Race inclusion in the workplace

CIPD viewpoint

Recommendations for employers

• Build the business case for increasing diversity and inclusion in terms of attracting a wider, more diverse talent pool and boosting innovation and customer service by developing a workforce that is more reflective of the organisation’s customer base and wider society.
• Identify levels of ethnic diversity using HR data and use this benchmark to explore any structural and cultural barriers that are maintaining workplace inequalities.
• Avoid generalisations: ‘BAME’ encompasses a wide range of backgrounds, cultures and traditions and many different barriers to career progression. We recommend following the Race Disparity Audit’s recommendation, referring to ‘ethnic minorities’ instead. 
• Review recruitment practices to eliminate bias and discrimination. This could include how and where employers recruit new workers, whether the images and language used in recruitment materials are inclusive, line manager interview practices and the approach of recruiters working on employers’ behalf.
• Review people processes to retain black and ethnic minority people. Identify barriers in career progression and ‘cliff edges’ where employees leave, and address these. Also consider race equality through an intersectional lens such as the combined effects of discrimination experienced because of a person’s race, gender, or disability and ensure interventions are tailored to addressing multiple barriers and disadvantages.
• Build an inclusive culture. Ensure that race equality is embedded into the organisation’s vision, mission, values and business plans. Ensure policies and practices are underpinned by race equality outcomes and impact principles that proactively address discrimination and disadvantage including through the use of positive action measures that actively celebrate and encourage difference. Identify whether there are mechanisms in place to enable employees to voice issues about inequality and need for change. Take steps to understand where the workplace is now (evidencing the baseline), and what could be done to improve inclusivity (action plan).
• Terminology - we advise employers to be sensitive in the usage of language and terminology on race equality and wider equality, diversity and inclusion. This should include engaging and inviting input from experts and staff with lived experience. The CIPD uses the term ethnic minority to describe all people from minority backgrounds who experience bias, barriers, disadvantage, and discrimination.. We use this term as it is currently the most commonly used. We recognise that no one term will resonate with everyone and respect the uses of other terms where broad categorisations are required. However, we would advise and encourage organisations to be as specific as possible (eg Afghanistan, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Gypsy, Indian, Roma, Pakistani, Nigerian, Somalian, Ukrainian), wherever possible.