Race at Work Charter

EXECUTIVE SPONSOR FOR RACE TOOLKIT: HOW TO SET ETHNICITY TARGETS

RACE AT WORK CHARTER EXECUTIVE SPONSOR TOOLKIT TWO: HOW TO SET ETHNICITY TARGETS Supporting executive sponsors in businesses to set ethnicity targets.

Introduction

A key part of the role of executive sponsor for

race is to set ethnicity targets. Without these

targets, it is easy for an organisation to lack focus

in their desire for change. The need for

measurement of progress against the five

commitments of the Race at Work Charter, is

clear from the Race at Work 2018: The Scorecard

Report results. The five actions that signatories

commit to are: appoint an executive sponsor for

race, capture and publish ethnicity data, board

level zero tolerance on harassment and bullying,

engage managers to promote equality and attract,

recruit and progress ethnic minority employees in

the workplace.

Ethnicity targets are incredibly useful for keeping

the board and senior leaders accountable for

specific actions. Having time-bound targets both

encourages specific action and requires the

capture of ethnicity data. I congratulate all

organisations that have made steps to both

capture and use this data, however far they are

along their journey to equality. Businesses must

not be afraid to capture data and report on

targets, as, in our experience, both are essential

steps to advance equality and inclusion.

I’d like to offer my heartfelt thanks to both you and

your organisation for taking this important step.

I hope this toolkit can help you make and

measure your progress. Executive Sponsors for race told us that leaders

tasked with this role within organisations would

benefit from support to set ethnicity targets which

are critical to making measurable steps towards

equality.

Albertha Charles, Partner, PwC

BITC Race Equality Leadership Team

With the support of the Business in the

Community (BITC) Race Leadership Team we

have pulled together some great advice on setting

ethnicity targets. Thank you for taking steps as

leaders to make the workplace a more equal

place for all. Together we are stronger.

Sandra Kerr CBE, Race Equality Director,

BITC

CONTENTS

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WHY SET ETHNICITY TARGETS?

HOW TO SET TARGETS FOR YOUR ORGANISATION

ACTIONS TO ACHIEVE TARGETS

Page 2 © Business in the Community 2020

WHY SET SETTING TARGETS? There is the well-known adage: “What gets

measured gets done.” Organisations set targets

and metrics to measure progress in key areas of

the business and to drive change. Setting targets

for ethnic minority representation should be

no different.

TARGETS FOR YOUR ORGANISATION Organisations must set targets for representation

by ethnicity for the different levels in the

organisation. This is because typically the ethnic

diversity represented at junior levels is not

reflected at the senior levels. Clear targets set the timeline and pace of change

required and focus activity to deliver the desired

outcome. Three areas can deliver the greatest impact in

delivering target achievement. Targets are a clear representation of what needs

to be achieved and by when, so that leaders in

the organisation can easily understand and

engage. Targets supported by regular reporting of

progress against them enables prompt remedial

action if progress is not at required level. Recruitment

Progression

Retention

How to take action to achieve targets in these

three areas will be covered in detail in a later

section, as well what actions leaders should take.

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HOW TO SET TARGETS These three stages outline the elements that

should be considered when setting targets for an

organisation.

Determine the type of target

Agree how targets will help the organisation get

there by considering these elements:

• Consider different targets for different parts

of the organisation depending on current

state of these parts.

Consider targets for different ethnic

groups to address imbalance in

representation.

Consider if the target needs to be

proportionate. For example, should it be

proportionate to the grade of the talent

pool individuals were promoted from or an

absolute number (for example, 30 per cent

of leadership roles held by ethnic

minorities).

Determine if you want to set a year-on-

year improvement target, an absolute

number or if the target is to close any

differential (such as in turnover rates for all

ethnic minorities compared to white or

specific ethnic minority groups compared

to white).

Understand the current state

Understand the problem that needs addressing

by asking these questions: •

• What is the ethnic composition of your

workforce?

How does it split by level?

How many applications from BAME

people do you attract?

How do those applications progress

compared to others – how many are long-

listed, short-listed, offered roles, take up

roles?

How do your ethnic minority recruits fare

once employed?

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Determine the future state

Decide where the organisation should be by

taking these steps:

• Agree the skills and human resources

(including the desired diversity of the

future skill base) that the organisation

needs over the target period

Agree the desirable level of voluntary

turnover for the organisation or set a

turnover target that is typical turnover for

its sector

Determine what types of role changes

constitute a promotion

Understand the diversity of the recruitment

market (such as demographics of region

or particular skill set).

