Moving the dial on
workforce diversity
and inclusion
D
Businesses have been prioritising workforce diversity and
inclusion for decades, so how can we accelerate the rate of progress?
Paul Modley, global talent acquisition director and head of
diversity & inclusion at Alexander Mann Solutions, investigates.
iversity and inclusion
(D&I) is becoming an
ever-more important
consideration for
modern businesses.
Approximately one in five Fortune
500 companies now has a chief
diversity officer (CDO). Pinterest
hired its first in 2016, and Uber
followed suit in 2018.
The world of work is beginning
to wake up to the idea that an
organisation will be judged harshly
– and make less money – if it is not
proactively encouraging the hiring,
retention and promotion of as diverse
a range of employees as possible.
Research suggests that 37% of
millennials will check a company’s
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D&I policy when applying for a job. If
they can see that a potential employer
is taking the issue seriously, they will
have every reason to apply.
But is enough progress being made
with the D&I agenda, given how much
of a priority it has become over the
past five years? And what needs to
happen in the next five, in order for
the situation to continue to improve?
Evidence of progress
Let’s start with some good news.
Stephen Frost is CEO of Frost
Included, which delivers inclusion
programmes to businesses. He
recalls that “in 1999 you could be
fired from the UK military for being
gay”, something he describes as
“inconceivable” in 2019. While he
was unable to join the military corps
at this time due to his sexuality,
he believes this would be “laughable”
nowadays.
He adds that, in 2005, when LGBT
rights charity, Stonewall, compiled a
list of the 100 best employers for gay
people, seven of them didn’t want to
be associated with this; three years
on “they were all fighting to get in”.
Progress is clearly being made
around workplace discrimination –
especially in areas such as sexuality
and gender.
In the UK, in 2016, many financial
services organisations signed up to
the Women in Finance Charter, a
government initiative that pledged