The Invisibles
In the summer, Bloomberg reported that businesses that made #BlackLivesMatter pledges have fewer black employees one year later. In October, Green Park consultancy revealed that there were only two black, Asian or minority ethnic CEOs in the FTSE 100. What is going on and what do we need to do differently in order to create a truly diverse UK plc? Influence investigates …
In 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement pushed structural inequality and bias and racial discrimination to the top of the social agenda. Tough conversations were had and realities were laid bare. Amid righteous anger, it was a time for renewed hope and the development of a real sense of equality. The conversation gained powerful traction in many areas, including business. But two years on and chronic under-representation of black talent in the UK and globally remains the norm. And shockingly, according to figures published this summer, diversity has even taken a backwards step.
In the UK investment industry, just 51 of the 1,097 most powerful roles in the country are held by non-whites. Yet this is not a problem confined to certain business sectors. British public life, as a report by the Green Park leadership consultancy discovered, is dominated by ‘snowy peaks’ with fewer than one in 20 jobs filled by BAME people. Just two FTSE 100 companies, Reckitt Benckiser and Diageo, had a black, Asian or minority ethnic chief executive.
As far as the snowy peaks of British society are concerned, they are still pretty much all white and everything looks frozen up there … if white people want to do something, then they should do something, rather than say something.
As Green Park’s chairman (and former Commission for Racial Equality chief) Trevor Phillips stated: “As far as the snowy peaks of British society are concerned, they are still pretty much all white and everything looks frozen up there … if white people want to do something, then they should do something, rather than say something.”
Meanwhile, a new study by Blendoor shows that tech companies that made #BlackLivesMatter pledges actually have fewer black employees one year later. “The finding highlights a gap between what companies say about social issues and what they do in their own workplaces,” says Blendoor CEO Stephanie Lampkin.
With the demographic of the country’s workforce still not reflecting the talent pool in any meaningful way, it’s little wonder that recent analysis sponsored by Lloyds also shows huge levels of distrust between the UK’s Black entrepreneurs and the banking sector and government. The finance giant itself has committed to increasing black representation of senior grades to at least 3% by 2025 in line with the UK labour market.
While there are plenty of campaigns and initiatives working to rebuild the pipeline in the image of demographic representation, the work of dismantling the status quo is still lacking. The determination and direct action of campaigns such as #100Blackinterns, for example, created by President of Capstone Investment Advisors Jonathan Sorrell to help university-educated black people to break into the City, and signed up to by the likes of Brooks Macdonald, Royal London and Schroders, sits in stark opposition to the wider inertia that has seen diversity stats stall, post-pandemic. Little wonder that in April 2021, incredulity met the release of a government-backed report which had concluded there was no evidence to show the existence of institutional racism in the UK.
We always say ‘what gets measured gets done’,” says Melanie Eusebe, business strategist and co-founder of the Black British Business Awards. “We need companies to monitor diversity and inclusion (D&I) as they would any other key performance indicator. When this happens, we’ll begin to see real change.” Along with attraction and retention, she notes, the most innovative companies go deeper, measuring behaviours around black employees and looking at how they engage directors, leaders, career counsellors and line managers to create an inclusive atmosphere.
Sponsor Search
Businesses and those in positions of power and influence can also play a key part in moving the dial through internal mechanics such as mentoring and sponsorship. Jordan Saxby is Data and Insights Manager at Moving Ahead, a social impact organisation striving to improve workplace inclusion and diversity, and he believes there is strong evidence that sponsorship can prove key for moving black people in business forward: “With a sponsorship lens the most important aspect is the paradox of visibility and scrutiny, particularly at the intersections of gender and ethnicity, as well as those with long-term health issues and who are differently abled.”
“Sponsors focus on raising the profile and opportunities of their sponsees, whereas mentors traditionally focus more on helping the mentee on a personal level to develop and alter their thinking and career strategies,” he notes. “If we cross that with the challenges above, this is where the ‘sponsorship may be better for black talent, particularly intersectionally’ theory comes from – since a visible sponsor would reduce the risk of single performance issues causing career damage, hopefully prevent line manager discrimination problems through providing ‘air-cover’ for risk-taking and make people consider overlooked talent when hiring.”
Best Practice
Companies that have taken steps include Microsoft, which has added $150 million to its diversity and inclusion investments. According to Fortune.com, citing a 2020 report, “39.7% of the company’s board was made up of racial and ethnic minorities, and its workforce as a whole was 49.8% racial or ethnic majorities. Based on the same data, Microsoft’s managers also consisted of 41.3% racial or ethnic minorities.” (That said, it appears to be lacking in terms of gender diversity. The same data showed just 28.6% of its employees were women and 26.3% of its managers were women.) Other companies that score highly in D&I include Gap, Verizon Communications, Amazon.com, Nike and Visa. But it’s hardly scratching the surface.
If you look at our soaps, TV screens, or experts on the news, there’s little representation of [black] bankers, doctors or physicists. [The Black British Business Awards] was an entirely positive movement to say, ‘Hey, did you know they exist? Because it might change your stereotypes just a little bit, and accelerate the conversation.
Claudine Reid, co-founder of South London community organisation PJ’s and chair of Lloyds’ Black Business Advisory Committee, is pithy about the challenges – and solutions. “Black people are visible but invisible. Visible because of the colour of their skin but invisible when it comes to the skill, talent and ability that they can contribute to the boardroom.”
“[Change] starts with large organisations being willing to have an open, hard conversation about systemic issues,” she says. “There is not going to be a rose-tinted approach to this and there is going to have to be some unlearning and re-learning about what works in this post-colonial, post-Brexit, post-Covid era. We are a completely new generation.”
Says Eusebe, “If you look at our soaps, TV screens, or experts on the news, there’s little representation of [black] bankers, doctors or physicists. [The Black British Business Awards] was an entirely positive movement to say, ‘Hey, did you know they exist? Because it might change your stereotypes just a little bit, and accelerate the conversation.’”
She also offers practical steps for businesses to take. “Get a diversity council or diversity focus groups on a regular basis. Put them around a table and let them throw stones at your ads, your pitches, your products and your services to make sure that you are truly putting diverse products out to market.”
Diversity needs to be made a fundamental part of Best Practice – those guidelines, ethics, or ideas that represent the best course of action in a given business situation. Because, ultimately, diversity is good for business – a fact borne out by hard statistics: according to a 2017 McKinsey report, “Companies in the top quartile for gender or racial and ethnic diversity are more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians … while companies in the bottom quartile in these dimensions are statistically less likely to achieve above-average returns.”
As Eusebe told the Confederation of British Industry, “With diversity we bring all of ourselves to work and we are celebrated in all of our guises and we’re celebrated for our capability for hard work, for grit, for intelligence and determination. That for me is a perfect diverse workplace.”