Pride in the diversity of your workforce pays

Organisations that are more diverse are not only more successful, they are also nicer places to work, as Niki Chesworth discovers

ON Saturday, Pride in London Parade Day will see thousands of people of all genders, sexualities, races, nationalities, backgrounds and faiths coming together for the UK’s biggest Pride celebration.

Along with the colour, cabaret and celebrities, you might spot the big business sponsors, which include Barclays, Tesco and Pwc who, like most employers put diversity and inclusion high up the corporate agenda.

The annual event has even led to a spin-off initiative, Pride in the City, which is focused on supporting inclusivity in business and delivered with OUTstanding, a corporate members organisation for LGBT+ leaders, their allies and next generation leaders.

Partners include NTT Data, Deliveroo, Indeed and Oath. The case for greater diversity in the workplace is compelling. Inclusive, diverse and flexible businesses are the ones that are winning the loyalty of their employees, according to the Millennial Survey from Deloitte.

It found that eight in 10 (78 per cent) of millennials who say their companies have a diverse workforce would stay there for more than five years.

The warning for firms that fail to take diversity seriously is that they will lose their staff. Only one in five (22 per cent) of younger employers would stay with organisations they say are “not diverse” for five years or more.

Yet employers are struggling to meet these expectations. According to the Graduate Market in 2018 report from HighFliers, by far the biggest challenge for top employers is achieving diversity targets (cited by 74 per cent of the UK’s top graduate employers).

GENDER AGENDA

Diversity in terms of gender is also in the news again, following on latest figures from the Hampton-Alexander Review. While they show progress has been made in the number of women in senior positions, particularly within the FTSE100, the number of women on boards within the FTSE 350 is still worryingly low.

Once again, there is a strong case for greater diversity. McKinsey & Co’s recent research into more than 1,000 companies across 12 countries found that firms in the top quartile for gender diversity are 21 per cent more likely to enjoy above-average profitability than companies in the bottom quartile.

However, progress is being made. The Hampton-Alexander Review, published last week, revealed that the FTSE 100 leading firms are on track to reach the government-backed target of 33 per cent by 2020, a significant increase from 12.5 per cent in 2011.

Even so, far too many companies still have no women — or only one woman — on their board. The report highlighted some of the businesses with all-male boards including Sports Direct International and Stobart Group.

Ethnic and social diversity are also increasingly important for organisations, particularly when it comes to trying to address skills shortages.

The benefits are even greater than with gender. According to McKinsey & Co, companies in the top quartile for ethnic diversity are 33 per cent more l i ke l y to s e e h i g h e r-t h a n-ave ra ge profits.

FLEXI FRIENDLY

Even among groups that do not tick any diversity boxes, the issue is increasingly important.

Diverse organisations tend to be more accepting of things like f l ex i b i l i t y requests or the need for shared parental leave.

Latest official figures reveal that just 9,200 parents took advantage of the new right to shared parental leave in the past year. Yet, as with diversity, flexibility is increasingly seen as an essential part of working life, particularly among workers in their 20s and 30s, with remote working one of the top five most important benefits when looking for a new job according to research from totaljobs. It found that one in four employees say they would change jobs for more remote working options — but this rises to nearly half (45 per cent) among the millennial generations.

HOW DO YOU KNOW?

With diversity and flexibility high up the list of priorities for UK workers, it is important for jobseekers to check out where their future employer stands on these issues.

Looking at mission statements is not enough. Practically every organisation pays lip service to being a diverse place to work.

So how do you check? For LGBT+ inclusivity look at the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index, a benchmarking tool for employers to measure their progress on lesbian, gay, bi and trans inclusion in the workplace.

Participating employers demonstrate their work in 10 areas of employment policy and practice with staff across the organisation completing anonymous surveys about their experiences of diversity and inclusion at work.

The top 100 best-performing organisations are then published each year. See stonewall.org.uk/workplace-equalityindex.

Also find out if the employer has an active LGBT group and if personnel take part in any sector-wide groups.

In terms of gender, the Government’s new gender pay website is a great place to start — you can search the divide between male and female pay at https:// gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk/. It is important to check pay gaps for your level of role. Pay gaps tend to be much higher in senior roles and roles which attract bonuses.

Flexibility can be much harder to measure. See the glassdoor.co.uk best places to work lists, which include reviews which tend to centre on things like the support, culture, inclusivity and enjoyability of each workplace.

Workingmums.co.uk also lists top employers, while Timewise.co.uk produces an annual power-part-time list which reveals some surprisingly senior people (and the organisations they work for) who work fewer than five full days a week.

For firms which are more racially diverse see https://race.bitc.org.uk/ awards-benchmarking/race-equalityawards-2017-winners-and-finalists.

When it comes to social diversity, check the employer’s website. Firms that offer apprenticeships as well as graduate-entry schemes and no longer insist on minimum academic requirements are the ones that are trying to rule people into jobs, rather than rule them out just because of their backgrounds.

LEARN TO EARN

Summertime is the perfect opportunity to perfect your language skills and, while good conversational skills in a foreign tongue are always a plus when looking for a new job, it is a different type of language — coding — that will really push up your pay.

Jobs that require coding skills earn on average £16,523 more per year than positions which require a foreign Employers are increasingly using events such as Pride London, which is running until Saturday with the big parade at the weekend, to promote greater diversity and inclusion in the workplace. language, according to Adzuna. The average salary for a person who can code is £50,286 compared to just £33,376 for jobs which require an employee to speak a second foreign language.

While salaries that require languages have increased by 7.8 per cent since 2017, salaries that require computer languages have increased by a higher 9.2 per cent over the same period.

However, not all languages are equal. Java developer pay has risen by 12.3 per cent a year to an average £61,980 and Python developer pay is close behind, up 12 per cent to £58,755. But, while web developer pay is up 10 per cent over the year, it is lagging behind at an average of £43,724 a year.

The same applies to spoken languages. If you are an Arabic speaker, the most sought after second language to have in the UK, you can expert to earn an average of £43,544, although average advertised salaries for a second language are a much lower £33,708.

Spanish, French, Chinese and German are all in demand, but pay has fallen for Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and Polish speakers.

A n d r e w H u n t e r, c o - f o u n d e r o f Adzuna, says: “In the past, one of the best ways for people to improve their employability and earning potential was to speak a second language. However, in 2018 computer languages look set to out-earn human ones. Java and Python have become the new Mandarin.”