Yoto Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
More diverse content
At Yoto, we celebrate diversity. As we grow, we are working hard on helping families foster an inclusive environment through the content in our library.
We’re working with our partners to licence more great kids’ audio by creators from diverse backgrounds, and which feature diverse characters, stories and perspectives.
Following your feedback, we are proud to continue to add more content from creators who identify as coming from an underrepresented group, titles that include themes dealing with diversity and inclusion, together with different representations of a variety of families. We are an audio company and we believe that diversity should be represented in narration too! And where this content isn’t available from our publishing partners, we strive to develop it ourselves as part of our Yoto Originals range.
If you want to build an inclusive and diverse Card collection for your child, click here to see a few recommendations.
If you have suggestions of kids’ audiobooks, music or podcasts which you’d like to hear on Yoto, please let us know. We’re always open to suggestions from our community!
Yoto Team
In addition to our content library, we are working hard to continue to build a culturally, socially and ethnically diverse workforce that represents the beautiful diversity of our customers. We recognise that a diverse and inclusive work environment promotes innovation, leads to better decision-making and will continue to help us provide even more diverse content.
One of our Company values is ‘Embrace Difference’. We recognise that when we’re our true selves, we’re our best selves. We trust, respect and support each other so that life and work can work together. As part of this value, we welcome everyone, and we highly value and celebrate the perspective of new voices, beliefs and perspectives to our team.
We have a passionate and engaged DE&I group - which is sponsored by a member of the Yoto Executive Team - and we are always working to introduce ways of working that foster a positive and purposeful environment where everyone feels listened to.
We celebrate various international awareness days by holding events and profiling team members through ‘meet the team interviews’, to bring the team together and learn from different experiences and perspectives - whether it be around Neurodiversity or Women in Technology.
Our flexible ‘choice-based’ approach to work means everyone can be in control of the day-to-day decisions on where and when they work, which means everyone can create a setup that works for them and one in which they can thrive. This means we can easily accommodate any special requirements or needs of individuals to ensure no one is excluded.
We are dedicated to tracking and further diversifying our team. This past International Women's Day, we set an ambitious target to increase the representation of women within our technology team. We are now on a mission to ensure that at least 40% of our new hires in the technology team are women, acknowledging their underrepresentation in this space.
To achieve this, we have made several changes to our recruitment process:
- We ensure that every interview process includes a diverse panel of interviewers, helping candidates feel more comfortable being themselves at Yoto. We also collect candidate feedback and take it very seriously to inform our future recruitment processes and create an inclusive experience for everyone.
- We do not insist on minimum education qualifications (unless a specific role requires it) - prioritising experience, passion and attitude instead
- Our job descriptions are reviewed to remove language that may be subtly ‘gender coded’ and, wherever possible, we conduct panel interviews (with a minimum of two interviewers) to eliminate any risk of bias.
- Finally, we commit to paying London Real Living Wage rates - regardless of where someone is based in the UK - and we extend this out to the equivalent standards amongst our international teams.
We will continue to evolve our recruitment processes to help us actively seek and attract candidates from diverse backgrounds and communities.
Everyone at Yoto is expected to join us in creating an atmosphere of equality within the Company. We have a zero tolerance approach to any allegations and together we are working hard to foster a safe, speaking up culture where everyone should be heard with no judgement.
Feel like you have something to contribute and that Yoto would be an environment where you could thrive? Check out our Careers page, and get in touch.
Mental Health
At Yoto, we are working to create a safe space that is free of stigma, and open about mental health issues. We recognise that mental health is a crucial component of overall well-being.
We have excellent regional Employee Assistance Programmes in place, trained mental health first aiders, and opportunities to keep learning and talking about mental health. We also have a Mental Health at Work Policy to ensure everyone is clear on their responsibilities in this space, and to make all the support mechanisms available truly accessible.
Furthermore, our flexible work hours and remote work options allow employees to prioritise their mental and physical health, and promote a positive work / life balance.
What’s next?
An environment of diversity and inclusiveness is not built in a day. We will keep listening, and learning, and will continue to strive to build a truly diverse and inclusive culture that we can all be proud of.
