Diversity & inclusion at work podcast series – a producer’s perspective

Hello! My name is Alice – I’m a Senior Marketing Executive at ILX, and I produce our podcast series.

In May, we launched our ‘ Diversity & Inclusion at work ’ series, which focused on some of the many issues affecting workplaces today.

When we first decided as a company to dedicate a whole podcast series to this area, I knew it was going to be a huge undertaking. Not only was the sheer amount of work involved incredibly daunting, but getting the tone right with such sensitive issues was a massive responsibility.

The goal was to have frank, open discussions around real experiences. I felt very strongly from the start that, although I wanted the conversations to be raw and uncensored, I didn’t want the listener to be left feeling either helpless or separate from the situation – it needed to be clear that there are solutions to many of the issues raised, and that everyone has a part to play in realising these. As such, a lot of time was spent initially drafting out what the series was going to sound like – how it would be structured, what sorts of questions would be asked, what the overall tone would be, and what we wanted the outcome to be.

As recording got underway, it quickly became apparent that finding people to talk about such sensitive topics was going to be tougher than I first thought. For some areas, there were plenty of willing volunteers, but for others it was more challenging, particularly when trying to portray a variety of viewpoints. Of course, this in and of itself is very telling – even in safe spaces, these topics are still hard to talk about. The fear for some that t