To ask people of colour......

[DaintyFlower]

To ask people of colour what they would like their work place to do to promote equality and career progression for BAME?

I am trying to establish a BAME network in my workplace. It is a large organisation with a percentage of BAME population that is still lower than the general population. However, there are very very few BAME in management roles and pretty non existent in senior or exec roles.

Any experience, suggestions and advice on steps that can be taken to reduce this inequality will be appreciated.

Why don't you ask white management why they aren't recruiting more BAME individuals.

If you are BAME yourself OP then for a start it would help if you consistently went networking yourself. I know in the organisations I have done so senior people do turn up.

I'm actually freelance and frequently in roles where I work with one or more senior people directly. Added in with networking with their staff they see I'm a human being. Often they see that the company or the people under them are white and mostly male, so they frequently start trying to recruit more BAME people for permanent roles at any level. Not all organisations do this as they are diverse anyway, and I've found it surprising over the years which organisations are and aren't.

In regards to mentors - one of mentors was a white male. His wife isn't white, works in a different industry and faced discrimination in the UK.

@Fuckedoffat48b - "They don't apply for the roles" "We need someone with team fit"

People recruit people who are like themselves. If you have a lot of white women in the workplace they will recruit white women. If you hire a lot of black or Indian women they also will hire women like themselves. It isn’t a matter of hiring more BAME individuals necessarily, but improving diversity over all - blind recruitment (where you can’t see an applicant’s name, age, or any dates of experience) works. As do recruitment drives during BAME events such as Notting Hill carnival / Holi / Diwali / Eid / pride events.

People.... of... colour...

Really op?

I think the most important thing here, given the OP is trying to do something decent and worthwhile, is to haul her over the coals for her choice of language, without providing any useful or helpful suggestions at all.

slow handclap

I hate this place sometimes.

@Yeahnahmum - people of colour or poc is how we people of colour describe ourselves everywhere in the world. BAME is a UK only descriptor

Out of interest OP, would you mind sharing which sector you work in? Just trying to think of some more practical suggestions for you.

Well said thedancingbear! I think a network is a brilliant idea - and ideally get some support from your employer - eg paying for a networking lunch/coffee. Who is the most senior BAME/POC person in your organisation - would they be willing to talk to HR about unconscious bias training for all staff?

It would helpful to know where the company is located and which sector.
If it’s not located in a culturally diverse area then you won’t get the applicants.

What colour are ou specifying op? Sky blue pink perhaps? Apple green?

We had a company that specialises in promoting diversity, come in to do a networking event for us. They did a presentation on how beneficial diversity is for an organisation. If your company can see how they benefit, you may get more management buy in.

The focus of the event seemed to be more around improving the numbers of women in the workplace, which wasn’t so relevant as I work for the NHS, who are fairly good at ensuring women are represented in their workplace but it got me thinking about how the GMC increased the proportion of women or BAME people qualifying as doctors. They have been extremely successful so it may be worth looking at how they did it.

OP our Equality Lead requested HR do an equality index report, this showed how many BME/LGBT/Disabled/female staff members we had across the organisation and in what level of employment. We then did a survey of all staff about how they feel about diversity in the workplace and barriers to progression. We analysed the results and put together an action plan which included staff forums being set up for each type of diversity, there was real interest in membership to each forum. Each forum, with its own agenda, was able to feed back to directors about their experiences of working in the organisation and what they felt barriers were but also what was being done well. We then revamped our EDI policy, highlighted religious and secular events across the organisation via emails to all staff thus making us more inclusive and welcoming to all sects. We recruited staff to volunteer as EDI leads in each of our offices to promote EDI and advise on any issues that were raisef by staff. We began working with other organisations that are already out there specifically to raise awareness for each equality on the index. It has been several years and many have said they feel they work in a more inclusive environment now, recruitment across the various groups has improved too, we have a long way to go but we are getting there.

Hi OP, I’m chair of the BAME network at my organisation.

Year one was about opening up the conversation - discussions open to all - to explore issues, and finding an executive sponsor (does not have to be BAME - our first sponsor was white and did a great job) We also reviewed the diversity data and data from the engagement survey (which includes diversity questions). We raised awareness of significant events e.g. black history month, Ramadan - bringing in external speakers. This was key, as conversations around diversity were very nascent.

You will absolutely need HR support if you want to change policies, but also for budget towards, for example, unconscious bias training (but don’t call it that - freaks people out).

You will also need to get the recruitment team on side, as they will need to implement any adjustments to the internal process, as well as influence stakeholders. Also the Learning & Development team, if you want to put mentoring or progression programmes in place.

The other thing to do is consistently reinforce that commercially, diversity is positive for businesses. There are lots of reports online about this.

