Irish bookmaking holding company Flutter Entertainment announced a new diversity-oriented initiative. The so-called Global Advocacy Program will champion members of various diversity groups and allow their voices to be heard. The new initiative is in line with Flutter’s Positive Impact Plan and its Work Better pillar.

Flutter Unveils Global Advocacy Program

Flutter Entertainment’s Group Executive Committee will lead the program by focusing on four global workstreams. Each of the latter will be focused on different minority groups and will be led by a different Flutter executive.

The first group, Gender, will be led by Amy Howe, chief executive of Flutter’s FanDuel brand. The second, on the other hand, is Multicultural and will be headed by Pádraig Ó Ríordáin, Flutter’s chief legal officer and commercial director. The third group is LGBT+, which will be led by Barni Evans, chief executive of the Sportsbet brand. Lastly, Paul Cutter, Flutter’s chief information officer, will lead the Accessibility workstream.

The program is segmented into four phases, as follows: listen, learn, advocate and action, with each of the phases being pretty self-explanatory. For example, the Flutter Executive Committee noted that listening lowers the risk of being detached from the daily work experiences of workers from marginalized groups. Listening will allow the company and its workers to learn and better understand the experiences of such people. As a result, the company will be able to advocate for those workers and finally, take action and update its policies.

Flutter Wants to Better Understand Its Workers

As explained by Flutter, the new program will be based on workers’ insights. The Executive Committee’s job will be to interpret these insights and turn them into a plan of action that “can drive scalable and meaningful change” across the company. Flutter hopes that the new initiative will help it make progress with its Positive Impact Plan.

Phil Bishop, chief people officer at Flutter Entertainment, spoke about the new program. He noted that Flutter is a company with strong convictions when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. According to Bishop, all of these things must first stand at the top and it is therefore the Executive Committee’s job to use people’s voices to “advocate and drive meaningful, long-lasting cultural change.“

Bishop reaffirmed that the program is crucial for understanding how all of the Flutter workers, especially those from diversity groups, feel.

The Global Advocacy Program will be central to achieving our mission of understanding the lived experiences of colleagues across Flutter, particularly those from marginalized communities.  In addition to delivering against targets set out in our Positive Impact Plan, the program will work to remove barriers and obstacles while meaningfully closing experience gaps so there’s a level playing field for everyone.

Phil Bishop, CPO, Flutter Entertainment

In other news, a month ago, Andrew Higginson departed from Flutter’s board.