The role of the media & entertainment industry in shaping the minds of future generations to be more accepting of diversity cannot be overstated. Despite a very public campaign to promote diversity within the media houses, reports suggest that these are only moderately successful.
Historically, media has played a huge role in propagating stereotypes and in shaping public opinion. As more diverse talent entered the media industry, the message of diversity & inclusion became more prominently represented in the mainstream. It is imperative that this trend continues.
Prominent media houses like the BBC have publicly committed to invest USD 124 million into Diverse Productions & Talent. One prominent North American production house has also pledged to employ at least 20% of minority talent across their projects.
The question still remains; are such measures enough?
While investing in new, diverse talent is always welcome, Draup’s analysis reveals how reskilling can be an even more potent ally to fulfil D&I goals.
Before we delve into how this can be achieved, let’s lay the groundwork and explore the current state of ethnic diversity in the US media & entertainment industry.
Diversity Across Emerging Job Roles In Talent Hotspots
The presence of minority talent in new-age, in-demand roles is always a good indicator of how well a particular minority is placed within an industry in terms of representation and opportunities.
Draup conducted a comprehensive analysis of relevant job roles important for the functioning of Media and Entertainment firms and synthesized them into two job clusters; 1.) New-age roles & 2.) Traditional jobs.
The results were not encouraging.
What stood out immediately was the decline in industry demand for traditional jobs and the rise in demand for new-age roles. These declining traditional roles were exactly where most of the minority talent was concentrated in.
This increase in demand included job roles such as Content Engineer (22%), AI/ML Specialist (18%), Unity Developer(22%) and Editorial Analyst (15%). In other words, traditional job roles such as Voice Producer, Customer Service Coordinator, IT Support Coordinator and others were at increased risk of disruption.
Out of the 520,000-talent employed in traditional roles, a disproportionate 150,000 are minority talent. Compare this to the total new-age talent pool size of 108,000 out of which only 39,000 are minority talent; it is easy to see the problem enterprises are facing.
Out of 628,000 analyzed talent pool in Media & Entertainment Industry, the presence of underrepresented minorities in fast–growing, new-age jobs is low compared to all ethnic groups.
Reskilling: The Way Forward
As noted in the previous sections, underrepresented minorities are highly concentrated in Traditional Job clusters which are getting disrupted due to automation. But this disrupted minority talent from traditional jobs can be trained with advanced new–age skills to fill the talent gap in emerging roles.
While skill gaps vary across various verticals like Film, Television, Radio, Gaming, Digital & OOH, the consensus is that when it comes to new-age skills like AI, ML, AR/VR, Advanced Analytics, & other skills, this gap stands at a staggering ~40%.
How would such a reskilling strategy work?
Our analysts have formulated a 4-step plan that involves:
- Skill identification of high demand roles
- Skill gap identification between the starting and the desired role
- Analysis of feasible transitions based on relevant Reskilling parameters
- Suitable learning module selection to bridge the skill gaps
To present our case for reskilling, we performed a sample reskilling exercise for the “IT System Administrator” job role.
The target job role we chose was Data Analyst- Customer Experience, a role that requires extensive knowledge of analytical tools, visualization languages & database handling experience.
By identifying their existing skillset, we propose certification in Data Analyst- Consumer Behavior Specialization (Coursera) as the optimal study path. Our reskilling model estimates that the talent could be satisfactorily reskilled in about 6-10 months.
By leveraging this functionality, workforce planners can quickly re/upskill their minority talent, thus enabling them to transition into more sustainable and future-proof job roles.
Using our proprietary Draup for Talent platform, talent managers get access to dashboards from where they can perform a diversity & reskilling analysis for their minority talent. We have previously published similar reskilling analysis for roles in Retail and Insurance in the US exploring this very facet.
Draup’s Diversity Navigator enables HR leaders to visualize ethnic and gender diversity across business functions, geographies, and job role taxonomies. By leveraging the insights from Diversity Navigator, HR leaders are empowered to elevate the career path of minorities, using the Reskilling Navigator.
