Creative Circle is passionate about building inclusive work environments where everyone feels valued and heard. Our efforts aim to create more equitable workplaces for all employees, our talent network, and our clients. It’s not only morally imperative — it’s also critical for the bottom line, as research shows organizations that include people of diverse backgrounds produce significantly more innovative, creative, and effective results.

Our DEI efforts start from within. We employ a workforce that reflects the makeup of society around us, in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, physical ability, and more. This equips us to attract the best talent in the industry, and in turn, our clients benefit from a broad range of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.

“Diversity in the workplace is extremely important to candidates, as they want to work for a company that is made up of people with different ideas, backgrounds, and life experiences,” says Shannon Robinson, a senior recruiter for Creative Circle. “When candidates see a variety of different types of people in various departments, as well as in middle management and senior management, then they know they’ll have a fair shot at those opportunities as well.”

Our DEI Mission

We know that diversity, equity, and inclusion make us all better, so we continually work to ensure they remain core to everything we do at Creative Circle. Our vision is clear: To champion the perspectives, voices, and values of our communities by being fiercely anti-prejudice, openly supportive of marginalized communities, and uncompromising in our dedication to equity and inclusion.

We are proud to have taken tangible steps to make Creative Circle a more supportive environment for people of all backgrounds. But we also know that the work is never finished. And as we continue to improve our internal operations and culture, we are also committed to helping our clients achieve bias-free workplaces.

Inclusive recruiting

Creative Circle is dedicated to recruiting a diverse pool of candidates for all positions we fill. We use a variety of job boards and proactive recruitment channels to reach a wide range of candidates and have partnerships with organizations that promote diversity in the creative space.

Implicit bias training

Implicit bias, while not intentional, can unfairly impede minority jobseekers and result in stale, homogenous workplaces. All Creative Circle employees receive implicit bias training to drive objective hiring, provide more opportunities to our candidates from marginalized groups, and support our clients in their diversity hiring efforts.

DEI education

Creative Circle offers regular DEI training and resources to our clients and freelancers to help them better understand and champion DEI in their work. We accomplish this via our robust DEI Education Resource Library for our candidates and clients, which we developed in partnership with Johnson Squared, an inclusion-first diversity and equity consulting agency.

Diversity in Leadership

As of 2021, women and nonbinary employees make up 80% of our company’s workforce, including 65% of the senior leadership team. We are committed to expanding our workforce diversity further along other dimensions, and we have set goals to achieve this.

Employee Resource Groups

In 2020, we established employee resource groups (ERGs) to foster supportive and inclusive communities within the organization. Our nine (and counting) ERGs provide communities for employees with various different experiences and interests, including Black women, parents and caregivers, neurodivergent employees, and more. Creative Circle supports every ERG through executive sponsorship, professional development, community outreach, networking, recruiting, and shared experience.

Diversity-Focused Partnerships

We are proud to partner with the Emma Bowen Foundation, an organization that provides paid internships for students of color in the media and tech industries. Since its founding in 1989, EBF has connected more than 1,300 students of color to some of the nation’s leading media companies and continues to advocate for best practices in hiring, retention, and advancement in the media and technology industries. Today, the Emma Bowen Foundation helps us source exceptional students of color for our internal job openings as well as contract and full-time roles with our clients.

To increase the reach of and access to our opportunities, we post all our clients’ roles on Professional Diversity Network (PDN), the nation’s number one, single-source diversity online recruitment company that focuses on reaching both active and passive diverse professionals.

Community Outreach

Beyond striving for the most inclusive environments possible for us and our clients, we also have a commitment to supporting organizations that promote diversity and inclusion in the broader creative community. Local Creative Circle teams have sponsored events including Women in Business summits at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, the “Diaspora: The Art of Blackness” exhibition at Harrington College of Design in Chicago, the S.H.E. Summit in New York City, WomenHack in San Francisco, and more.

Corporate Social Responsibility

While we at Creative Circle are laser-focused on bringing creative visions to life, we are also committed to making the community around us a better place to work and live. We are proud to support local and national nonprofit organizations, implement sustainable best practices, and prioritize diversity and inclusion within the organization. Read more about our commitment from our parent company, ASGN.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up the workforce in myriad ways — disproportionately impacting women and undermining much of the progress towards gender equality in corporate America. While it’s promising that women are returning the workforce, they continue to encounter challenges that keep them from climbing the ranks within their organizations.

In the face of this, Creative Circle, a recruiting and consulting services company based in Los Angeles, has remained steadfast in its dedication to putting women to work. Every year, Creative Circle partners with its clients across North America to place thousands of women in contract and full-time positions in the creative, advertising, and marketing space.

