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10 Jun 2020
by Maggie Williams

Maggie’s inside track: racism is a reward and benefits issue

George Floyd’s murder, the subsequent street protests and rapid rise of the Black Lives Matter movement has spurred one of the biggest tests of corporate authenticity, magnified by the impact of social media.

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REBA’s Employee Wellbeing Congress will be tackling this issue with a keynote panel discussion on: How do reward, benefits and wellbeing strategies still need to change to be truly inclusive and create equality for all? Join the panel, featuring Dawid Konotey-Ahulu, Founder at Redington; Poppy Jaman OBE, CEO at CMHA; Claire Yule, Group Head of Compensation & Benefits at Wood Plc; and Nikki Roche, Senior International Benefits Consultant and UK Neurodiversity Lead at Siemens, at 9am on Wednesday 30th September. Register here to attend.

Almost every organisation will have created a response over the last 10 days, from navigating the potential tokenism of Twitter hashtags and the realisation that (to quote Meghan Markle) 'the only wrong thing to say is nothing', to establishing what is an appropriate, credible message and how best to support staff affected by recent events.  

This will have challenged even those employers that are genuinely inclusive, have a conscious culture as the bedrock of their business and communicate authentically with staff and as a brand.

It has also brought the relationship between reward and benefits, and inclusivity to the fore. To build an environment where all staff are not only fairly paid but also supported equally by their benefits, regardless of ethnicity, requires a joint effort from employers, providers and government.

Ethnicity pay gap reporting has stalled, but it must now be restored to the government’s and to business’s agenda. Like gender pay gap reporting, the proposed regime won’t provide a complete, nuanced picture of ethnicity and pay. But it is a start – mandating the basics will help to drive more sophisticated analysis, apply pressure to reduce gaps and provide genuine focus at board level.

We are starting to see more focus from pension funds on the employment practices of the companies they invest in, including diversity and inclusion strategies. Yet there is still much to be done, both within pensions and the wider financial services sector. Evidence of socially advantageous, sustainable investment that drives long-term returns, needs to replace over-reliance on the quarterly performance reports that have characterised success in pensions and other financial products for too long. Providers must be prepared to demonstrate how they are responding to the new priorities of a changing world.

But pensions and finance are not the only area of benefits practice where responsible, inclusive practices require scrutiny. "I am mentally and physically exhausted by this ugly racism thing”, a friend told me as she explained the conversations she had had with her children, about the murder of George Floyd, and the ongoing process of preparing children for their futures as people of colour in the UK. Other friends in the same conversation shared their experiences of being stopped and searched without reason, and their sad resignation that their children will not have the same application of justice as their white friends.

They are all professional women, similar to employees in workforces all over the UK. Are EAPs and mental health programmes able to support that emotional exhaustion, which will inevitably affect someone’s ability to give their best at work?  Do mental health first aiders have the language and the techniques to respond appropriately to employees sharing experiences of racism? Would employees affected by racism be confident seeking help at work?

Then there is the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 has had on BAME populations – how are health providers and employers planning to help these more at-risk employees as lockdown restrictions are relaxed?

COVID-19’s impact on other parts of the workforce cannot be ignored either. Across the working population as a whole, the lockdown has disproportionately affected women and young people whose often already-low earnings will have been hit hard by the pandemic. Those financial scars will need focused support, not just as a part of current roles, but also in future employment to help build savings safety nets, retirement funds and make up for lost time in employees’ financial lives.

It is no exaggeration to say that the events of 2020 have been life-changing for all of us, and tragic for many. It is also an opportunity to rethink every aspect of reward and benefits, to make them fairer, more inclusive and better suited to every individual in the workforce. 

The author is Maggie Williams, content director at REBA.