MCLAREN RACING

MCLAREN AIM TO INSPIRE FUTURE GENERATION OF HIGHPERFORMANCE TALENT

Daniel Gallo, Chief People Officer at McLaren Racing shares an insight into the Formula 1 team’s commitment to actively driving a diverse and inclusive workforce as he leads the British motor racing teams’ ambitious vision and strategic ambitions.

Daniel Gallo has been involved in diversity and inclusion agendas for more than two decades, from his first internal role with Asda Walmart through to Liverpool FC, before joining McLaren Racing just before the pandemic. The application of diversity and inclusion in sport in general and then specifically in motorsport, presents its own unique challenges.

Unlike other sports, the team behind the team plays significant importance in the ‘on-field’ performance of the athletes. The drivers sit just at the pinnacle of a dedicated team.

Pit stops can make or break a race, and that’s the pit crews doing, not the drivers, and when you look at the performance of the drivers, there is a team of hundreds of people who have been involved in car development and generating revenue to allow the cars to race. McLaren take a holistic approach to human performance and the organisations commitment to actively driving a diverse and inclusive workforce to improve business functionalities.

“What can actively be done is very critical. I think it’s quite easy for organisations to ‘diversity wash’ where they tick boxes and just keep the stakeholders happy that they are doing just enough to get by.

“We make it very clear at McLaren that this is not a tick box exercise. We are absolutely committed to driving long-term, sustainable, positive change, not just within our organisation as a sports team, but also as an employer. We also have to look at how we are proactive supporters of our sport, working with Formula 1 and the FIA.” ➡

“We are a huge global brand so we have a reach which is significant when we look at our fans, suppliers, and our sponsors, so how we use our brand for good, as well as make sure that we are driving this message and doing everything we can within the communities where we operate, but also the communities in which we race.

“We looked at what our agenda is under three pillars - as an employer, as a sport and as a global brand – to form a shortmid- and long-term strategy that has very specific deliverables and objectives.

“We are really committed to an ambitious roadmap, we haven’t set ourselves easy targets, we have set ourselves ambitious targets around how we can move those forward.”

Last year, McLaren launched a strategic alliance with four expert partners – Women’s Engineering Society (WES), EqualEngineers, The Smallpeice Trust and Creative Access, to drive forward a programme of collaborative initiatives to diversify talent in motorsport.

The alliance, known as McLaren Racing Engage, will advance the team’s diversity, equality and inclusion agenda as part of its broader sustainability programme, including its commitment to Formula 1's WeRaceAsOne platform.

“When you look at a motorsport team or a Formula 1 team, we are a diverse organisation. We are an engineering organisation, a manufacturing organisation, a marketing organisation and then you’ve got support functions as well.

“From an engineering perspective, the STEM agenda is a global issue around the pipeline of talent and young people coming into that discipline, let alone the diversity of that pipeline. It’s an acute challenge that any organisation that operates in the engineering space is challenged with.

“We put together four of the leading social enterprise charitable organisations who operate not just in the STEM space, but in the broader diversity and inclusion space, particularly looking at the youth and looking at how we can really drive long-term change into that agenda using the power of our brand.

“You really have to commit to this for the long haul. We are talking about engaging with kids who are seven, eight, nine-years-old. Even if we can inspire them to become engineers they are not going to be landing into the workplace for a long time.”

In conjunction with The Smallpeice Trust, McLaren will sponsor five students through a scholarship programme.

The racing team will be mentoring the students as well as providing them with work experience and internships as they progress through the latter stages of their education.

“Some of this is putting your money where your mouth is in terms of being willing to invest in these youngsters, and these five students are hugely talented. Financially, we are giving them a foot up to help them with their studies and to help their schools as well.

“I hope they will come and work for McLaren at the end of it. If not, we have nurtured five wonderful young talents who may go to another Formula 1 team, or they may go and work at an engineering firm. If that’s the case, we have contributed and made a difference. We intend to ramp those numbers up in the coming years.”

Gallo emphasises the progress that McLaren have made by noting that 47 per cent of the organisations new starters came from a diverse background – a figure that has benefited from recruiting in different places, marketing the brand to appeal to people with different socioeconomic backgrounds and exploring how they can fund people to be able to gain access to creative opportunities.

“We have been very active in the Formula 1 taskforce which was set up to drive the sustainability agenda. Formula 1 have been superb, and the FIA are part of that as well. There have been some worthwhile conversations and I think there is good progress being made there.

