Financial services must improve before leading charge on tackling racial inequalities

If UK companies are to effectively tackle racial inequalities within the workplace, transparency of company employee data is essential, according to a panel of the UK’s top investors.

During a roundtable discussion hosted by Reboot – a campaign group of senior financial services professionals working to maintain the dialogue on race and ethnicity in the workplace – senior representatives of leading investment and lobbying groups such as LGIM, Nest, State Street, Invesco, Newton, the CIPD and others discussed how the industry can better work together to support race equity.

Unlike the gender pay gap, ethnicity pay gap reporting is not yet mandatory, so engagement from asset managers – on behalf of their clients – becomes a strong catalyst for adoption.

But the industry needs to put its own house in order. Reboot’s latest Race to Equality in UK Financial Services report found seven out of 10 (68%) of ethnic minorities had experienced bias at work in the last year, while nearly half of those surveyed believe those from ethnically diverse backgrounds receive fewer offers of career opportunities than white colleagues.

Noreen Biddle Shah, founder of Reboot and head of corporate communications at Numis, said: “By leveraging the considerable influence large investors have through shareholder engagement, they can play an important role in improving standards within companies.

“However, the industry also needs to look at its own DE&I practices in tandem with this and show it is equally as committed within its own workforce.

“Ethnicity pay gap reporting will bring to light the discrepancies on a wider scale, but it is how we respond to it – through tone from the top, quotas, practical actions, better integration/understanding between minorities and the majority etc, – that we will start seeing sustainable and tangible change.”