BT and AA

June 2009

Working with recruitment agencies to make requirements clear has been the key to creating a racially diverse workforce at BT, according to the telecoms firm.

This week BT came top of the Race for Opportunity index, which uses survey data to benchmark the most race-friendly employers in the country. The research looked at the policies and practices used by organisations in attraction and recruitment, talent progression, measurement of diversity, and engaging with customers, suppliers and the wider community.

Becky Mason, people and policy manager, BT Group, highlighted work with suppliers as a key factor in the firm’s success. ‘The work we have been doing with recruitment agencies - our suppliers of people - is crucial. We demonstrate our policies to them and ask them to tell us what their policy is. It’s quite clear, stating the standards that we expect, that we expect to be sent a diverse mix of candidates and for agencies to set in place statistical monitoring of their processes statistics to ensure that is the case.’

BT reviews its preferred suppliers every 2-3 years and HR works with procurement colleagues to ensure that diversity is a factor in these decisions, added Mason.

BT currently has 10.8 per cent BME staff, which is in excess of the proportion in the population overall of around 8 per cent. Mason also pointed out that, with three people from a BME background on BT’s board, there was no doubt that minorities were able to progress in the organisation.

‘If initiatives such as BT’s encouraging of its suppliers to sign-up to minimum standards on race diversity were to become common practice, I am confident that the UK could make real progress on tackling the gross under-representation of ethnic minorities,’ said Sandra Kerr, national campaign director for Race for Opportunity.

July 2009

BT is asking its staff to take a 75% pay cut in return for long-term holidays to help the company ride-out the recession. British Telecom is offering workers the chance to take a year off if they accept a fraction of their salary as an upfront payment. It is part of a raft of measures being introduced by BT to cut costs until the economy improves without having to resort to further redundancies.

The former state telecom company, which employs more the 100,000 people, posted £1.3billion losses for the first quarter of this year. BT cut 15,000 jobs this year, mostly in the UK, and claims these ‘extremely progressive’ measures are necessary to save further losses. A spokesman said: “BT is known for it’s progressive human resources policies with flexible working.”

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The familiar ritual, emphasised in the first link, of measuring progress by the extent to which White people have been dislodged from power and representation by other races really ought to be met with fury from White people.

Of course it would be simplistic to claim a direct cause and effect relationship between BT’s anti-White discrimination and its poor results, but only as simplistic as an assumption that anti-White discrimination would lead to good results. The difference is, anyone so stupid as to make the first claim would not be allowed to run employment policy for a major PLC. BT’s staff are entitled to ask what other idiotic ideas the management have wasted time and money on, and to insist the company discontinue this one.