“We actively participated in the Hamilton commission; we have signed up to delivering the recommendations as a team but also Formula 1 have signed up to delivering that as a sport.

“As a global brand we are working with all our partner organisations on how we amplify this in different markets, to engage different age groups across the world so McLaren Racing will be taken into the North American market this year."

After its absense from the scheudle, Formula 1 has returned to the United States with Miami, as well as the introduction of the Austin Grand Prix giving teams the chance to attract new audiences. McLaren's pursuits in North American are supported by the commitment to its IndyCar return after taken a controlling stake in Arrow McLaren SP IndyCar Team. Together, the team are able to leverage a larger platform to drive their diversity and inclusion agenda.

“Formula 1 now has a Miami GP as well as the Austin Grand Prix, so we’ve got much more of a platform as a team to then start looking at how we start to drive the diversity and inclusion agenda."

“We will be partnering with the Motorsports Culture Club and they are making great introductions for us into historically black colleges, different charities and organisations where we can take our brand, take our passion and go look at how we are going to drive that agenda into North America as well.

“This agenda is bigger than the competition you see on a track, or on a field. This is a societal challenge that affects all walks of life and every country to varied degrees. For me, it's key to not only collaborate with tams within our sport but also people outside of motorsport, where this is common interest and a common platform so we can pull new ideas and resources. Using our brand and platform to fine-tune our outreach is really powerful and I am proud of the initiatives Formula 1 have.

“I think sports and media have a disproportionate role to play because of the impact and the strength of our brand to lend our voice to that and actively pursue it.”

Gallo recognises that financial barriers in the lower and junior categories must➡

be reduced in order to let more drivers come through with less resources and is very much of the agenda of the Formula 1 and the FIA taskforce, with McLaren looking to find a route through its esports programme – McLaren Shadow.

“McLaren has got a really strong history around supporting drivers who maybe don’t come from certain backgrounds in order to progress and exploit their talent.

“In order to promote diversity, you’ve got to be accessible and as we know Formula 1 and its associated series, they are expensive to participate in. I think there is a lot of work going on there around how you can get talent at the go-karting series – which as we know is the breeding ground for future Formula 1 champions – and how young drivers can be supported through the series.

“McLaren has a fantastic esports series, and we are very active in the gaming community. We were the first to introduce it from a Formula 1 perspective and in 2020 set up the McLaren Shadow Academy which is looking at how we bring up drivers within that esports arena and crossover into motorsport. I think that line is starting to be blurred and we are seeing some transition which is fantastic because these are huge talents.

“I am really excited about what we are doing in the esports space but also as it continues to grow in popularity and reach, and the good thing is that its accessible in terms of its inclusivity. We will continue to invest in esports and look for future drivers primarily for esports, but rest assured that if we see the opportunity, we are known to be challengers and will give the people that opportunity.”

“For me, it’s a win-win. We continue to hire some great talents into this organisation – established professionals, young professionals, people in midcareers, people who may not have thought about working for McLaren, in Formula 1, or motorsport. We have managed to activate them and excite them, and they’ve come and joined us.”

Embracing diversity at work helps create an inclusive culture, which in itself encourages staff loyalty and shows commitment to good business ethics.

For McLaren, the objective isn’t something where targets have been set. This is about creating a systemic culture and procedural changes through education and through being more inclusive about where the team attracts talent from.

As a Surrey-based team, diversifying recruitment processes is of particular importance given that it is an affluent county within the UK to make sure they attract that diversity.

“Engineers tend to either be new entrants or come from other motorsport teams, but not always. The rest of our organisation brings people from all sorts of different industries. So, where are we advertising and what proactive advertisement are we doing to try and target people who may not typically be sat there with a motorsport magazine?

“We have to put all of those strategies in place to make sure that we are casting our net far and wide whether its gender, ethnicity or those who come from certain areas which may be classified as less privileged than others.

“But let’s be clear, none of this is about compromising standards. We are a highperformance sports team. We will only ever hire the very best people for a role but if you increase the diversity of the people applying, then you increase the likelihood that the very best candidates come from a diverse background and that’s where that traction has come from.

“For me, it’s a win-win. We continue to hire some great talents into this organisation – established professionals, young professionals, people in midcareers, people who may not have thought about working for McLaren, in Formula 1, or motorsport. We have managed to activate them and excite them, and they’ve come and joined us.

“Using our brand, working with our partners, our sponsors, people who we have relationships with, you create a powerhouse of influence who can really take this agenda out to the schools and out to these young kids and open their eyes to a career in STEM.