Creative Circle’s dedication to women starts from within, with a culture that is centered around people and relationships. The company’s president, Matt Riley, emphasizes that before Creative Circle had offices across North America and powerful recruitment technology, there was just one office — filled with individuals who worked diligently to put people to work and bring creative visions to life. As the company expanded its scope, the team has made certain that Creative Circle stays true to its people-focused roots.

And this promise has paid off. Today, women make up 80% of the company’s workforce, including 60% of the senior leadership team. Recently, Creative Circle established multiple employee resource groups (ERGs) that provide support for women and engage with relevant issues, both within the company and beyond.

While proud of these accomplishments, Creative Circle strives to do even more. From setting ambitious goals to hire and promote more women, to expanding parental benefits and sponsoring women-specific networking opportunities for employees and contractors, Creative Circle is committed to supporting women both within and outside of its walls.

Beyond empowering employees and contract candidates, Creative Circle also supports women in underserved communities globally. Every year, Creative Circle allocates tens of thousands of dollars for each office, division, and ERG to donate to a charity of their choice; some recent recipients include Black Mamas Matter Alliance, Feeding America, Charlie’s Army, My Sister’s Place, Gensis Women’s Shelter, and Girls Who Code.

Creative Circle is proud of the women it employs and the tremendous impact they continue to have on the company and the broader community. Riley shares that he hopes other companies will be inspired by Creative Circle’s dedication and will take similar steps to empower women in the workforce.

 

Black History Month pays tribute to the generations of Black Americans who have fought against adversity and the barriers of institutional racism in the United States and abroad. Black creatives have a history of pushing art and culture forward through innovation, activism, and infinite creativity. Our list celebrates some contemporary black voices that are helping shape American culture right now. Black Women of Creative Circle, a Creative Circle Employee Resource Group (ERG), share their favorite black creators – superstars and up-and-comers! Throughout the month of February, we’ll be updating this list with new creatives we love, from internal suggestions as well as suggestions from you!

Creators We Love

  • Keith Lee
    • Keith Lee is a Tik Tok food creator who does reviews and changes lives.
  • Canvii
    • Canvii is a platform created to promote and connect black artists from all over the world.
  • Robin Barnes
    • Robin Barnes is an award-winning singer, who also is a rising nonprofit owner, fitness entrepreneur, and influencer. To learn more about her “fitness krewe”, follow her on @moveyabrass
  • Ijorere
    • Ijorere is a Chicago-based wedding & party invitation designer who creates artful luxury designs for people’s big moments.
  • Nneka
  • Everything Eryn
    • Eryn is an interior designer and DIY content creator.
  • Well-Read Black Girl
    • Glory Edim is the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, who has created a platform to share books by black authors. Glory also hosts the Well-Read Black Girl Podcast.
  • Phoebe Robinson
    • Phoebe Robinson is a multi-talented author, book lover, hilarious comedian, and actress.
  • Tamisha “Misha”
    • Misha is a coffee lover, fashionista, designer, and production manager.
  • Phylicia Felix “LeeCee”
    • Phylicia Felix is a youtuber, book lover, and a style/fashion icon.
  • Stephon Carson
    • Stephon Carson is a men’s style content creator, who puts a unique twist on classic vintage styles.
  • Paul Howard
    • Paul Howard is a New York-based photographer who specializes in portrait photography.
  • Good Moms Bad Choices
    • Erica Dickerson and Jamilah Mapp host the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast that is challenging the norms of motherhood.

Continue reading “Black Women of Creative Circle’s Favorite Black Creators” →

Say hello to Pride Month, a rainbow-hued celebration of LGBTQ+ folks. The month-long mix of parades, parties, and pasties reflects incredible social, political, and cultural leaps forward over the last few decades, ushering in a more welcoming environment for all who identify as queer.

Today, it’s common for corporations to acknowledge Pride Month. But for those people who have seen Pride celebrated every June of their lives, mere recognition is no longer enough.

This year’s festivities are shadowed by numerous pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that have passed or been proposed since last June, disproportionately affecting transgender Americans and queer youth. Savvy consumers are paying attention to which brands are true allies 365 days a year and which are just dancing down Rainbow-Washing Way. As corporate Pride campaigns in June have gone mainstream, there is mounting pressure from this newer cadre of consumers to make more tangible, substantial commitments to the LGBTQ+ community.

