2020 saw dramatic changes across the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) landscape, and across society more widely. Catalysed by the COVID-19 pandemic and an upsurge in the Black Lives Matter movement globally in the summer of 2020, organisations faced a reckoning. Employees expect much more from their employers regarding inclusion and consumers, clients and society at large have been empowered to hold a mirror up to inequitable practices and systems.
As a result, many organisations made public commitments to rectify historic inequities and to work towards greater inclusion for ethnically diverse and more specifically Black talent within their organisations.
One powerful measure of systemic change is the ethnicity pay gap (EPG), or the difference in the average pay of ethnically diverse talent compared to their white counterparts. The ethnicity pay gap enables us to evaluate systemic disparities across organisations, industries and on the national level. With this data, organisations can design specific interventions aimed at reducing the pay gap and ensuring all employees are receiving equitable access to opportunities.
Despite significant media attention, and concerted PR and communications efforts from organisations, the ethnicity pay gap has changed very little since conversations surrounding the gap were last at their height in 2018, when then Prime Minister Theresa May proposed making ethnicity pay gap reporting mandatory. Such reporting was never made mandatory however, and voluntary disclosure of ethnicity pay gaps remains the exception rather than the rule across the UK.
At INvolve, we are strong believers in the power of data to effect change. That’s why in 2018 INvolve campaigned for companies across the UK to measure and report their Ethnicity Pay Gap (EPG) ahead of any government mandate to do so. 16 companies took part in the campaign and signed the report, committing themselves and encouraging others to work towards and eventually publish their EPG data publicly. In the absence of a regulatory framework or requirement
to reporting an ethnicity pay gap, voluntary disclosure is a powerful tool for organisations to wield in authentically advancing their inclusion efforts.
Download our Ethnicity Pay Gap Framework here.