“You’re not going to win them all over, STEM isn’t for everyone. But if you look at the drop-off rates for kids at 11-yearsold, 75 per cent of those children show an interest in STEM subjects, then you look at how that translates to secondary school, further education and then into graduate jobs. The drop off is huge, but then the diversity within those numbers is not high enough either. We have got to be in this for the long haul and that’s about education, investment, inspiration and deploying all of our resources and our assets to go and get those kids.

“With diversity, there is a clear ethical role and societal responsibility as to why you would want to be diverse as an organisation. If I wear my sports performance hat, diverse organisations perform better than non-diverse organisations because you’ve got richer tapestry of individuals with backgrounds, experiences, and opinions.

“They make decisions in different ways and that’s what drives high performance in an organisation. As well as doing this because it’s the right thing to do and wanting to be a positive force for good in this space, we're also doing this because I believe this is a competitive differentiator. I think that can also be the case for non-sporting organisations that I have worked in where the richer the diversity, the richer the culture and the richer the performance of that organisation. Being a sports team is no different.”

During the pandemic, many businesses had to adapt their recruitment strategies with social distancing presenting numerous challenges, driving recruitment processes virtually in order➡

to protect the health and safety of candidates, clients and employees.

The pandemic has fundamentally shifted the way businesses operate. The future of work has arrived earlier than anticipated and caused a seismic shift in how we conduct our work with a large-scale adoption of remote working and challenges in digital approach.

For McLaren, it was no different as Gallo explains how the organisation adapted quickly by giving all of those employees who could work at home the ability to work remotely and be as productive as they were when they were in the office.

In itself, remote working allows for more opportunities to increase diversity within an organisation as it removes potential barriers imposed by location and travel.

“I am fairly pragmatic about this. I think you see some organisations that have gone very far one way and have done ‘don’t come back into the office, just stay at home’ and you’ve seen some organisations go ‘as soon as Covid is over, we want everyone back in the office.”

“The path that we have chosen is a path down the middle which is hybrid working. Where we have roles that can be productive at home then they will be allowed to continue at home because what we have learnt is that with certain types of roles, being in an office can be a distraction. For example, if you have software engineers who just need to sit, code and focus, they are more productive sat at home rather than in a noisy and vibrant office.

“Hybrid working has been highly effective, and people have really appreciated it. We have tracked it

“As a team with a culture, we meet people onsite and collaborate, so we need to protect that, but at the same time we don’t want to be dinosaurs about this and acknowledge that the world is moving on. That could be good for the employer and good for the employee if you can afford some flexibility around work where work sometimes gets done.”

carefully and we have definitely seen no dip in productivity. I think the general view is for some roles and in some circumstances, we have seen higher productivity. So how does that translate into the attractiveness as an employer? I think in this modern era, post-covid when it does come around, some organisations simply can’t have people working from home and that’s fine.

“But if you have the option to allow people to work from home and gain the benefits of that, and it’s a reciprocal benefit, organisations that don’t embrace that will become less relevant, and they will become less attractive to the workforce as a whole but certainly to the younger generation where work isn’t a place where you go to, work is what you do and people want to be measured on their contribution of their outputs. So, there is a balance.

“As a team with a culture, we meet people onsite and collaborate, so we need to protect that, but at the same time we don’t want to be dinosaurs about this and acknowledge that the world is moving on. That could be good for the employer and good for the employee if you can afford some flexibility around where work sometimes gets done.” For the 2022 season, McLaren will also have two drivers buckled in the seat of their inaugural Extreme E car as it joins the innovative all-electric off-road series. This motorsport for purpose aims to use racing to promote sustainability by racing in remote terrains to raise climate awareness.

Extreme E also embeds gender equality and diversity, with each team consisting of a male and a female driver who share equal driving duties, with a driver swap in the middle of the race.

Competing for McLaren Extreme E team are drivers Emma Gilmour from New Zealand and American, Tanner Foust. Gilmour was announced as McLaren’s first-ever female racing driver in November of last year, during an engagement at COP26 with His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales.

As McLaren revealed their livery ahead of the 2022 season, Gilmour and Foust were joined by sisters Leena and Teena Gade, who are McLaren’s Extreme E Race Engineer and Performance Engineer respectively. Their own career trajectory is redolent of the McLaren Racing Engage Alliance, which exists to open-up STEM opportunities to all. ◆