“One of the biggest pitfalls is when we see companies that only want to have this conversation in June,” shared Jean-Marie Navetta, Director of Learning and Inclusion at PFLAG National, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. “That is problematic because people who are queer are queer every single day and every single month of the year.”

Some of these rainbow-come-June companies have internal policies that discriminate against queer employees, engage in business practices that are actively damaging to the queer community, or support anti-LGBTQ+ politicians, prompting the term “rainbow-washing” — cashing in on Pride merchandise while doing little to support LGBTQ+ organizations.

But the good news is that some companies are knocking it out of Pride park by being true supporters of LGBTQ+ rights. Here are four organizations doing Pride right. All the companies listed rank high on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, a nonprofit that is the national benchmark for corporate policies, practices, and benefits as they pertain to the LGBTQ+ community.

 

ABERCROMBIE & FITCH

A&F x The Trevor Project | Gender Inclusive ‘Pride Hoodie’

With a muted colorblock design reminiscent of LGBTQ+ flag colors, this oversized hoodie works for various shapes, sizes, and genders. It’s part of Abercrombie & Fitch’s gender-inclusive collection, co-created with The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth.

In support of Pride 2022 and their ongoing partnership, Abercrombie & Fitch is donating $400,000 to The Trevor Project, regardless of sales. To date, Abercrombie & Fitch has raised over $2.8 million for The Trevor Project.

Abercrombie & Fitch has long had comprehensive and inclusive benefits for U.S. Employees. Health insurance and other benefits are equivalent for different-sex and same-sex couples.

🏳🏳️‍🌈️‍ Received a perfect score of 100 on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index/Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ for the last 16 years

ADIDAS

Adidas ‘Love Unites’ Print Pride Tracksuit

Queer artist Kris Andrew Small designed Adidas’ Pride capsule collection, which includes apparel, accessories, and footwear like limited edition Stan Smith Pride shoes. His work spreads a message of empowerment and support for the LGBTQ+ community. It’s inspired by the pop art and graphic design of the 1970s and 1980s, which helped shape his lens as a creative. In this doodle-driven print design are hidden messages of acceptance and self-love for people to discover.

Adidas’ goal for the collection was to bring visibility to the many voices of the LGBTQ+ community. They are continuing their partnerships with longtime British LGBTQ+ advocacy group Stonewall U.K. and Athlete Ally, an organization focused on ending homophobia and transphobia in sports.

🏳️‍🌈 Top-rated Brand: HRC Corporate Equality Index/Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+

APPLE

Apple Watch Pride Edition Sport Loop

Proud All Year Long is the tagline on the Apple.com website, clearly signaling their 365 days a year approach to supporting the LGBTQ+ community. In honor of Pride 2022, Apple has released two Apple Watch Pride Edition watchbands for 2022. The regular Sport Loop features the word “Pride” woven into the rainbow band, including shades of black, brown, and pink to recognize the trans, Black, and Latinx communities.

A darker Pride Edition Nike Sport Loop, featuring a matching rainbow-colored Nike Bounce face, honors “individuals who are expanding sport for future generations,” according to the company.

Apple continues to support many LGBTQ+ organizations like GLSEN — The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, The Trevor Project, and the Human Rights Campaign, among others. CEO Tim Cook came out as gay in October 2014, becoming the first “out” CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He famously said, “I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.”

🏳🏳️‍🌈 Top-rated Brand: HRC Corporate Equality Index/Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+

CHIPOTLE

Chipotle Pride 2022 Burrito 

Chipotle has been LGBTQ+-friendly from the beginning. The founder, Steve Ells, is an openly gay man. Though he stepped down as CEO in 2017, 27 years after founding this innovative chain, Chipotle continues to be an uber-inclusive company.

This year, Chipotle worked with its Pride employee resource group to identify key issues that members of the LGBTQ+ community face and, in response, developed its first-ever yearlong support program.

One of its new initiatives is partnering with Happy Hippie — a nonprofit organization founded by Miley Cyrus — whose mission is to fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBTQ+ youth, and other vulnerable populations. The goal is to provide $250,000 in free Chipotle food to Happy Hippie’s partner LGBTQ+ centers across the United States so that they have real food throughout the year.

A longtime Pride supporter, Chipotle celebrates equality with its employees and customers. They offer enhanced paid parental leave for adoptive parents, same-sex couples, and paternity leave, and cover care and surgical costs for their trans employees.

🏳️‍🌈 Received a perfect score of 100 on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index/Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+

Bottom Line

Brands that are true allies 365 days a year are the ones whose rainbow ad campaigns speak to more than just jubilant June Pride celebrations. They are showing up for their LGBTQ+ employees and the queer community at large all year long by making tangible, substantial commitments beyond a kaleidoscopic marketing splash. To do Pride right, consider partnering with known LGBTQ+ organizations and take stock of how your internal policies align with your June Pride marketing.

