What does it mean to work for the BBC?

Free, confidential B&H advice and support for our freelancer community. Contact them online or by calling 0800 054 0000

This online module from ScreenSkills is designed to help you recognise and address harassment and bullying behaviours in yourself and others. It builds on the principles and zero tolerance guidelines developed with organisations across film, television and games industries by the BFI and BAFTA in 2018.

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) supply up-to-date employee relations information, independent advice and high-quality training. They also work with employers and employees to solve problems. You can get free advice from their website or by calling the helpline.

Provide free, independent, confidential and impartial advice on your rights and responsibilities via their website, local bureau or by telephone. Resources are available on work issues including discrimination at work. Advice is also available on personal/ home life issues including money, benefits, relationships, housing, the law, tax, health and education.

The Equality Advisory Service offers free phone and live chat services (from most landline/mobile providers) that provide information, advice and support on discrimination and human rights issues in England, Scotland and Wales. Also offer guidance on the Equality Act 2010, resolving workplace issues informally or formally, legal aid, and how to access other support services.

Websites of Government departments, agencies and public bodies. Policies, publications and statistics available including information on bullying and harassment.

A national independent watchdog for work-related health, safety and illness. On their website, they offer information on bullying or harassment.

A Welsh-based service that provides advice and information on mental health issues and services to everyone in the UK. Also, offer useful information and resources on Adult Bullying.

Mind provides information on different types of mental health problems, where to get help, medication and alternative treatments and advocacy. The legal advice service provides general advice on mental health law covering mental health, mental capacity, community care, human rights and discrimination/equality related to mental health.

Providing guidance and information to anyone currently or previously affected by harassment or stalking. They also advise on legal aspects, gathering evidence and how to report, ensuring personal safety and reducing risks. Calls are free from landlines and some mobile providers.

A national charity that offers a confidential helpline for anyone suffering from emotional distress. It is staffed by trained volunteers.

54 of Britain's unions offering policy, research, training, lobbying, campaigning and worker representation. Information on workplace bullying and harassment also available.

Offering information on hate crimes and hate incidents relating to disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, or transgender identity. Hate crimes or hate incidents can be reported using their online form. Support is also available for victims

A website offered by the TUC that provides information on workplace rights, pensions, health at work and your career. Information is available on workplace bullying and harassment.

In the same way that a national census records information about the population, the BBC Census is a short survey that records demographic information about the people who work at the BBC.

It’s carried out every few years and asks a few brief questions about you, such as your race/ethnicity, religion, background and whether you are disabled.

Just like a government census, the information helps us to build an accurate picture of our workforce that can be used to inform our diversity and inclusion plans for the future.

In the same way that knowing our audiences enables us to create more impactful content, knowing our people helps us to make the BBC a better place to work for everyone. The information we gather through the census helps us to assess how representative we are and is reported in our Annual Report and Accounts, so we need to ensure the data is as accurate as possible.

As well as showing us how the makeup of our freelancer workforce is changing, the information also enables us to understand more about who works here so that we can ensure we meet everyone’s needs - and is valuable for informing and tracking our future plans. For example, if we know we have areas of underrepresentation, we can work to increase diversity in a targeted way.

We want to create the most inclusive, accessible and diverse workplace that we can, where everyone feels a sense of belonging. We know that it’s also key to our success. If we better represent the diversity of the UK, we can better reflect the ideas and thinking of a wide range of audiences and communities and deliver greater value to all.

The census is an important opportunity to refresh our information to ensure that we have accurate and up-to-date records, as we know that people’s circumstances can change. This year’s census also includes new questions that we haven’t previously asked.

The Census will be sent to everyone who is currently engaged as a freelancer for the BBC Group in the UK.

The Census has previously been a UK-only activity, but expanded last year to include BBC Studios colleagues outside of the UK as part of specific activity to gain a full picture of the BBC Studios global workforce. Each year we will review which elements of our workforce will be asked to complete the Census.

The Census will be live for completion from Wednesday 20 June to Friday 14 July. You can complete the Census at any time during this window. Once the window is closed, you will not be able to submit responses via the above links.

The information will help us to assess how representative we are, how the makeup of our workforce has changed, and to track the changes we want to see moving forwards – such as the progress we’re making towards our diversity targets. The information regarding our UK workforce diversity is also reported in our Annual Report and Accounts.

Individual information is strictly confidential and will never be shared or reported on. The data will only be reported on in an aggregated way, so you will not identifiable. The information you provide is strictly confidential. It’s held in a secure area on our HR system which is only accessible by a small number of people in HR. It cannot be accessed or viewed by your line manager. For more details, please see the BBC Census Privacy Notice.

If you can’t find your email from ‘BBC via CultureAmp’ with your link to complete the census, you can visit bbc.cultureamp.com at any time during the completion window and sign in via BBC Login. The BBC Census will be available to complete via your ‘Tasks’ page.

As the closing date approaches, follow-up emails will also be sent to anyone who hasn’t responded, so look out for those. Please note: The link you receive is unique to you and can only be completed once, so please do not forward your email on to anyone else.

