CBI @10am: The future of diversity and inclusion

Speakers:

• Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE DL, President, CBI
• Jodie Coe, Director of People and Operations, CPI
• Michelle Sequeira, UK Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Consulting Leader, Mercer
• Liz Moseley, Editor and Partner, Tortoise Media (Chair)

In this session:

Lord Bilimoria:

• As a president – increasing ethnic representation is one of my key topics of focus.
• D&I has come to the fore during the pandemic as the pandemic has highlighted inequalities in the UK.
• 7 in 10 businesses want to increase D&I activities in the next 2-3 years.
• Change the Race Ratio: target of having 1/3 of FTSE 100 signed up by end of the year.
• We are making progress on increasing ethnic representation across businesses but there is still a long way to go.
• The CBI is supporting the introduction of mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting.

Jodie Coe (CPI):

• D&I is important to the CPI – to set D&I priorities the CPI got its employees involved, looked at the community they serve, and the ecosystem (suppliers that they work with).
• They are measuring inclusion by asking three key questions annually: how included do their employees feel in your team? Do you feel you can be an authentic self at work? Would you recommend the CPI to work at?
• Social mobility is one of the big topics for the CPI – came about from employee feedback – wanted impact in the wider community. Wanted to focus on positive action.
• CPI is offering different entry routes to the company: placements, apprenticeship, etc.
• Work with the Middleborough Foundation to fund and support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to gain qualifications.

Michelle Sequeira (Mercer):

• Took a data-driven approach to setting D&I priorities– hearing from employees, looked at their data, practices and policies, spoke to suppliers.
• Aspirations Mercer wants to reach by 2025 – mirror the community they work in, advance gender balance at all levels (for example 45% women at senior levels), further raise mental health awareness, creating an inclusive culture, communicating effectively progress and being accountable, have effective governance.
• Myths busting as part of the strategy: businesses might think that they are quite good on some things like diverse hiring. They have to look at promotions, progression. Mercer saw that there were areas where they did need to stretch – revisit some policies and practices.
• Shifting the dial: debiasing recruitment, mentoring, sponsoring.