Leveling Up

The Havas London Village partnered with Hyper Island to create Level Up, a program that helps employees from marginalized groups overcome diversity challenges and develop their leadership abilities.

In partnership with global learning provider Hyper Island, Level Up was created — a management program that helps people from marginalized groups overcome diversity challenges. The program is one of the ways Havas is achieving the DEI charter principal #4, which is focused on supporting and advancing talent from marginalized groups across the Havas Village.

The program kicked off in November 2021. 40 participants from across the network took part in five modules. Each module includes facilitated social learning and industry guest speakers who shared their unique insights on DEI.

1) Self-Leadership

2) Leading Self and Others

3) Building Relationships and Communication

4) Project Management and Finance

5) Leading Strategy

Drop-in experience sessions were hosted by Hyper Island for participants to get a feel for the program and ask DEI and Talent leads any questions. All participants had a 1:1 coaching session with Hyper Island to cover off challenges and assess suitability and commitment.

A highlight of the program has been watching participants develop their leadership abilities and confidence leading their own teams using best practice tools from the program.

To deliver on the promise that Havas is a place where all people can advance, structures must be created that actively promote gender and racial equity, especially within talent processes like career succession planning. ​

With that in mind, this program is exclusively for Black, Asian and Ethnic Minorities, and those who identify as women. The program is designed to help maximize the potential of employees from underrepresented communities and support their progression in management roles. This will be done with the guidance of experienced trainers and facilitators who are committed to the advancement of marginalized and underrepresented employee groups. ​

This program takes participants on a transformative journey to become a new kind of leader — one who is adaptive, collaborative and self-aware, who can go beyond the norm to create efficient and effective teams adding business value throughout their department. ​This program is an opportunity for participants to be given a safe space to explore together the unique challenges they face because of their gender and/or race and ethnicity and draw on purposeful leadership strategies, tools and techniques, to unlock their growth as a leader in this space.​

Each cohort will:

Provide a way to help establish a connection to their peers and enable growth and real change

Take this journey together in becoming our leaders of tomorrow and help each other unlock the behaviors needed to overcome challenges

Work together, challenge one another and develop through established action learning sets in a supportive, confidential environment

The transition to people management is a pivotal moment in every career and this program is set out to define line management as a craft, setting the standards for a role that is more crucial than ever. ​ More specifically, the program will prepare participants for the next stage of their career and equip them with the inclusive leadership behaviors needed to progress at Havas.​

Participants can take full advantage of learning in an environment that provides an additional layer of expertise, support, and guidance of diversity challenges so they leave with the essential tools necessary to go further in their career, challenge stereotype and achieve their goals.

“Hyper Island has allowed me to understand my role as a leader and the different ways to lead effectively. There is no silver bullet when it comes to leadership and no simple answer to lead a team, as every situation is different. But having the ability to reflect on an event can put you in the best possible position to lead in any circumstance, particularly when faced with the same challenge in the future. Through Hyper Island, learning about the practice and techniques of effective reflection has been my biggest takeaway from the course. Exploring different models of reflection and applying those after group work or independent study requires conscious effort but eventually, becomes an automatic thought process, even when you’re in the middle of experiencing a new event.”

-Hakim Chouay, Mx Manager Havas Media Group