The US stock market is at near all time highs. Google is headed by an Indian. Microsoft is headed by an Indian. Adobe is headed by an Indian. Cognizant is headed by an Indian. Pepsi is headed by an Indian. It’s not the Indians, it’s the diversity I reckon that leads to performance. Don’t believe me – the diverse England cricket team beat the homogenous Indian one.
But seriously, reading again the report on Ethnic Diversity of UK Board got me thinking. A friend of mine both used to write for a national newspaper. She for the Times and I for the Financial Times. She and I were both appointed by the Prime Minister to the UK India Roundtable. She was recently appointed to the board of a FTSE 100 company. She is is not an ethnic minority. But that is not necessarily relevant. But is it?
Let’s find out. I am conducting an experiment. I am writing to the chair of every FTSE 100 company. Let’s see how many reply. Just reply. Even if to say there is no vacancy on their board.
I am conducting this experiment because reading the above report these parts are incredibly important: (by the way the report is by the Equality and Human Rights Commission is a statutory body established under the Equality Act 2006. It operates independently to encourage equality and diversity, eliminate unlawful discrimination, and protect and promote human rights. It encourages compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998 and is accredited by the UN as an ‘A status’ National Human Rights Institution.
“A survey of 130 ethnic minority non-executive, executive and senior directors suggests that most believed that discrimination had meant they had had to work harder to reach board level or the most senior positions. Nearly two-thirds believed that the unconscious bias of CEOs and boards is hindering ethnic minorities from progressing to board level and that ethnic minorities are not in the ‘old boys networks’ of leadership teams and executive search firms.”
The report also explains, “Our inquiry found that three-quarters of companies had board diversity policies. However, around two-thirds of these had not set objectives or targets to increase the number of women on their board. For senior management/executive levels, less than half of companies had a diversity policy and less than two-fifths had set gender targets.”
“Our inquiry findings indicated that nearly all FTSE 350 companies (91%) used executive search firms for executive and non-executive appointments. Executive search firms use a variety of recruitment channels, including networks, contacts and recommendations, but rarely advertise for candidates. Our research showed that just 2% of companies publicised non-executive director appointments on their external corporate websites, in newspapers or using social media and only 1% did this for executive director roles. Executive search firms did not believe that publicly advertising roles added to the value or quality of the search process and were concerned that it might attract unsuitable candidates.”
Clearly by not advertising, say in papers such as this, they are propagating the problem. I want UK companies to be as successful as American ones. It seems a like of diversity is clearly an issue. If they won’t advertise in papers such as this – let me go knocking on their doors! I’ll keep you posted.
