Staff Me Up, a hiring and networking platform for media production professionals, is expanding its services with a service intended to highlight underrepresented groups in the industry.
Called Coded for Inclusion, the initiative is endorsed by Color Of Change and supported by Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society Fellowship, Hue You Know, AMC Networks and Endeavor Content.
The move comes as Staff Me Up looks to expand its hiring platform, which currently focuses heavily on unscripted crew, into scripted TV production. The initiative will draw on the expertise of groups Hue You Know and Color of Change to amplify underrepresented groups — including BIPOC, women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and active military and veterans — to offer studios and production houses a direct pipeline to candidates.
“To accelerate the pace of change, we need to accelerate the pace of building the infrastructure of change,” said Amity Paye, leader of the #ChangeHollywood initiative at Color Of Change. “This job matching platform has the potential to break the cycles of discriminatory hiring in the industry, providing the infrastructure that hiring managers need to make good on their parent companies’ commitments to achieving diversity and equity in the industry. That diversity not only affects the people working in the industry, but it affects the content the industry produces, which influences people all over the world.”
The platform currently lists 350,000 crew profiles, including over 100,000 from historically underrepresented communities, according to Staff Me Up. The initial expansion will focus on scripted TV and film in the U.S. before broadening to Canada and Europe.
“In Hollywood, it’s about who you know. This exact notion is what has perpetually excluded those from historically underrepresented backgrounds,” said Aisha Thomas-Petit, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer at AMC Networks. “Staff Me Up solves for exclusion by familiarity and gives hiring managers and diverse talent visibility to one another. AMC Networks is proud to be a contributor to what we believe will be a game-changing platform that bridges the networking gap and opens pathways for historically underrepresented people to be seen and hired.”
The expanded platform will look to ensure fair distribution of job opportunities, and work alongside media companies to improve their diversity commitments, among other things.
“Three years ago, the words ‘Inclusion Rider’ became a household term, and while there have been some positive changes since then, we can’t deny the need to add more accountability, fill in the gaps between databases and job matching, and further open the roads for underrepresented talent,” said Dr. Tasmin Plater, head of human resources at Endeavor Content. “We’re proud to team up with our partners on this important initiative. Staff Me Up is uniquely positioned to break down the barriers of entry into Hollywood and ensure a more diverse talent pool for consideration in our industry so underrepresented job seekers can finally see those job opportunities materialize.”