worthwhile. It's not just in my head or in the data - there are real humans for whom we've changed everything. It's so important that those young people feel like they've been given the opportunity to do all the things they always wanted to do and to fulfil their potential.
What do you think makes your approach successful?
I'm doing this because I feel I have to. The system that exists around these young people—education, career advice, government advice—is still exactly the same as it was when I was their age. So, I feel that if the system is not going to help, then we must, especially if we genuinely want to see change. Obviously, the goal here is to change our talent pipeline but we have to accept that out of every group of 60, there may only be two that end up genuinely being interested. But even so, what it does for the other 58 is open their minds to there being other things out there for them than the things they've been presented with, I still see that as a worthwhile thing to have done.
What are some of the next steps for Framestore in terms of EDI?
What I'm finding through the outreach work is that most young people are really interested in apprenticeships. They're more interested in apprenticeships than they are in any other route into our business. So, one of the goals for me is to really expand the apprenticeship offer in terms of volume. Historically, we've had apprentices in the last decade, but in relatively small numbers. If we really want to make sure that this pipeline is robust and that we're not dropping engaged people out of the system, we need to scale apprenticeships, not just at Framestore, but for the whole sector and our industry.
With the best will in the world, if I'm meeting 3,000 young people every year and 300 of them are interested, I can't take 300 apprentices at Framestore alone. I've got to have other places for them to go and that's something I've been talking to some of our competitor organisations about - how we might be able to scale apprenticeships in the most meaningful way. That's a really important next step.
Assuming a young person does start with us either on an apprenticeship or as an intern or junior, the main person who influences their career is their head of department. So, we're doing a big piece of work with our heads of department to make sure that they're confident in this space. It's not that any of our heads of department don't see the importance of this work or don't buy into it - we don't have that issue at Framestore. However, what we do have is a lack of confidence or a feeling that if they don't know something or get something wrong, they'll get cancelled. That's a huge fear in people because they see it all the time in the public realm.
We're also working on revising our appraisal process. If we've got someone who is leading an ERG (Employee Resource Group), for example, how can we recognise that and give that person some form of compensation, whatever it might be, for the additional work they're taking on in that space? That's an important piece of work for us to do too.
What advice or key learning would you share with other organisations considering delivering similar initiatives?
I strongly believe in the quote, 'Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good' and I think that is 100% my best piece of advice in this space. Do something that feels achievable to you, but be consistent with it and it will absolutely grow from there. You will gain confidence and you will gain a better understanding of what young people and schools, etc., are looking for. These things snowball. If you start with where you want the end goal to be and never start anything until you're ready for that end goal, it's never going to happen. Just go for it, things will flourish from there.
Follow Framestore’s work and learn more about how its pool of 3,000 talented artists and producers across the globe brings extraordinary ideas to life by visiting framestore.com.
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