Expect people to be super awkward about it at first - people in corporate environments aren’t used to talking about race, and may be threatened by you challenging their assumptions and views. Keep plugging away - it takes time. And good luck! It’s very fulfilling, I can promise that.

FWIW I’m not offended by the term ‘people of colour’. Just as I’m not offended by ‘BAME’. I don’t think either takes into account the differences between the groups within those terms, and their different experiences, but... we don’t have anything better and I can’t come up with anything better so, will not complain too much about it!

@Beechview not necessarily.

Some of the companies I've done work for are in non-diverse areas but have diverse staff members including at higher levels.

The companies have realised to get the skills they need to serve their client base effectively they need to be creative with recruiting.

In fact I've found some companies in London are less diverse.

BAME employees are finding that a white person with less experience, is getting the promotion. ‘Coincidentally’ the less experienced person always ‘interviews better on the day’

In this situation the first question I’d be trying to get in front of senior management is “are the best people for the jobs getting them?” It has to be bad for the company if a half hour performance one day is more important than consistent performance and ability. I’d go into this asking “how can we ensure the best people are promoted”. One of the answers has to be removing unconscious bias, another will be around networking (the drinks thing and the mentoring thing) and another angle might be elevating targets and performance records over interview.

Check if the % of BAME applications your company is receiving corresponds to the % in the population.
If not, why not ?

I would be very wary about this point, especially if a company is based in one particular area. For example, I work for a large company that employs around 3,000 people locally.

The applications we get are generally from people living locally and the ethnicity reflects the make up of people living locally.

This is why just looking at national figures can be misleading (unless you are an employer with locations spread throughout the country).

According to the ONS, from the 2011 Census this is what England & Wales looked like as a whole:-

White 86.0%
Mixed 2.2%
South Asian 5.3%
Other Asian 2.2%
Black 3.3%
Any Other 1.0%

However, if you were an employer recruiting primarily in London and your workforce looked like that then there really would be issues as the ethnicity in London looks like this:-

White 59.8%
Mixed 5.0%
South Asian 12.1%
Other Asian 6.4%
Black 13.3%
Any Other 3.4%

Then, outside of London, the rest of England & Wales looks like this:-

White 90.4%
Mixed 1.7%
South Asian 4.2%
Other Asian 1.5%
Black 1.6%
Any Other 0.6%

The area of the country where I live broadly matches those figures and so do the employees where I work and the applications that the company gets. A person coming from London seeing that 90% of employees at our company are white might think that we have racist recruitment policies but it simply reflects the make up of the local population.

However, if a company that was based in Leicester had similar figures then it would probably be a lot more of an issue. This is what Leicester looks like:-

White 50.5%
Mixed 3.5%
South Asian 31.8%
Other Asian 5.3%
Black 6.2%
Any Other 2.6%

If anyone is interested you can see all the figures broken down to Local Authority Level in England & Wales here:-

Ethnic Groups by Local Authority

and for completeness here are the figures for Scotland:-

White 96.0%
Mixed 0.4%
South Asian 1.6%
Other Asian 1.0%
Black 0.7%
Any Other 0.3%

and Northern Ireland:-

White 99.3%
Mixed 0.2%
South Asian 0.1%
Other Asian 0.3%
Black 0.1%
Any Other 0.1%

Are you BAME yourself? This makes a big difference. Where I work they have just commissioned a 50 something white guy to do the same as what you're doing. All the BAME immediately lost interest, as it's utterly tone deaf.

Generally, BAME do not like talking to non BAME about race issues. You'd be best off commissioning them to discuss amongst themselves confidentially and having a representative feed back to you.

If you're serious and depending on what type of organisation you work for, I recommend getting in touch with Rare recruitment.

www.rarerecruitment.co.uk/clients

You may be interested in their 'contextual recruitment system'.

@nickymanchester - The Leicester figures have changed now since 2011. White people are a minority in the city now. Yet some companies, eg in the banking and finance sector, still seem to be full of white people there (especially when it comes to managerial roles) which makes it really difficult for them to engage with the local communities. A lot of really qualified poc can only seem to get decent managerial jobs if they are willing to commute to London; and that brain drain makes things worse.

Appreciate every post on this thread with advice, experience and suggestions. Am taking notes. Will be back later tonight but thought I would clarify that the organisation has done well with recruiting BAME (and is addressing further initiatives that need to be taken). However, when you look at pay grades the difference is stark. Most BAME do not rise beyond the role they started on despite being there years and years. They get stuck in that role with nowhere to go and watch non BAME take on senior roles.

Just to add, even though the recruitment has taken big steps to recruit more BAME, th organisation still does not reflect local population as a nickymanchester has specified above.