It’s been three months since we stood in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Three months since we openly committed to tackling racial injustice in our industry (and our doorstep). We purposefully decided to make a public pledge, so you could hold us accountable. And check back in (now and in years to come) to see that change has actually been embedded in our DNA.
We started by listening. We set up a virtual workshop surrounding ‘Anti-racism in the workplace’. There, we were joined by fitness experts Courtney Fearon and Louis Walcott, who shared their insight and experience of working in London’s top fitness clubs as black trainers.
Sonya Barlow from YSYS then took our line managers through a workshop on great leadership, how we can be champions of equal rights, and how to best handle difficult conversations in the workplace. It was just the beginning of our training, but it was invaluable.
Learning from our community
We’re lucky enough to call Hackney our home. As one of the most diverse areas of London, that means we have invaluable resources at our doorstep — and empowered, black-owned businesses and charities to lead the way.
We partnered up with Hackney Council, who offer support to people from disadvantaged backgrounds. That includes two traineeships at Fiit for young people in the community (launching in October) and hosting a webinar for local residents who want to work within fit-tech.
We’re also really excited to collaborate with The Outrunners. A run club-turned-charity, who are on a mission to create positive change through fitness, in Hackney.
We ran a Q&A with their founder, Tyler Williams Green, who showed us that long-term change only comes about with regular training opportunities. So that’s what we’ll offer. Tyler helped us co-create an interactive mini-internship program for small groups at the Outrunner’s career events.
And we’ve committed to mentoring at least 2-4 participants each quarter (so if you’re interested, follow The Outrunners to hear about future opportunities!)
Sonya Barlow (Training Host, YSYS) | Tyler Williams Green (Founder, The Outrunners) | Deborah Okenla (Founder & CEO, YSYS)
Last but not least, five young designers from The Outrunners have been working with us on some limited-edition apparel. And we couldn’t be more impressed with the designs. Their talent showed us how our business (and others) can benefit from a diverse range of skills and a fresh perspective.
If you want to see what these geniuses have been up to, check out our shop very soon!
Working with the best
The big one. We took a hard look at our hiring practices and realised we needed to work harder to diversify our pipeline of candidates. We’ve actually been on the hunt for new talent across multiple departments — so this time, we used a wider range of job-boards (including YSYS and Indeed), advertised through Hackney Council and reached out via social media and print.
We’ve also overhauled and standardised our recruitment process, by removing any inherent biases and as a result, we’ve been met with more diverse candidates (some of which are now key players in our team). So if you’re interested in working for Fiit — we’re still hiring!
Of course, we’re nowhere near done. We’re currently reviewing our recruitment software, so we can introduce blind screening and anonymised ethnicity reporting — which will be available before the year is out.
This is just the start. In fact, every step we take highlights how much more we have to do. So we can’t afford to take our foot off the gas, and our next priority is to support any team members looking to make changes in or outside of the office.
If you’d like to know more about our initiatives, reach out to me at [email protected]. If not, tune in next quarter to see what we’re doing next.
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