 

About the author. 

An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist—Karina writes, produces, and edits compelling content across multiple platforms—including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Yahoo News, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties and has spanned insight pieces on psychedelic toad medicine to forecasting the future of work to why sustainability needs to become more sustainable. 

The ongoing pandemic, coupled with Americans’ fast-changing attitudes about their life at work, has radically reshaped the labor landscape.  
Sluggish demographic growth and a growing legion of burned out workers who are opting out means that the pool of available labor is diminishing. Employees have made such a dramatic beeline for the exit that Texas A&M professor Anthony Klotz coined the term The Great Resignation.  

Organizations are struggling to fill roles and retain burned out employees, which means that workers have become increasingly important stakeholders. Employers need to rethink work and management styles, adjust their strategies, and innovate quickly because right now, the odds are not ever-in-their-favor. Job openings are near an all-time high, and with talent pipelines at a slow drip, hiring has become a rough and tumble full contact sport. 

But as the game ratchets up into ever-higher gear, one innovative solution is hiding in plain sight: older workers.  

Baby boomers may just be the answer to the labor shortage challenge.  
When most of us think of freelancers, we envision millennials. While they have embraced the gig economy, they are increasingly working alongside middle-aged and older Americans seeking alternate ways to stay employed past the traditional retirement age. 

Workers age 55 or older have been leaving their jobs at higher rates than before the pandemic — the share of older workers who exited increased by 7.6% points during the pandemic — but many are not ready to retire. The Pew Research Center estimates that 20% of the American gig economy — from marketing consultants to Uber drivers — are over 50. 

Businesses may pay a high price if they don’t recast their labor market lens. A 2021 report by AARP estimates that excluding older workers could cost the United States economy nearly $4 trillion by 2050. Today’s labor shortage is an opportunity to evolve thinking for individual and collective benefit.  

Generational diversity does a company good. 
Employers get a lot of proverbial bang for their buck when they create an age-inclusive workplace. A 2013 study of 147 German companies, published in the Journal of Management, found higher profits and growth projections in organizations with a mix of workers of various ages and higher employee productivity and retention rates.  

Older workers bring cognitive diversity to their teams, which improves business performance. Mixed-age work teams have higher relative productivity. An AARP study found that age diversity in a group involved in complex decision-making tasks performed better than mono-age teams. And age diversity within an organization can lower employee turnover.  

Hiring older workers can both ease the challenge of hiring in this tight labor market and result in greater generational diversity for businesses, bestowing the benefits that diversity in all its guises brings to operations and the bottom line. For this to happen, organizations will need to shift their acquisition strategies to be more all-encompassing and be conscious of moving past implicit age bias that often hampers older workers’ employment searches.  

Hiring managers need to remove coded language like “recent college graduate” from job descriptions and dispense with terms like “ninja,” “digital native,” “rock star,” and “guru,” among others. Older workers being tech-illiterate or overqualified are common assumptions that need to be left aside. Instead, talent acquisition teams should focus on the knowledge and expertise that come with experience, which are the main predictors of job performance. Older workers frequently outperform their younger counterparts on many success metrics, like stronger interpersonal skills, less turnover, and less absenteeism.  

Say hello to returnships and partnering with organizations dedicated to older adults. 
One way to leverage older workers’ skills is to offer “returnships” — full-time paid internships for adults who have been out of the workforce for several years. Returnships help get people back to paid work while giving employers a chance to diversify their workforce to reflect the communities their businesses are serving more accurately.   

Another smart way to access job-ready older workers is to partner with organizations that can help recruit talent across age groups. AARP Foundation has several job skills training programs, such as the Digital Skills Ready@50+ initiative, which focuses on training more vulnerable older adults, like women and people of color, in underserved communities. Its goal is to help this demographic group gain the digital skills to succeed in today’s tech-driven workplace. Partnering with organizations like AARP can offer companies a pipeline of older candidates to consider who have the necessary digital skills to be job-ready from the jump.  

Bottom Line:  
Today’s hiring challenges can become tomorrow’s opportunity — but nothing will change if employers don’t abandon hiring and firing practices that favor the young. To be competitive in this market means companies need to reinvent how they approach diversity, including age in the matrix, and rethink whom they invest in. It’s the dawning of a new day indeed. 

