The Operational Recommendations on Ethnic Diversity and Inclusion report underlines that businesses in today's world are expected to play a proactive role in advancing ethnic and racial Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) through their strategies and work environments. More specifically, it aims to demonstrate that even in European markets where the legal structures and dialogues on the topic differ and manifest in unique ways, there are ways to move forward.

Conscious of the growing expectations for a more diverse and inclusive environment, expressed by employees, investors, customers, and clients, B4IG created a Working Group dedicated to Diversity and Inclusion, focusing on Ethnic D&I, co-led by Accenture and Salesforce, and gathering a range of global companies.

These recommendations are the result of this close collaboration among coalition members, who shared their experiences and held several working sessions to draw common findings for the wider business community.

Recommendations Summary

B4IG’s Ethnic D&I Operational Recommendations are presented as four pillars with 10 sub-dimensions, indicating specific areas for action:  

  1. Bold Leadership: Set goals that reach beyond legal compliance and hold leaders accountable for results with transparency of metrics & progress.
  2. Talent Actions: Implement D&I talent actions across attraction, retention, development, advancement & other key processes.
  3. Culture: Build an inclusive, diverse, and bias-free workplace, where employees are enabled to drive change, and inclusive leadership is role-modelled.
  4. Ecosystem: Engage clients, customers, partners, and suppliers to support meaningful change in their organizations, and within local communities.

It also underlines that business engagement varies in its maturity – some are very much in the infancy, while others are established at implementing progressive diversity and ethnicity policies throughout their organization. At the moment, it is difficult for employers to access meaningful ethnicity data about their workforce – but this should not hold them back in their ambition. We see it as an opportunity to find alternative and innovative ways to address the issue, as presented in the selection of concrete examples of companies’ actions in the report.

Supporting the creation of diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces and value chains, is a critical focus area of the Business Commission to Tackle Inequality and we welcome this new report as an important evolution in the conversation around tackling inequality and generating shared prosperity for all.