The Census should take no more than a couple of minutes to complete. However, if you need to stop part-way through, please select ‘save and exit’ at the bottom of the page and your responses will be saved until you return. No information will be submitted until you select ‘submit’.

Yes, the census is on a web-based platform which is accessible for users of assistive technology and has been fully tested.

We publish detailed diversity data about our workforce each year as part of our Equality Information Report, which forms part of our Annual Report and Accounts and provides an update on the progress we have made in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Census participation is optional, however it is important that we collect as many responses as possible, so that our data is as accurate and representative as it can be.

If you are not comfortable answering any aspects of the Census, you can opt out of any question by selecting ‘prefer not to say’.

Non participation of the Census will result in exclusion from the overall completion rate. Selecting ‘prefer not to say’ will mean participation is included in the published completion rate, however, responses will be counted as non-disclosures.

Non-disclosures support a more valuable data set than non-participation, so we’d please encourage everyone to participate even if you’d rather not disclose your information.

There are questions relating to the following:

• race/ethnicity
• religion
• socio-economic background
• sexual orientation
• gender identity
• if you are transgender
• if you are disabled, and the nature of your disability
• If you do not consider yourself to be disabled, we also ask if you consider yourself to be neurodivergent.

We also ask if you are open about aspects of your LGBTQ+ identity. We do not ask about your sex or your age in the Census as we hold this data as part of your general personal information.

The questions have been developed in consultation with our employee networks and follow best practice government guidance used by the Office for National Statistics.

In our 2021 Diversity & Inclusion Plan, we set ourselves a target that 50% our LGBTQ+ staff to be out at work, defined as being open about their LGBTQ+ identity to their manager, measured by an annual staff survey. We want to create an inclusive culture at the BBC for LGBTQ+ staff and freelancers to feel comfortable sharing that aspect of their identity to those they work with, in particular their manager and the person who engaged them for work at the BBC, and to measure our progress in achieving our target.

We have removed the words ‘disability’ and ‘disabled’ from the question, as the definition is broader than what is commonly understood within the organisation. The wording of the question will also be simplified. The aim of making these changes is to ensure that there is a common understanding of disability and improve the accuracy of disability disclosure.

We have also brought the question in line with the Equality Act (2010) definition – which also doesn’t contain the word ‘disability or ‘disabled’ – but allows us to, hopefully, use more welcoming language for people who have not previously identified under this protected characteristic grouping in the workplace.

Neurodivergent people are considered to fall outside the ‘typical’ range of neurotypes. People who are neurodivergent, or have a neurodivergent diagnosis, have brains that work in different ways to neurotypical people. Examples of neurodivergent conditions include ADHD, autism, dyscalculia, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and Tourette’s.

Although the Equality Act (2010) offers protection to some people who are neurodivergent, many neurodivergent people do not identify as disabled or as having a disability themselves. By asking the questions in this way, it allows us to gather more accurate information on disabled and neurodivergent freelancers at BBC and ensures that we are not missing anyone in our information gathering.

The information you provide is strictly confidential and cannot be accessed by your line manager or divisional HR teams, therefore no provision will be made if you have stated that you have a disability or need adjustments. We ask these questions to gain a broader understanding of disabilities and adjustments across the BBC. If you require advice and support on workplace adjustments, please contact our Disability Access Service.

We need to collect as many responses as possible so that our data is as accurate and representative as it can be, however each question includes a ‘prefer not to say’ option if you’re not comfortable answering.

The recent data breach did not impact the systems we use for census and, therefore, there is no increased risk to anyone completing the Census. The data breach was a result of a third-party leak and did not target or compromise BBC data systems.

Protecting your data is a priority. All diversity information is collected in accordance with data protection law and is strictly confidential. Once you have submitted your answers via the CultureAmp platform, the data will be passed securely to the BBC and uploaded to the HR system (SAP) where it will be stored confidentially and is only accessible by a small number of people in HR. The data will then be deleted from CultureAmp. For more details, please see the BBC Census Privacy Notice.

We need to map people’s responses against our HR records to understand the makeup of different parts of the organisation – for example, by division and pay band – so your responses are not anonymous, but they are completely confidential. The information will only be used for reporting on the workforce as a whole and you will not be identifiable.

The information you provide is strictly confidential. It’s held in a secure area on our HR system, which is only accessible by a governed number of specialist HR staff. It cannot be accessed or viewed by your Team Manager. For more details, please see the BBC Census Privacy Notice.

The information you provide is strictly confidential. It’s held in a secure area on our HR system, which is only accessible to a limited number of HR staff. It cannot be accessed or viewed by your line manager. For more details, please see the BBC Census Privacy Notice.

Individual information is strictly confidential and will never be shared or reported on. The data will only be reported on in an aggregated way, so you will not identifiable. The information you provide is strictly confidential. It’s held in a secure area on our HR system which is only accessible to a limited number of HR staff. It cannot be accessed or viewed by your Team Leader. For more details, please see the BBC Census Privacy Notice.