 

About the author
An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist—Karina writes, produces, and edits compelling content across multiple platforms—including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Yahoo News, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties and has spanned insight pieces on psychedelic toad medicine to forecasting the future of work to why sustainability needs to become more sustainable. 

Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month pays tributes to the generations of Asians and Pacific Islanders who have enriched America’s history and are instrumental in its future success.

We’ve gathered a list of AANHPI businesses, organizations, and creatives to support and share with your community.

AANHPI-Founded or Owned Businesses

Clothing/Jewelry

Home

Makeup/Skincare/Hygiene

Food

AANHPI Creatives

Organizations Supporting AANHPI Communities

Asian/Pacific is a broad term that encompasses all of the Asian continent and the Pacific islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island).

Photo Credit: The Trash Project

What catches more flies — vinegar or honey?

Joyful activism, a growing trend in social and environmental advocacy, follows this logic, seeking to inspire change in behavior through celebratory actions rather than by scaring or shaming people.

A bright example is TRASH Project, a public art project developed by artist Adrian Kondratowicz to inspire mindfulness about waste creation, while raising environmental awareness and beautifying urban spaces. Kondratowicz shares: “By activating public space with sculptures of color, TRASH sparks awareness about waste, sanitation, and consumption.”

The project entailed getting residents and business owners to put their garbage in the artist-created, hot pink polka dot trash bags (made of 80% post-consumer waste) — transforming standard piles of trash into flamboyant soft sculptures, a vivid homage to Claes Oldenburg.

Photo Credit: The Trash Project

We typically walk blithely past piles of garbage on city streets, but these vibrant bags are so strikingly different we cannot help but notice. And in the process of making the unseen seen, the artist invites us to stop and reflect on just how much we really throw away.

Joyful activism spurs change through the power of positive emotion.

When psychologists studied people engaged in communal dance, singing, or other rhythmic modes of entertainment, they found that people connected physically. Musicians playing the same melody have brain waves that sync up, and choir singers’ heart rates synchronize. Even when strangers move or sing together, they become more altruistic and generous. These synchronous experiences create a physiological sense of community that can be conscious or unconscious.

It is a notable feature of autocratic regimes that forms of joy are often banned. In Trinidad, the British banned drumming. In Mao’s China, listening to Beethoven was a crime, and in Nazi Germany, traditional Jewish music was verboten. The Soviet Union censored songs by artists across the musical spectrum, such as Tina Turner, AC/DC, and Julio Iglesias.

The Singing Revolution, a four-year series of protests marked by mass singing demonstrations, swept across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania between 1987 and 1991, eventually helping lead to their independence from the Soviet Union. Matt Zoller Seitz from The New York Times described it like this: “Imagine the scene in ‘Casablanca’ in which the French patrons sing ‘La Marseillaise’ in defiance of the Germans, then multiply its power by a factor of thousands, and you’ve only begun to imagine the force of ‘The Singing Revolution.'” All of which goes to show that joy is a powerful and unifying force.

Dance, Dance, Revolution!

DAYBREAKER is an early morning, sober dance party that began in 2013 as an NYC-based social experiment and art project and has now evolved into a worldwide movement to increase mindfulness and ignite change through radical self-expression and joy.

DAYBREAKER launched the Cool Kids Club this past Earth Day, a collective described as “inspired humans determined to cool the planet through joyful climate activism.” In early 2022, DAYBREAKER took their unique brand of revelry on a trip around the globe as part of their Natüre Series, with a momentous stop this past March in Antarctica.

Photo Credit: Cool Kids Club 

As DAYBREAKER cofounder Radha Agrawal shared on Instagram: “When there’s shame & blame we get paralyzed into inaction…our goal is to invite the arts, joy, and belonging — not just to each other but to our ecosystem — into the conversation to magnetize more people into climate action.”

Connecting the dots between joy and freedom

“Recognize that pleasure is a measure of freedom,” writes Adrienne Maree Brown in her book Pleasure Activism, which centers on the premise that the things activists strive for — liberation, wellbeing, justice, and more — are highly joyful states, underscoring that pleasure can be a powerful tool for helping us achieve these aims. Working for change you believe in can be profoundly joyful and straight-up fun if done with the right people.

Can we dance and sing our way to a healthier planet? It might be not only the most fun way to tackle such a serious problem, but perhaps the most successful. Leading with joy may make us more receptive to making real and actionable change.

 

About the author. 

An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist—Karina writes, produces, and edits compelling content across multiple platforms—including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Yahoo News, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties and has spanned insight pieces on psychedelic toad medicine to forecasting the future of work to why sustainability needs to become more sustainable.