Will it Pay to Ensure Diversity Flourishes in your Organisation?

Although some (misguided in my view) would have us believe that Winston Churchill was racist, his quote from a time when the world was significantly more discriminatory still holds true. ‘Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common… Celebrate it every day’.

These words are as relevant and powerful today as they were almost a century ago when he said them, as is the quote from Dr Martin Luther King in the 60s.  ‘We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.’ 

In this blog I make the case for celebrating diversity and walking the earth like brothers in the following ways:

• Ethically. It is simply the right thing to do, and something we must do.
• Socially and Culturally. Our current and future workforce and customers increasingly expect it.
• Business sense. Diversity and inclusion have been proven to increase a company’s performance, growth and innovation as well as improving health, safety and wellbeing. Companies will be left behind if they do not take it seriously due to how demographics are changing in the UK, as explained below.

When presenting to boards of directors on diversity I normally cover Inclusion as well, as to be successful one depends on the other.

At a previous employer we defined diversity as ‘we embrace people’s similarities and differences and value everyone’s contribution to our business’ and inclusion as ‘we aim to promote an inclusive culture empowering full participation of all employees regardless of their background’.

In my view diversity is about a state of mind and how we think, whereas inclusion is more about translating that thought process into actions. Verna Myers, an equality campaigner captured it nicely a couple of years ago when she said ‘Diversity is being asked to the Party. Inclusion is being asked to Dance’.

I think I have probably exhausted your appetite and patience for quotes now so I’ll move on to some relevant facts as to why employers should embrace diversity and inclusion.

At the last count, 14 percent of the UK population was classed as ‘diverse’. When I first started presenting about the benefits of diversity in the early 2000’s the figure was eight percent so clearly this forms a rapidly growing proportion of employees and customers.

The non-white population of the UK tends to be on average significantly younger than the white population. In fact, of those people living in the UK who were not born here, by far the largest age group is 25-35. Contrast that to the general UK population where both of the age groups 55-59 and 60-64 have more people in them than the age group 15-19.

This means that employers will need to be open to widening their recruitment strategies as high potential young workers will prove more and more difficult to find, especially if the employer has an unconscious bias for young white workers (see my previous blogs for more information on unconscious bias and how to tackle it). Also the proportion of ‘diverse’ workers will continue to increase markedly in coming years due to the rapidly changing demographics of the UK workforce.

From the year 2000 to 2015 the number of employees needed by organisations in the UK grew by 14 percent. However, the UK population itself only grew by 11 percent during that period so staff and skills shortages are likely to be a regular feature of employment in the UK in future or at the very least it will be a sellers’ market where employers will need to be attractive in order to interest prospective employees (and customers) and will need to be attractive to all sections of the community.

In addition to the potential staff and skills shortages and changing demographics of future recruits, companies should also be mindful of the values and beliefs of the younger generation who have been entering the labour market in recent years and will do so in future in greater numbers.

There has been a marked shift in these values over the last few decades. When I was growing up there was a great deal of open discrimination in employment and in general in the UK in terms of race, sex, sexual orientation and disability. And if a trans person made a decision to be their true self their life would have been made a misery and they would have struggled to find a job.

Since then, as a nation I believe we have made great strides. To individual’s and our country in general’s great credit teenagers and those in their twenties today have very strong values regarding diversity and inclusion and a lack of acceptance of any form of discrimination. They find it repugnant and completely alien to their values, beliefs and the society they want to be part of.

I believe we should celebrate that more. My children are 20 and 23 now and I am often blown away by how intolerant of any form of discrimination they are. I am so proud of them for being so inclusive. I am also hopeful for the future as their friends and other young people I have worked with are the same so whereas there will always be idiots and bigots in our society this more tolerant approach to life seems to be the norm in young people.

If organisations wish to attract and engage with these key employees of the future then embracing diversity and inclusion is no longer a ‘nice to have’, it is essential and not negotiable as far as younger generations are concerned. It clearly makes business sense to do so and those companies who don’t will struggle.

Last week my blog focused on the Gender Pay Gap, which in the last few years has led to some impressive work to ensure female employees aren’t discriminated against at work.

Towards the end of 2018 the government started consulting on whether employers should be required to report their ‘ethnicity pay gap’ in addition to gender pay gap as although workers of Indian origin are on average the highest paid in the UK, employees of other BAME backgrounds are amongst the lowest paid with high rates of unemployment.

There is already significant pressure on public bodies to report their ethnic pay gap and in Scotland the BBC recently reported that their public bodies pay black and minority ethnic employees 10% less than their white counterparts on average. Such statistics will rightly increase the demand for ethnicity pay gap reporting.

There is a huge pool of underused, often highly intelligent and experienced talent in the groups that are discriminated against and this is a potential goldmine for enlightened employers. An outdated attitude to older workers has led to a great deal of extremely capable individuals struggling to find jobs or being employed well below their capability.

Unemployment levels amongst the disabled is very high and even though evidence proves they have outstanding levels of commitment to their employer, talented individuals still struggle to make employers see past their disability. Likewise, but for different reasons, unemployment in the trans community is far too high.

As for actions that have been shown to improve a company’s diversity and inclusion, the main areas for employers to concentrate on are recruitment, actively engaging with diverse groups, and also educating the workforce including training those who recruit and manage teams to facilitate all employees being the best that they can be and have the same opportunities irrespective of their background. These are covered in more detail below.

