EWJ August 62 2025 web - Journal - Page 84
“Change the Race Ratio”
by Peter Crowley - Windor Actuaries
I attended a presentation at BT’s London offices in Aldgate in June 2025. There were about
50 attendees. At one point, I asked a question to the audience – “Does anyone measure their exit
rates by ethnicity?” Blank stares and headshakes all round……
Except for one guy – Peter de Norville, Global Head
of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Sage, whom I
spoke to safter the presentation. I subsequently
reviewed Sage’s regendering plan – (I haven’t yet
reviewed their re-ethnicising plan.)
But it doesn’t…
There is immense pressure for companies to present
DEI as an untrammelled benefit. In the US, Costco, a
company around fifteen times the size of BT, recently
fought off a shareholder challenge to have their DEI
plan audited for risk. (I had a superficial look at
Costco’s plans - which seemed so anodyne that no one
could possibly object to them. However, they got great
coverage in the left wing press as “Champions of
DEI”!)
This was a bit of an “Enron moment” for me*.
The meeting focused on the travails of Black staff
working in the UK – many examples of racism were
cited, but we were short on dates. Some of them could
have occurred in the 1960s… certainly pre-Employment Tribunals. How significant in the 2020’s?
That could not be said for BT, though, who had CEO
Allison Kirkby and Chief People and Culture Officer,
Athalie Williams endorsing the above plan by saying it
was “bold”.
CTRR’s LinkedIn header is:
“A business-led campaign to improve racial & ethnic
diversity in UK leadership teams”
Allison and CFO Simon Louth gave a podcast
presentation of BT’s annual results for the year to
2025 on 22 May – I found both well on point and they
handled questions from analysts magnificently. However, that same day, BT announced that Ms Williams
was leaving – for “personal reasons”. For some media,
this event eclipsed the main results.
However, if you want to change ratios in any staff
group, there are only two ways to do it.
1) Via recruitment
2) Via exits.
In theory, there is also transitioning – but few would
see this as significant in a UK workforce – aside
from the controversies regarding both gender and
ethnicity change.
Her replacement – from 1 June – is Ms Alison Wilcox
– who was CPCO for 6 ½ years up until January 2022.
However, she was obviously involved in BT’s DEI
plans back then which lumped all staff together –
some 90,000. Will she be able to set realistic targets?
I have pointed out the extreme nature of BT’s DEI
gender plans for its non-Openreach workforce – some
47,000 people – over the year 2024/25. The rise targeted from 35% female to 46% female would require
one of the following:
• Losing over 20% of that workforce – all men
• Gaining over 20% of that workforce – all women
• Something between – of that workforce, well over
10% would need to be changed from men to women
(let’s assume vie exits and recruits for now, rather than
more exotic solutions).
My method to assess them would be to start with the
existing workforce – then project forwards, capping
the likely exits and recruits. We randomise number
and splits, using Monte Carlo methods – these are
used to value director bonus schemes. We can easily
model up to 100,000 iterations. Then we extract the
successful ones and see what the company has to
achieve. Often, it involves incredible recruitment or
exit splits – or both.
So shifting over 10,000 people in each case – all out, all
in, or in between.
Even if we ignore plans regarding ethnicity, sexual
orientation and neurodiversity (not to mention physical disability), this would cause significant disruption
for BT. Any senior finance or IT professional would
see that quickly. I reckon if BT took this plan seriously,
its likely effects should appear in at least three sections
of its risk register.
However, BT also announced it may be getting rid of
55,000 jobs worldwide – with an unknown number
from the UK. How will this affect the DEI plan – or
vice versa – I have no idea. All I know is, if I was a
white male, working at BT, I would be careful to
record and diarise everything I saw or heard from HR
– and check any redundancy package offered with an
employment lawyer. BT isn’t the only company where
men are likely to be under pressure….
* Refers to when Andy Fastow told a room full of
analysts he didn’t have any interest rate risk…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14738367/BThuman-resources-chief-diversity-targets.html
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
82
AUGUST/SEPT 2025
