Two years ago, following the murder of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, we, Capita, came together as people to listen to each other, and particularly to listen to the experience and pain of our Black colleagues. We formed a Black Lives Matter Advisory Group, now chaired by Jon Lewis, our CEO, and we worked together to agree three corporate commitments to address racism and discrimination.
Two years on much has been done, but there is still a huge challenge ahead. We are sharing our progress today to keep the pressure on ourselves to keep doing better, to acknowledge the incredible work of those employees helping us become a more inclusive employer, and to encourage other businesses to help us drive societal change.
Change is hard, it can feel slow and it is not always linear, but we will keep going until we have genuinely created a better experience for all our employees, our clients and our end-customers.
So, what have we done against each of our three corporate commitments?
Commitment 1: To ensure an inclusive culture with zero tolerance to racism.
We have:
- Taken 129 senior white leaders through an employee-created 12-month mutual mentoring programme with a Black or minority ethnic colleague, to educate, grow and create better understanding and relationships across the organisation. We are currently launching our 4th cohort of this programme. Sarah Green, a manager in Capita’s Technology & Software Solutions department says; “I would say that my participation in the mentoring programme has created a ripple far wider than my work. I have reflected on each module with my family and it has made me more aware in my everyday life.” This feedback is aligned with the broader programme feedback scores, currently showing an average impact score of 94 (where the maximum is 100).
- Begun analysing employee survey feedback by ethnicity (as well as other protected characteristics), in order to identify any differences in employee experience. The results are shared with managers and HR teams, and also with Embrace, our Employee Network Group for race and ethnicity, in order to develop targeted action plans.
- Implemented a new company-wide anti-racism, discrimination, harassment and bullying policy and procedure. We are now also working with our Black Lives Matter Advisory Group and our Employee Network Groups to make changes to the way we investigate discrimination-related grievances.
- Reviewed performance ratings and pay rises by protected characteristic in order to identify any required interventions.
Commitment 2: To have a sustainable representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic colleagues, reflecting the communities we serve, in all levels of the workplace.
We have:
- Set targets for Black and minority ethnic representation at all levels of the business (UK). Specifically:
a. In our senior leadership levels, we are aiming to achieve 13% minority ethnic representation, including 3% Black, by the end of 2025.
b. In the rest of the organisation we are aiming to achieve 15% minority ethnic representation, including 5% Black, by the end of 2025. - Built Black and minority ethnic representation in leadership levels into management targets and bonus schemes and introduced regular organisational reporting on progress against our ethnicity targets.
- Developed a new licence-to-hire training module to help managers recruit in a consistent and unbiased way.
- Set a shortlist target for ethnic representation on interview shortlists for senior roles.
- Trialled new, CV-free recruitment processes (using behavioural assessment) for a range of roles, which have subsequently delivered above diversity targets related to both ethnicity and gender.
- Launched ‘RISE’ our new leadership programme for black and minority ethnic colleagues, supporting them into their first leadership roles. We have already seen five colleagues from our initial cohort of twenty move directly into leadership secondment roles. By the end of 2022, we will have put 40 colleagues through our initial two programmes.
- Recruited eleven employees to sit on a new Capita Leadership Council, in order to bring more diverse thinking to senior leadership conversations and decision making. The Council (about to launch) will have over 60% ethnic diversity, with over 90% of members either female, ethnically diverse or both.
Commitment 3: To educate and raise awareness of racism in the workplace and through the power of our networks.
We have:
- Created and rolled out a bespoke, mandatory anti-racism training for all UK colleagues, with a global version to follow shortly. We have also shared this, free of charge, with select partners outside our organisation.
- Updated our supplier charter to reflect enhanced diversity and anti-racism requirements; working with suppliers that not only share our values, but also share our commitments to diversity and inclusion.
- Voluntarily shared our ethnicity pay gap data for the first time in 2021. This will now be shared annually, with the 2022 report coming soon.
Over the coming months and years we will continue to track and report on our progress using metrics such as representation figures, attrition and recruitment data, succession planning pipelines, ethnicity pay gap data and employee survey results. We encourage other businesses and employers to be open and transparent about their own actions, challenges and opportunities.
Finally, we would like to thank and acknowledge the thousands of employees who work tirelessly to help make Capita a better, fairer and more inclusive place to work.
Notes to editors:
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About Capita
Capita is a consulting, transformation and digital services business. Every day our 52,000 colleagues help millions of people, by delivering innovative solutions to transform and simplify the connections between government and citizens, businesses and customers. We partner with our clients and provide the insight and cutting-edge technologies that give time back, allowing them to focus on what they do best, and making people’s lives easier and simpler. We operate across three divisions – Capita Public Service, Capita Experience and Capita Portfolio – in the UK, Europe, India and South Africa. Further information can be found at: https://www.capita.com
