What's causing the gap?
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Progression
Under-representation
At City & Guilds we see an under-representation of employees from ethnic minorities in senior leadership grades and executive ranks (25.2% vs 35.2% of white employees) with black employees least represented (20.6%).
This pattern is also seen at the managerial level, with an under-representation of employees from ethnic minorities in line management positions (15.9% vs 30.5% of white employees). Likely to be contributing to these disparities is the lower internal progression rate for employees from ethnic minorities (5.6% benefited from an upward or lateral move or pay increase vs 8.1% of white employees within the reporting year).
Senior representation gap
Line management gap
Progression gap
Glass ceiling
The lack of diversity in the senior and executive ranks of companies is often referred to as a ‘glass ceiling’, i.e. an artificial barrier that limits the progression of qualified people through discrimination and bias. The barriers facing black employees and employees of mixed or multiple ethnicities, however, are even more severe (particularly for women, who often carry the double burden of systemic racism and sexism), leading many to refer to the barriers they face as a ‘concrete ceiling’.
Concrete ceiling
Unlike the glass ceiling, the concrete ceiling is heavier, more pervasive in that it affects black and mixed ethnicity employees in middle management (and not only leadership) positions and even less easily shattered. This trend is seen notably in the education sector where black and other UK ethnic minority citizens are under-represented in the general staff population and are rarely seen in leadership roles.
Our actions
- Select 1.5x more eligible black employees and employees of mixed ethnicity for management and leadership development programmes than eligible white employees per year to 2025.
- Develop a career choice framework that supports and enables ethnic minority employees (specifically those of black and black/mixed ethnicities) to progress their careers. Specific considerations will be made to support development of equity and readiness, enabling success in role (approach scoped, designed with support from colleagues of colour and agreed by July2022, ahead of performance/priorities year 2022/23).
- As part of the planned review of our performance management processes (FY23), all possible steps will be taken to reduce subjectivity in the processes and performance conversations.
- Identify and eliminate any controllable factors influencing variance in progression rates.