Why businesses need to diversify their succession plans

It’s been near­ly a year since the death of George Floyd, which both reignit­ed a glob­al move­ment in the Black Lives Mat­ter protests and shone a light on diver­si­ty and inclu­sion (D&I) in the world of busi­ness. 

Many com­pa­nies at the time made very pub­lic state­ments and pledges regard­ing the lev­el of D&I with­in their ranks, includ­ing L’Oréal, Bar­clays and the BBC. And yet a lack of diver­si­ty in com­pa­nies, espe­cial­ly among the FTSE 100, endures. 

For the first time in six years, there are now no Black exec­u­tives in any of the top three roles at Britain’s 100 biggest com­pa­nies. And only ten out of the 297 lead­ers in the top three posi­tions are from eth­nic minor­i­ty back­grounds, a num­ber that hasn’t changed since this type of analy­sis began in 2014.

Com­pa­nies may have imple­ment­ed some changes when it comes to D&I, but it seems these don’t go all the way to the top. And for change to be prop­er­ly effec­tive, it has to start at the top, with the lead­er­ship. So who are the com­pa­nies and lead­ers going beyond pledges and dri­ving real, tan­gi­ble change in busi­ness?

Money talks, so investment is key

Home­Hero, a prop­er­ty tech­nol­o­gy start­up focus­ing on dig­i­tal home man­age­ment, is one com­pa­ny that has put in place D&I ini­tia­tives that encom­pass the whole organ­i­sa­tion, includ­ing lead­er­ship. Even though they’re a rel­a­tive­ly small com­pa­ny, they’ve pri­ori­tised and invest­ed in a diverse and inclu­sive work­place. 

As well as a month­ly stipend for ini­tia­tives that employ­ees then choose how to spend, which range from boost­ing job adverts in plat­forms for under-rep­re­sent­ed groups to hir­ing spe­cial­ist recruiters, they’ve also launched the Future Female Lead­ers net­work. This is a net­work for female employ­ees that hosts an exter­nal work­shop each month, with the aim of acknowl­edg­ing the female expe­ri­ence, in tech espe­cial­ly, and prepar­ing female employ­ees for lead­er­ship posi­tions.

They’re already see­ing some impact from their ini­tia­tives, with women now present across all depart­ments at Home­Hero. But the work con­tin­ues. “Our organ­i­sa­tion was diverse from day one, but that does­n’t mean you can rest on your lau­rels,” says Nana Wereko-Brob­by, head of com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Home­Hero. 

She explains that the dif­fi­cult part of D&I can be hir­ing for lead­er­ship roles, as “you want to make sure you’re not hir­ing peo­ple into stereo­typ­i­cal roles, men in tech and women in HR.” 

As well as hav­ing your CEO get behind and cham­pi­on D&I in the work­place, says Wereko-Brob­by, com­pa­nies need to invest, so they’re able to put mon­ey into hir­ing recruiters, who spe­cialise in find­ing diverse appli­cants, or putting in place train­ing pro­grammes to upskill exist­ing employ­ees, for exam­ple.

It’s all about the data

Anoth­er com­pa­ny that is putting promis­es into action is Analog­Folk, a glob­al dig­i­tal cre­ative agency. In 2018, they were recog­nised on the FT Future 100 UK list as an “all-rounder” for their impact across cat­e­gories such as diver­si­ty, gov­er­nance and the envi­ron­ment. 

They invest in accel­er­at­ing female tal­ent by enrolling women in the Future Lead­ers’ Cre­ative Equals pro­gramme each year. Many of those who’ve attend­ed the pro­gramme have gone on to be pro­mot­ed to senior lead­er­ship roles, such as cre­ative direc­tors and heads of depart­ments. As well as get­ting women into these roles, they’re also involved in a sim­i­lar lead­er­ship pro­gramme for Black, Asian and eth­nic minor­i­ty employ­ees, with a focus on men­tor­ing for junior tal­ent and train­ing for more senior tal­ent.

These are just some of the ini­tia­tives that have had a real effect on both Analog­Folk as a com­pa­ny and its employ­ees. Not only has it meant they’ve expe­ri­enced an increased reten­tion of their staff, but it’s also had a pos­i­tive impact on the well­be­ing of employ­ees. 

Bill Brock, founder and chief client offi­cer at Analog­Folk, says: “It’s all about the data. Work­places must start their D&I jour­ney by look­ing at their data. What data do you col­lect and what data are you miss­ing? Once you start to look at the make-up and dif­fer­ent life-cycle stages of your employ­ees, you will start to build a pic­ture of where the chal­lenges lie.”

People are at the heart of business, listen to them

Siemens Mobil­i­ty, a trans­port solu­tions com­pa­ny, is also mak­ing real strides in their efforts to be a diverse and inclu­sive organ­i­sa­tion. They’ve put time and effort into their recruit­ment strate­gies, using inclu­sive recruit­ment plat­forms across all role types, to ensure job adverts are both attrac­tive and reach a diverse range of peo­ple. 

The com­pa­ny has also been run­ning lead­er­ship pro­grammes for employ­ees, which they’re look­ing at scal­ing up this year. One of these pro­grammes is a “return­ers” pro­gramme, which aims to train and upskill employ­ees who have been out of the work­force for sev­er­al years.

They’ve already seen a large improve­ment in their employ­ee engage­ment, espe­cial­ly around how employ­ees feel about D&I and the cul­ture of the work­place.

Siemens Mobility’s suc­ces­sion plan­ning is also cur­rent­ly being reviewed by a steer­ing group that will over­see the employ­ee jour­ney, from induc­tion all the way through to skills and train­ing through­out the career path. The aim of the review is to align all work streams and ensure D&I is present in every step. 

Asked what is the key to dri­ving change in D&I, Siemens Mobil­i­ty CEO Will Wil­son says: “Peo­ple are at the heart of busi­ness, so make sure to lis­ten to your peo­ple,” adding that not only do com­pa­nies need to lis­ten, they also need to be open to new ideas.

“A diver­si­ty of dif­fer­ent ideas and voic­es will only make the organ­i­sa­tion rich­er and more suc­cess­ful and, after all, it is our col­leagues’ tal­ent which will make the busi­ness thrive and uncov­er new oppor­tu­ni­ties for the future,” he con­cludes.