Increase ethnic diversity in the boardroom, says MP

Writing today (2nd December 2012)  on the New Statesman website, Alok Sharma, the Member of Parliament for Reading West and Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party with special responsibility for ethnic minority communities, has called on the Government to consider introducing regulations to increase ethnic and gender diversity in the boardroom and the work place.

Mr Sharma’s call follows publication by the Government of draft regulations which include a requirement for publicly listed companies to disclose the number of men and women they employ in the workforce as a whole, as well as at senior and board level and the Business Secretary’s call on Friday 30th November 2012 for headhunting organisations to publish the numbers of men versus women they place in senior positions.

In his article, Alok Sharma wrote:

“Whilst gender balance is one measure of workforce diversity, ethnicity is another. Championing workforce diversity should be about improving both.

The regulations should be extended so listed companies also have to set out the number of employees from both white and black and ethnic minority (BME) backgrounds within their workforce as a whole, as well as at senior and board level.”

Alok also expressed concern about recruitment processes, pointing to a report published last week by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community, on ethnic minority female unemployment which concluded that discrimination can be found at every stage of the recruitment process.

Alok wrote:

“To throw light on this the government could consider introducing a further disclosure regulation with listed companies required to breakdown, by gender and ethnicity, the total number of job applicants, interviewees and new employees over the past year.

This would certainly help to highlight companies and sectors where either, ethnic minority candidates and women are just not applying in any number, or where they are not getting interviews.”

However, Alok Sharma noted that his call for considering new regulations is not in any way about imposing quotas:

“Appointing people to jobs on merit and experience is absolutely right. But the proposed new regulations are about taking companies one step further towards focusing on what they need to do to increase diversity in the workforce.

Companies with diverse boards are more effective and outperform their rivals. If a company's workforce and senior management are representative of its customers, it is more likely to make decisions which respond to their needs and hence ultimately benefit the business. And that virtuous circle is one which every company should be looking to square.”