In March, the Government Equalities Office and Equality and Human Right’s Commission suspended Gender Pay Gap reporting regulations for 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with no expectation for employers to report for the 2019/20 reporting year. 

Reporting by UK companies has naturally tumbled with early research suggesting that, while the pandemic affects both men and women, the additional burden of working from home, alongside home-schooling, childcare, family and other household responsibilities, is having a far greater impact on women’s personal and professional lives. 

On 11 June, the Chair of the Hampton Alexander Review, Sir Philip Hampton, commented about the importance of maintaining a focus on diversity during the pandemic. The Review Board has recently reported that 64 of the FTSE 100 companies, nearly two-thirds, have met or exceeded their target of 33% women on boards. They also reported an improving trend for FTSE 250 companies. However, there is a real danger that the pandemic slows, or even stalls this fundamental progress in many businesses. 

Frankly, in 2020, nobody should be asking why that would be such a bad thing. Our boardrooms should represent our customers and the society we live in. We believe, and research has proved, that greater diversity will also lead to better decision-making in the boardroom. 

Whilst we think Non Exec Directors have a very important role to play in bringing more diverse thinking, ABSTRACT have always felt slightly frustrated when Boards simply add a female NED to achieve a quota rather than the real effort and solution of developing their pipeline of female talent.

Encouragingly, our experience to date during the pandemic is that our clients want to find innovative ways to continue to develop their people, including the career management and development of future female leaders, through virtual training, at least in the short term. However, commercial realities may soon begin to impact training budgets which is a risk to further progress. 

We we have also seen the world get behind the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in the US. 

Fortunately, this time, this discussion has permeated the corporate world and led to some meaningful public displays of intent to address the underrepresentation of minorities in senior leadership positions. 

Before the pandemic, during 2019 and into 2020, ABSTRACT observed that some companies and organisations who have been leading the change for gender equality were expanding their focus to other underrepresented groups and how they might also address this issue. 

There was a danger that the pandemic might stifle this early focus, but recent despicable events have led to international protests and the public demanding decisive action from governments and businesses. Racial equality in general, and in the workplace, has been firmly placed on the global agenda. Many high-profile organisations have said its time for change - and we’re watching in anticipation for the actions needed to back this up, if genuine progress is to be achieved. 

If you want to look more closely at this, a good place to start is with the latest update report from The Parker Review Committee on Ethnic Diversity Enriching Business Leadership published in February and also the Race In The Workplace McGregor-Smith Review, which highlighted issues faced by businesses in developing black and minority ethnic talent in the workplace. The McGregor Smith Review, written before recent events, states 

At ABSTRACT our vision is ‘to make the corporate world a better and fairer place’ through award-winning, cutting-edge talent development programmes - each of which is built on the premise of success through consideration and inclusion. We advocate for strong and considerate leadership in business, not the ruthless leadership of the past. 

We help companies to fully understand, and find solutions to, their unique problems to solve through the models we’ve developed as part of our industry leading Critical Thinking Series. We equip leadership teams with tools and frameworks to drive the actions that will overcome the barriers to success, including greater equality in the workplace. 

The moral, legal, business, and economic arguments have been made for greater gender and ethnic diversity in business. However, women and minorities remain under-represented in senior roles. The Covid-19 pandemic will have major consequences for business – good and bad – the important thing is for businesses to seize the huge opportunity we have been given to ‘build back better’. Those who focus on rebuilding with the right priorities, and equality should be top of the list, will emerge better suited to thrive in the new normal.

The Parker Review Committee on Ethnic Diversity Enriching Business Leadership; https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_uk/news/2020/02/ey-parker-review-2020-report-final.pdf

McGregor-Smith Review Race In The Workplace