Career Progression Research
Race for Opportunity
A Brief Overview
Sandra Kerr
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Career Progression
Overview
• Race to the Top revealed lack of BAME workers in management
positions.
• The employers highlighted concerns around differences – whether
perceived or actual – in career progression between diverse ethnic
minority groups.
• Research commissioned to determine whether and why there is a
difference in the career progression rates of ethnic minorities.
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Career Progression
Research Objective
To find out the differences between ethnicity groups to support
employers to identify effective interventions to speed up progression in
the work place
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Sample Frame (intended v achieved)
Ethnic Group
Intended Sample
Actual Achieved
White British
n=200
n=206
Mixed Race
n=200
n=201
Indian
n=200
n=383
Pakistani
n=200
n=195
Bangladeshi
n=100
n=61
Chinese
n=100
n=107
Caribbean
n=225
n=222
African
n=175
n=182
n=1,400
n=1557
TOTAL
4
Career Progression
Key findings
• UK employees from a BAME background show high levels of
ambition and motivation….
• Progression more important to BAME workers than white employees
– For example, more than 9 out of 10 employees from the Black
African ethnic minority group described themselves as ambitious
and stated career progression was important to them.
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Career Progression
High Levels of ambition …….
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Career Progression
Key findings
– On average more than 1 in 3 BAME employees believe they
need to leave current employer to progress
– African & Caribbean respondents were more likely to be looking
around and willing to leave their current organisation to progress
– Despite less drive and ambition to progress white employees
have an average of 4 promotions compared to 2.5 for ethnic
minority groups
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Career Progression
Confidence in career progression rests in part on finding new jobs…
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Barriers to Progression
Key findings
• Perceived barriers to career advancement include:
– a shortage of promotion opportunities
– demand for mentors and expanding professional networks
– a lack of support or poor relationships with their manager
– a lack of confidence in senior leaders interest in their progression
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Barriers to Progression
Managers present a new, less visible brake on ambition…..
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Barriers to Progression
Is senior management inspiring confidence…….
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Belief in Organisation recognising talent?
• 50% of White and Chinese employees believe their
organisation recognise talented individuals
• 46% Indian and Bangladeshi
• 43% Mixed
• 41% African
• 37% of Pakistani employees believe this
• 36% of Caribbean employees believe this
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Great Relationship with Line Manager?
•
•
•
•
•
•
64% white men
61% Indian employees
59% Bangladeshi employees
57% African and Chinese employees
55% of white women
53% mixed heritage and Caribbean employees
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Good listening skills was the most common characteristic of a
good line manager
Q31. Which of the following characteristics do you think makes a good line manager?
White British
Mixed Race
Indian
Pakistani
Honesty (85%)
Fair (83%)
Good listening skills
(76%)
Respect (79%)
Good listening skills
(85%)
Honesty (83%)
Honesty (75%)
Good listening skills
(78%)
Motivational (74%)
Strong leadership (76%)
Easy to talk to (83%)
Easy to talk to (85%)
Bangladeshi
Chinese
Caribbean
African
Honesty (84%)
Fair (84%)
Good listening skills
(92%)
Good listening skills
(91%)
Easy to talk to (77%)
Respect (81%)
Respect (91%)
Strong leadership (88%)
Motivational (90%)
Easy to talk to (88%)
Good listening skills
(77%)
Good listening skills
(80%)
Base: n=1557 (W.British n=206, Mixed n=201, Indian n=383, Pakistani n=195, Bangladeshi n=61, Chinese n=107, Caribbean n=222, African
n=182)
14
Career Progression
Key findings
– ethnic minority groups cited racism as the most popular reason
overall in response to the question:
– Why do you think you were overlooked for promotion?’
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Respondents offered many thoughts as to why they had
been overlooked for promotion
Q8. Why do you think you were overlooked?
16
Career Progression
Key findings
• Perceived barriers to career advancement include:
– BAME people more likely to use recruitment agencies but less
than 50% of BAME workers believe they are treated fairly by
recruitment agents when being put forward for roles
– While African, Bangladeshi and Caribbean respondents are
highly likely to register with a recruitment agent, few believe they
were treated fairly as a candidate
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Q19. Have you ever registered with a recruitment agent?
