The trade group which represents asset management companies in the UK has voiced its support for government proposals that will force businesses to publicly declare what it pays staff, by their ethnic profile.
In a statement released over the weekend, the UK’s Investment Association said it “strongly supported” government plans to require employers to report on pay differentials across employees from different ethnic backgrounds.
“Ethnicity pay reporting is an important next step in ensuring our businesses have diversity and inclusion in all its forms truly baked into their greatest asset, the people they employ,” the trade group’s director of Business Risk, Culture and Resilience, Pauline Hawkes-Bunyan said.
“It will help businesses get a full picture of what their workforce looks like, and how it reflects the clients they serve and we strongly support the introduction of ethnicity pay reporting.”
The UK’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) is currently consulting on its plans to introduce mandatory Ethnicity Pay Reporting to identify who should be expected to report and what information should be included.
The Investment Association believes that the introduction of such a requirement would appeal to investors who are increasingly demanding more clarity on how businesses treat their employees.
“Investors want to invest in businesses that demonstrate they are diverse and inclusive because this leads to better decision-making and avoids group think,” Hawkes-Bunyan said.
“The data provided by the ethnic pay reporting will provide investors with another important tool in their toolkit to measure how seriously the companies they invest in are taking their commitment to diversity.”
The Investment Association has called for reporting to be mandatory for employers with more than 250 staff, which is in line with the current gender reporting rules. The trade group added that it would like to see “relevant additional information,” such as geographic, age and gender variations to be included.
