How diversity can power your post covid business recovery.

Plus six quick wins.

How many times have you had to rethink your strategy this year? 

Whether you're a startup or a growing SME, the ability to plan, and have certainty even for a few weeks, has felt like a carpet being constantly pulled out from under you as we’ve lurched through lockdowns, tiers and complex restrictions. And that’s without Brexit.

2020 has been a period of immense personal and corporate reflection

 Virtual vs office based working, tech enabled customer solutions, fulfilment, pivoting, communication and connection have all had prominence on SME board agendas this year. Clarity about business purpose, sustainability and ethics have all been given greater bandwidth than I’ve ever seen before.

The good news is that this means that we have never been more open to change, or new thinking, as we are now. The pandemic has created a world of business pain but also the perfect environment for a growth business mindset.

So when Black Lives Matter exploded on to our media channels, closely followed by the American election, it served as a wake up call as to whether we were entering an age of equality, or division, and an urgency to consider how that played out in our corporate strategy.

The British Business Bank 2020 research on Entrepreneurship and Diversity is a sobering read.

Released just a few weeks ago I had a few dark days after reading these results;

There are persistent disparities in business outcomes for business owners from ethnic minority backgrounds.

• After starting a business a black business owner is likely to have an annual income of £25k vs £35k for a white business owner
• Female business owners of all ethnicities experience lower median turnover than male entrepreneurs (£15k vs £45k)
• Female entrepreneurs from ethic minority backgrounds experience the biggest disparities.
• 36% of ethnic minority female entrepreneurs reported making no profit vs 16% of white males.

The economic benefit of diversity needs to be placed at the centre of corporate change programmes 

Reading results like those from the BBB mean that we’re prompted to think that we want the world to be a fairer place (I hope), and how we might support the levelling up agenda. However the piece I see missing most often is the very strong economic argument for embedding diversity in our strategy.

The business case for diversity is stronger than ever. Just read the McKinsey's 2020 update which shows that companies with the greatest gender diversity on their executive teams are 21% more likely to outperform peers on profitability and 27% more likely to create superior value, it’s compelling. The Rose Review also highlights that up to £250 billion of new value could be added to the UK economy if women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as UK men. Now just imagine what an amazing Covid bounce back that would be.

Creating a more diverse, inclusive environment is not just the right thing to do, it's the only thing to do if you want your business to grow in tomorrows world.

From a business growth perspective diversity deserves to be on the Board agenda alongside pivot and transformation.

There are no easy answers. But starting the diversity conversation and having a clear commitment to taking another step forward are all better than doing nothing. Given that most of us are considering making significant changes to business strategy right now there has never been a better time to make diversity a core strand.

Here are 6 quick wins whilst you shape a longer term strategy

1. Broaden your personal networks to include as diverse a group as possible - take counsel from all of them and listen carefully to their perspectives. My own experience is that the BAME leaders I talk to are having a very different Covid experience to mine. Make sure that lock down does not mean your mind is locked down in your present reality - mine is fields and sheep!
2. Set some boundaries for the companies you want to engage with as suppliers - make diversity a core strand of your procurement process. This will encourage a different set of behaviours in the world around you and attract like minded organisations towards you. 
3. Whilst you work on the complexity of structuring a more diverse long term workforce look to contract a diverse group of freelancers and consultants. Use their experience to help you shape your talent attraction and retention strategy.
4. Engage with start ups led by entrepreneurs from under represented groups. This can help shape your innovation strategy and diversify your thinking. NorthInvest can help with this if you need some suggestions.
5. Use the kickstarter programme to recruit a diverse group of interns.