Q20. In your experience, do you believe that recruitment agents treat people from
your ethnic background fairly when putting them forward for roles?
African
70%
Mixed
70%
Bangladeshi
70%
66%
Caribbean
Pakistani
White British
50%
28%
27%
42%
61%
Chinese
Indian
32%
39%
58%
56%
52%
32%
54%
18
Career Progression
Key findings
– Women were less likely than males to have confidence in their
next career steps.
– Those working in the public sector were much less likely to be
confident about their next career steps
– Perceived barriers to career progression varied by ethnic minority
background
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Career Progression
Key findings
• Perceived barriers to progression varied by ethnic background
– Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani respondents were more critical
of management and internal structures at their place of work
– African and Caribbean respondents felt that institutional
discrimination was a leading factor that stopped them from
progressing
– Chinese blamed their own lack of experience, skills and
qualifications
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Career Progression
Key findings
• BAME workers know what they require from their workplace yet twothirds said their employer did not provide what they were looking for.
• Most commonly cited factors for joining or staying with an
employer were:
– the organisation values its workers;
– there are fair pay arrangements with a bonus scheme;
– appropriate training is available.
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Career Progression
The value gap: how British workers feel unappreciated….
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Pay
Low paid more prevalent among BAME workers…..
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Pay
Proportion saying they felt underpaid……
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Structural Support: Training
• Training programmes were more apparent amongst employees
of larger organisations
– Interest in programmes which fast tracked to Senior Management
reflected earlier attitudes to career progression
– Barriers were dominated by a level of apathy and lack of interest
– However, those that were interested saw these sorts of
programmes as a real sign of progression, giving them
confidence and recognition of their personal development
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Structural Support Mechanisms
• Not everyone wants access to a mentor
– Indian and African participants in particular were most interested
– Pakistani and Bangladeshi less so
• Networking (professionally) was seen to be important, but
perhaps not all got the opportunities they wanted
– While Indian and African respondents were very interested, they
had very limited confidence
– Particularly alarming for African respondents, who had constantly
indicated belief in their own abilities
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Career Progression
Demand for mentors not being met….
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Key Recommendations
Recommendation No.1:
• More than a third of workers want a mentor, but do not
have access to one. We believe the RfO Board Mentoring
Circles approach offers a good practice role model for
organisations seeking to introduce mentoring initiatives in
the workplace.
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Key Recommendations
Recommendation No.1:
• An ‘active’ sponsor approach is something businesses
should consider as a valuable tool alongside their
mentoring activities. The role a sponsor can play is to
introduce individuals to different networks and actively
promote the individual’s skills and talents within their
sphere of influence to open doors and facilitate
progression.
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Key Recommendations
Recommendation No.2:
• Feeling valued, proper pay and adequate training
are the three basic demands shared by workers from
all backgrounds. Employers must re-double their efforts
to ensure that the rewards and training support in their
organisations meet those needs. These changes are
both simple and low-cost which makes them easy areas
to focus on in these financially straitened times.
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Key Recommendations
Recommendation No.2:
• Race for Opportunity has developed a Bridging the
Value Gap toolkit with simple steps for senior leaders,
line managers and individual employees to adopt in
order to bring about a culture of value and respect
throughout a businesses’ hierarchy.
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Key Recommendations
Recommendation No.3:
• There is a need to engage with the recruitment
industry head-on, in the light of our findings on casual
racial discrimination when dealing with ethnic minority
clients. Regardless of whether these attitudes are
conscious or unconscious, every individual must be
assessed on merit, not race. All employers should
review their own internal recruitment and promotion
processes for transparency and fairness.
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Career Progression
FACILITATOR:
Dr Victoria Showunmi, Head of Faculty Philanthropy Development,
Institute of Education, University of London
PANEL MEMBERS:
Ben Castell, Partner, Ernst & Young LLP Advisory Services
Surinder Sharma, National Director for Equality and Human Rights,
Department of Health
Carmen Watson, Managing Director, Pertemps People Management
Michelle Fullerton, Regional Diversity and Inclusion Specialist Europe and
CEEMEA, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
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