Our CCO, Paul Walker, has a voluntary role in Black Leaders UK, and this week he shared with us a little about why he became involved and how Black Inclusion Week can be valuable for all of us.
This week sees the UK hold a first ever Black Inclusion week (May 10th). While there are many inclusion and diversity programmes available, it's a first specifically for the UK’s Black community.
Some of you may know that I play a small voluntary role in Black Leaders UK. My passion for fairness and inclusion lead me to channel my time and specially work in the Inclusive workplace executive team. I’d like to share a little about why, and help guide how Black Inclusion Week can be valuable for all of us.
There has been little change in the number of Black people in senior professional roles since 2014. In 2019, the Colour of Power survey by consultants Green Park, found that Black people held 17 of the top 1,099 positions in the UK. That equates to just 1.5% of managers, directors and senior official roles and is far from representative of our National diversity.
In 2018, the Resolution Foundation found that, overall, 1.9 million black and ethnic minority workers are paid about £3.2 billion less than their white counterparts every year.
Against this stark evidence base and the collective lived experiences of my colleagues in Black Leaders UK, we have built a programme that enables everyone to take steps to educate themselves and get better at driving the much needed change in UK workplaces. The best place to find this is via LinkedIn; so find me, Black Leaders, or Black Inclusion Week, and it will be easy to follow.
One of the core values at Consumer Intelligence is to win together, and 'together' means inclusion. Another is to be credible. I feel credibility requires continuous learning, so I do want to take a moment to share how you can get involved this week and it’s simple.
First: It’s an Opportunity to widen your experience, find new people, new ways to get closer to the issues facing black people today.
Second: to Show up and speak up, to help amplify other’s voices where you can. My humble recommendation is that everyone of us seeks out a new contact, channel, media that address the issues facing Black people in the UK today and begin, or further, your education.
By being involved in the work that Black Leaders UK does, I’ve been shown that I don’t need to be a Black person to support Black people. I can make a difference. However, it’s not enough to ‘not do harm’ - I want to encourage more people to think similarly, to understand the problem better and then, just maybe, to do something.
So, whether it’s TV, social media, books, friends, colleagues, please pick a moment to spend 15 minutes understanding better the issues affecting Black people in the UK today.
Thank you.
About Consumer Intelligence
Consumer Intelligence (CI) is an insight partner for financial services, inspiring confident decisions that build consumer trust. For 17 years the company has been benchmarking the insurance market and retail banks in the UK and beyond. The unique combination of benchmark data, consumer research and extensive experience has helped some of the world’s major brands focus on delivering better services to customers and improving their own business performance as a result. For more information, visit the website www.consumerintelligence.com
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