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ACTIONS TO “Executive sponsors can

really drive impact through,

goals and targets for

improvement. Active

monitoring of progress

through a senior-led action

group will ensure progress is

made against milestones set

and momentum is

maintained”

ACHIEVE TARGETS Once an executive sponsor has set targets, the

next major hurdle is how to go about achieving

them. Break down action into three stages:

recruitment, progression and retention.

• Roland IIube, Head of M&A and

Commercial Finance, Downstream, Shell

International

• BITC Race Equality Leadership Team

member

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Leaders must set a clear tone from the top,

explaining why targets are required, why

leaders need to engage and to position

ethnicity targets alongside other

business measures.

Set a clear timeline for target achievement.

Use organisational trend data to engage

leaders on the issues to be resolved to

inform targets.

Require targets to be sufficiently stretching to

deliver the desired change.

Accountability and ownership

Ensure leaders understand they are

accountable for delivering the targets and the

supporting actions. Embed target

achievement into your performance and

reward review processes to drive

accountability and consider publishing

external for transparency and accountability.

Ensure regular board-level review of progress

against targets

Provide regular reporting to leaders so they

can monitor progress against targets and take

prompt remedial actions if not on track.

Leadership

Leadership commitment

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Proactively manage senior BAME leadership

pipeline

Identify ethnic minorities in the leadership

pipeline and ensure they are provided with the

sponsorship, work opportunities and

development they need to progress.

Review the roles that feed leadership

positions to ensure ethnic minority

representation and act to address issues to

build the pipeline

Implement board member sponsorship of

BAME staff in roles that feed leadership roles

Develop tailored leadership development

interventions for senior BAME talent.

Case Study – Enterprise

Rent-A-Car

Leadership taking strategic action towards

diversity and inclusion.

At Enterprise Rent-A-Car, each region

oversees its development and completes the

scorecard with their actions on diversity.

Each branch has the autonomy to make its

own decisions regarding employee

development and to ensure that diversity is a

priority at every stage from recruitment

through to career progression and beyond.

The organisation has a diversity scorecard

that looks at 12 core areas where a diverse

approach can have greatest impact. This was

introduced to enable every senior executive to

have a tangible framework to measure their

diversity/inclusion programmes.

Additionally, the most senior team in the UK

discuss issues related to diversity in the

business four to six times a year.

Impact: 5per cent BAME UK directors

including the managing director and financial

director; 17.3 per cent managers are now

BAME, an increase of 3.3 per cent since

2012. More than one quarter (28.1 per cent)

of new hires are BAME, an increase of 6.1 per

cent since 2012.

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so they understood the need for targets, what

their targets were, actions they could all take

to support target achievement and that they

were being held responsible and accountable

for their business targets.

Quarterly reports were provided to show

progress against the annual and 2020 targets.

In interests of transparency, PwC have

published firm-wide targets and progress

against them in the annual report, together

with the details of a five-point action plan to

achieve them.

In 2018, to further drive accountability, PwC

introduced financial consequences for all

partners for their target achievement as part

of their reward and performance review.

Business units who have made most progress

towards their targets receive additional bonus

funding to be allocated to those partners who

have made the most contribution to target

achievement.

The organisation is now working on setting

targets for 2025.

The impact was good progress with both

gender and ethnicity targets, and PwC have

already met the 2020 gender targets for

senior managers and managers

The organisation is 1 per cent short on female

partner targets and BAME partner and

director targets and within 2 per cent of the

other targets.

Despite various actions to address the lack of

diverse senior leaders, the gender and ethnic

diversity of PwC’s junior grades was still not

reflected at senior levels and the rate of

change was too slow. The diversity council,

which comprises of a board member for

people and senior people leaders from all

service lines, committed to set targets for

diversity, in the same way there are targets

for other aspects of business.

In 2015 all parts of the business had set

targets for the proportion of females and

ethnic minorities at grades manager through

to partner to be achieved by 2020.

PwC took a bottom-up approach, with

business leaders setting their own targets to

drive their ownership and responsibility. To

facilitate target setting, they used a workforce

planning tool that used three-year average

rates of hires, leavers and promotion to

forecast the gender and ethnic profile of their

workforce in 2020 if these rates stayed the

same. This was the ‘do-nothing’ scenario and

became the minimum level from which they

needed to set feasible but stretching targets

for their business.

In 2017 it was clear that, following

organisation structural and leadership

changes, knowledge of the targets among the

business leaders and all partners was patchy

and there was no sense of responsibility and

accountability for delivering against them.

They were given the opportunity to adjust

targets but PwC kept those at firm level the

same.

A focus on targets was included in the

inclusive leadership programme for partners,

Case study: PwC

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Advertise in recruitment media that target

ethnic minorities.