Companies also need to ensure they do not discriminate against diverse groups when applying their policies e.g. when making employees redundant. We have published a free guide for the 8 Steps to Making Redundancies in a non discriminatory way.

Recruitment

Most recruitment techniques currently used by companies in the UK were developed decades ago and therefore unconsciously favour white British people. More diverse recruitment techniques are a work in progress and I will research this for a future blog.

To consider what actions will work best to improve diversity companies may wish to first of all analyse the demographics of their current workforce in terms of ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability etc and also the demographics of the directors, managers and staff. This can then be compared to the local or national picture to see how representative the organisation is of the communities it serves.

Linked to this, the demographics of job applications, CVs from agencies etc can also be analysed, in addition to the percentage who get an interview and are appointed.

This analysis will enable the organisation to be more aware of where it needs to focus its efforts and can then act accordingly e.g. advertise in the press or on radio stations that reach the target audience.

For those companies who work with recruitment agencies, they will often have analysed the demographics of candidates the organisation has taken on in the past and target similar candidates in order to increase their chances of getting a sale, thus perpetuating the issue. However, in my experience they are very open to being required to provide a diverse range of applicants e.g. fifty percent must be BAME, female or over 50, or that the makeup of the CVs they send needs to be representative of the demographics of the local area.

Including diverse employees in the recruitment process has also been proven to work.

In order to save on recruitment agency fees organisations often operate a bounty scheme where they pay e.g. £500 to each employee who refers a candidate who is recruited. A simple and effective way to increase diverse referrals is to double the bounty for under-represented groups.

A graduate scheme is also a proven way of improving diversity as a high number of students come from diverse backgrounds and more than fifty percent are female.

Finally, targeting specific groups and making the employer attractive to those groups can be successful especially for senior positions e.g. making senior roles flexible and part time may appeal to highly experienced female maternity returners who did not wish to return to their previous role. Vodafone have worked to such a strong degree on ensuring female employees have the same opportunities as male that their board of directors now has the same percentage of females as the percentage of females employed overall by the company. Not many UK companies can say that!

Engagement

Focus groups can really help an employer to understand the issues facing diverse groups of employees and what they want from an employer, which may be different to other groups of employees e.g. white males that often dominate current decision making. Acting on this can lead to improved career prospects for employees from a diverse background and also the company becoming an employer of choice in the local community.

You may wish to recognise the work of focus groups with a quarterly meal attended by the MD where a high-profile speaker is invited to present.

As well as employee focus groups, focus groups with the local community increases the awareness of the organisation in the community and will help an organisation understand their needs and adapt their products, marketing etc accordingly.

Quick hits can be easy and cheap to arrange but go a long way to improve engagement e.g. recognising and giving time off for religious festivals, allocating a room as a prayer room, offering flexible working to ensure religious requirements can be observed.

Industries often have specific groups to encourage diversity e.g. my previous company in the IT sector was a member of the ‘tech talent charter’ which focuses on furthering the causes of diverse groups. I am a member of the local Chamber of Commerce and also Federation of Small Businesses and both of these excellent organisations arrange events to promote diversity in the local area.

Training

Most companies who are serious about diversity and inclusion train their recruiting managers in unconscious bias and diversity. Some also insist that recruitment agencies they use have also been trained and even invite them on their own training courses.

Such unconscious bias training will help avoid occurrences like that experienced recently by Alexandra Wilson, a black barrister who was mistaken for a defendant 3 times in just one day at court.

General diversity training for all employees can prove to be effective in developing the culture to be more inclusive.

186hr are specialists in diversity training and will work with you to make any training you need specific and relevant to your needs, including the above unconscious bias and general diversity training. Our most popular course ‘Dignity and Respect in the Workplace’ would compliment any such training. To discuss your training requirements Contact Us today.

Development programmes for specific groups can also be effective e.g. management development schemes specifically to help female or BAME employees become senior managers of the future.

It is only when you start analysing the reasons for issues such as the gender pay gap that certain traits emerge of the different groups. For example evidence shows that even senior female employees are reticent to negotiate regarding their financial package, leading to lower pay than their male counterparts. Some enlightened employers offer female only training courses to address this.

Clearly the options are limitless and different training will be effective for different needs. For example, as part of their current unconscious bias training white MPs are being encouraged to find a young black mentor so they can understand the issues of this group and understand why they have certain views about a society that they feel is racist.

All of the above actions would be classed as ‘positive action’ to help an organisation become a more diverse and inclusive workplace and for under-represented groups to prosper, but without going to the other extreme and discriminating in their favour e.g. after a management development programme attendees may be more suited to a promotion but there should be no guarantees they would be appointed. We do not advocate ‘positive discrimination’ where you favour e.g. BAME candidates in the recruitment process over other candidates. That would be discrimination and puts you at risk of losing a Tribunal claim unless you can prove that your action was a ‘proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’ which is fiendishly difficult to do.

I’m going to finish with one of the most famous quotes of all time, from the Irish Statesman Edmund Burke in the seventeenth century. ‘All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing’. Using the word ‘evil’ in this context seems a bit strong to me, but then again is that due to the unconscious bias of a white middle-aged man who can never fully appreciate the depth of feeling from those affected by these important issues?