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Case study: BT – diversity and inclusion

BT is a leader in communicating to a diverse and multicultural Britain. Successful mainstream advertising has consistently featured a diverse range of people including disabled people and people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. One result suggests that £217m revenue was retained by BT as a result of an advertising campaign featuring an ethnic minority engineer that launched BT’s drive to increase the use of broadband.

At the heart of BT today is a philosophy called 'Effortless Inclusion', which represents BT’s thinking about equality and diversity developed over the last 20 years. During this time, BT has been convinced of the business benefits of a diverse workforce and diverse audiences, and has integrated an understanding of inclusion throughout the company, from employment policies to product development and customer service. 'Effortless Inclusion' is research driven, using information such as data about changes in its workforce composition and customer base. This information has helped to develop concepts such as spoken text messages for the visually impaired.

BT has also trained over 600 volunteer diversity coaches to deliver a variety of diversity packages to their peer groups. There are a number of successful employee networks representing, amongst others, disabled, ethnic minority, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual employees and those who follow a range of beliefs and religious traditions. These networks provide feedback and information to designers and marketing during the product design phase, as well as supporting employee communities.

As a result of its diversity initiative, the percentage of people promoted in BT who are from ethnic minorities is higher than the representation of people from ethnic minorities in the associated talent pool.

BT also has a high number of female and ethnic minority graduates. In addition, BT’s policies enable over 10,000 people to work flexibly from home. Employee attitude surveys show that these employees are more efficient and deliver more profit to the business. Results indicate 2% less absenteeism than the UK average and home workers are 7% happier than site-based colleagues. Flexible working also enables employees to take more responsibility in their local communities.

“At BT we will only be able to deliver innovation, ensure excellent service and provide the range of products that will drive our business forward if we have a workforce that is every bit as diverse as the customers we serve.”
Ben Verwaayen, Chief Executive Officer, BT Group