Review job adverts and job descriptions to

ensure language is inclusive.

Ensure recruitment marketing collateral has

diverse imagery and features ethnic minority

role models.

Ensure those involved in recruitment activities

– such as those on campus or in

presentations – are ethnically diverse.

Participate in events and conferences for

BAME business groups to raise the

organisation’s profile.

Ensure external communications and website

demonstrate inclusion of ethnic minorities is

embedded in the organisation’s culture.

Decision makers

Ensure the interviewer pool and

representatives at recruitment events have

BAME representation.

Implement mandatory training for those who

participate in recruitment and selection

activities, so they understand how bias can

impact their decisions and take action to take

to mitigate.

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Progression

Access to career-defining roles

Identify those career-enhancing roles that

provide people with the exposure and

experience to prepare them for the next level.

Ensure there is proportionate representation

in these roles and regularly review.

Identify your key talent and ensure key BAME

ethnic minority talent has access to these

career-enhancing roles.

Advocacy

Ensure BAME key talent have senior

sponsors who can influence and make

changes to give access to opportunities.

Recruitment and selection

Supply chain

Engage recruiters in what the organisation is

trying to achieve. Set expectations for them to

provide diverse candidates. Incorporate these

expectations into supplier contracts.

Engage specialist recruitment suppliers and

organisations that work with BAME groups in

the organisation’s market and location. Seek

their views on the organisation’s reputation

with the diverse communities they represent.

Engage BAME staff in referring diverse

candidates.

Recruitment profile

Case study: KPMG

Student recruitment review

In 2014, KPMG recognised it could do more

to attract and hire BAME talent through its

student recruitment process, and published

set targets for ethnicity. Target universities

were mainly Russell Group and there was an

imbalanced diversity in student hires.

KPMG identified areas for change that

included reviewing marketing materials to

profile the diversity of their workforce,

identifying 12 “Reach” universities with high

intakes of BAME students, and targeting

schools to broaden outreach to different

student populations.

The organisation introduced a new elite

apprenticeship, KPMG360, and launched a

new graduate recruitment process, Launch

Pad. In this recruitment scheme, candidates

were put through multiple assessments in one

day, including their interview; and KPMG

reviewed marketing materials to profile the

diversity of their workforce and target schools

to broaden outreach to different student

populations.

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Provide prayer facilities.

Recognise cultural events, festivities and

religious celebrations.

Raise awareness of actions being taken to

support BAME talent.

Provide culturally diverse food in the

organisation’s catering facilities.

Conduct focus groups with teams with low or

high retention to understand issues and what

supports high retention. Engage team

members on actions to address issues.

Engage the organisation’s BAME people

networks and seek their views on its

reputation with the communities they

represent.

Conduct exit interviews with BAME

employees to understand their reasons for

leaving.

Employee networks

Create opportunities where BAME staff can

informally raise issues, seek support and

mentoring from others

Support establishment of BAME employee

networks and seek their input for ethnicity

inclusion strategy.

Support different cultures

Profile

Profile your BAME leaders, and ensure they

are visible in leadership events, annual,

general and internal staff meetings and the

organisation’s communications. Encourage

them to share their career journey stories.

Engage and consult your people

Conduct regular staff engagement surveys to

understand level of engagement among

BAME staff and to both enable early

identification of issues that could increase

turnover and issues that would support

retention.

Ensure BAME talent is paired with skilled career

progression coaches

Consider tailored leadership development

interventions for BAME talent

Review applications for self-nomination

development programmes and target individuals

who may need encouragement to apply

Ensure BAME employees have access to

skilled mentors

Profile ethnic minority role models in your

organisation.

Retention

Visibility

Senior representation

Ensure you have BAME representation at

senior levels.

Review all BAME talent to identify if there are

talented individuals who have been

overlooked and should be identified as key

talent.

Determine the talent pipeline for progression

to next level and review to ensure

proportionate BAME representation. Monitor

regularly to ensure it remains diverse.

Require promotions to be at least

proportionate and challenge where this is not

the case.

Conduct a diversity review of all proposed

promotions before they are finalised.

Mandatory training for all those who make

talent progression decisions, so they

understand how bias can impact their

decisions and take action to take to mitigate.

Managing talent pipeline and promotion

processes

Support for BAME talent

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to the BITC Race Equality Leadership Team for its support in creating this toolkit. This

leadership team includes representation from KPMG, Nationwide, PwC, Cabinet Office, Enterprise Rent-A-

Car, Shell International, Santander, Accenture, British Army, CPS and Pertemps Ltd., Royal Mail, The Co-

operative.