Black History Month (BHM) is fast approaching in the UK and a lot of businesses will be looking to observe the month dedicated to a celebration of black culture and contributions throughout history.
As it’s observance has grown, more and more businesses have added BHM to their communications calendars in order to increase cultural competency in their business and show solidarity with their black employees. However, coming up with content for BHM can be a daunting and time consuming task to the uninitiated. Here are 5 tips for curating your BHM content this October.
Tip 1: Make sure it is engaging
Nothing is more of a deterrent to engagement that one dimensional content. That’s why you’ll want to make sure the content you produce is filled with information people want to consume. Although important to the story, slavery and Colonialism shouldn’t be your main focus for BHM. They are an instant grey cloud and tend to cause people to close off to any of the other amazing things there is to learn about black British history and culture. Feel free to direct people to resources where they can learn more on these topics in their own time, but don’t be heavy handed with it in your communications. Instead, opt for interesting facts and observations from black British culture instead.
Tip 2: Make sure it educates
At the end of BHM, your colleagues should walk away from your content having learnt something fascinating and interesting; they should have conversation pieces in their repertoire they didn’t have in September. Dig deeper than the first page of Wikipedia when putting together your BHM programme so that colleagues can have a learning moment. It’s going to take more time and effort, but your black colleagues will notice and appreciate the extra effort.
Tip 3: Make it varied
A series of text based emails are more than likely going to end up in most people’s deleted folder, unread. For your content to hit home, have a mix of short and long form content as well as media based content too. This will help keep things varied and bolster your engagement.
Tip 4: Make it contemporary
Colleagues are far more likely to engage with culture they can relate to. Although the past is the foundations of the culture we have in the present, don’t linger on this when curating your BHM programme. A brief tribute to history is great and necessary for context, but try to keep your content contemporary as that will be more relatable for colleagues and lead them to engage more.
Tip 5: Make it British
America has been celebrating BHM a few years longer than Britain and has a rich culture that permeates across the globe. Sometimes that culture can overshadow local Black British Culture which deserves its own highlight and recognition. When curating your content, remember, this is BHM in Britain, so Black British culture should be your focus.
Now, it can feel overwhelming trying to get BHM content just right; content that is engaging, educational and is based in cultural appreciation without being problematic. This can become a time consuming process for many HR managers and ED&I coordinators. That is why we at TMI Lifestyle have curated a fully comprehensive 21 day BHM programme to help with this.
Our programme will allow HR managers and ED&I committee co-ordinators to celebrate Black History Month in house without the intimidation of accurately appreciating and celebrating minority culture in the workplace, while also giving back team capacity for other in house projects and endeavours.
This programme is engaging, insightful and educational without being heavy handed and alienating; the perfect combination for your business. For more information, get in touch via info@themillennialintrovert.com