Alongside our firmwide focus on racial equality, our teams are working to create an inclusive culture where everyone feels that they belong and have equal access to opportunities. Last summer, our Audit practice launched a mutual mentoring programme, matching senior associates and above from minority ethnic backgrounds with members of the leadership team. It’s now being expanded into regional teams.
Mutual mentoring is a two-way partnership in which both parties learn from each other - the junior person shares insights and perspectives with the more senior person who, in return, offers guidance and support.
Talha Witten, a senior associate in our audit practice based in Birmingham, and Hemione Hudson, Head of Audit, had their first conversation in September 2020 and have met regularly since.
“Before I met Hemione, the idea of talking to the Head of Audit was a bit intimidating but I saw it as an opportunity to make a difference and to contribute to action on inclusion & diversity.
“Hemione and I don’t only talk about race but one of the things we have in common is that we both have a mixed ethnic background, so that’s definitely something we’ve discussed. That was really interesting because our experiences are different - me as a senior associate based in Birmingham and Hemione as an ethnic minority woman on the Board.
“Before our catch ups, I usually send Hemione some talking points and she brings areas for us to discuss too. We’ve talked about everything from workload and wellbeing to career progression and microaggressions.
“Sometimes Hemione has an idea or a plan that she wants to test with me and I’ve had the opportunity to input into other areas of the leadership agenda. For example, I’ve taken part in focus groups and spoken about hybrid working on a livestream.
“Mentoring Hemione and being mentored by her has given me space to talk about my experiences and to have that perspective validated. We’ve built a great relationship and I know I can get in touch with her about anything.”
“Mutual mentoring is one of the ways that I and the rest of the Audit Leadership are deepening our knowledge of how it feels to be a person from an ethnic minority background in our business. It’s also a chance for us to give our mentors access to sponsorship, insights, and opportunities.
“One of the aims is to help us understand how the world looks from the perspective of someone who’s different to us. Talha and I didn’t know each other before but over the last year we’ve built mutual trust. We’ve both taken a leap of faith in sharing our vulnerabilities and it’s been a hugely positive experience.
“I’ve always found it harder to talk about race than some of the other identifiers that might be used to define or describe me - being a woman or a mother, for example. My father’s Indian and my mother’s English, but these days I’m rarely seen as having an ethnic minority background as I have no language or cultural barriers. In the past, I haven’t wanted to take up space in conversations about race and racism but I’ve learned that many people from a mixed ethnic background feel this way.
“The last year has made me reflect more on my own identity and ask myself if I’m doing enough. I’ve felt the call to be braver on race and my conversations with Talha are part of what spurs me on. Learning what it’s like for him has made things much more tangible and has helped inform leadership decisions - for example, I sought his opinions on The Deal.
“Our firm’s culture has traditionally been heavily influenced by the white British experience, and we’re working hard to shift that. The programme has been expanded into our business unit leadership teams and I'm grateful to everyone involved for helping to make positive and lasting changes to the way that we run our business.”
This is the third of six articles in a series exploring the UK public’s feelings towards the future of work, following our recent Upskilling Hopes and Fears survey.
Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, recently said at a virtual event: “One of our key missions as we seek to recover from the pandemic will be ensuring that Londoners are able to access good work – something which will inevitably go hand-in-hand with the development of digital talent across our city.”
This is a challenging undertaking. Despite London’s reputation as a high-tech city, producing extremely successful tech companies such as Revolut and Monzo, many of its inhabitants still aren’t getting enough opportunities to develop their digital skills.
Our Upskilling Hopes and Fears survey of 2,001 UK workers (and 32,500 globally) reveals that almost half of Londoners do not have the technology access they need to develop their skills. This also appears to be affecting their perception of the future world of work: 35% of Londoners think their job will be made obsolete in the next five years. That’s more than three times as many as South West (9%) and Wales (10%).
The digital skills gap has become more pronounced during the pandemic, as social distancing regulations have accelerated the pace of digitisation across many industries. While this was beneficial in many ways, allowing many workers greater flexibility than ever before, it also meant some felt left behind. A quarter of Londoners said they did not have adequate digital skills when the pandemic began, while one in five have had no way of learning in the last 12 months.
Fortunately, though, Londoners are ready to adapt to new technologies when given the right opportunities. Three quarters (73%) of London workers are confident they can adapt to new technologies entering the workplace. Many are already proactively doing so: 62% continually reskill to keep up with changing technologies. The most common upskilling methods are learning on the job (36%) and learning via free online resources (for example: online videos, podcasts and e-learns) (36%).
Their existing skills also lend themselves well to learning about the digital world. When asked to choose the top three skills they have now from a list, Londoners tended to choose adaptability (75%), problem solving (70%) and self motivation (72%), while STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) and digital skills ranked lower (47% and 61%, respectively).
While their lack of confidence in technology is concerning, it’s encouraging to see such an abundance of “soft skills” in the capital. Anne Bamford OBE, Strategic Director of the Education and Skills for the City of London, emphasised the need for “fusion skills” - a combination of soft and technical skills - recently, at our Leadership Exchange event.
“Digital skills are both a product of fusion skills and can accelerate fusion skills,” she said. “If you’re working well in a job using technical skills, you’ll also find you’re using a lot of fusion skills too. It’s like yin and yang.”
Some 69% of Londoners are ready to reskill or completely retrain in order to remain employable in the future, and 73% said employers were responsible for helping them do so. But a quarter of Londoners report being offered no opportunities at all to reskill.
Many employers - including PwC - already have programmes in place to upskill their workers. We held our first two-day Digital Academy in 2020, and since then more than half of our 22,000 UK workers have experienced hands-on training in data manipulation and visualisation tools. We are applying these new tech skills to work with our clients and to help solve their important problems.
Organisations need to start offering more training opportunities to their workers - not only to ensure they have the skills resource they need for the future, but also to remain competitive as an employer.
Developing digital skills - for our people and in society - is something our Chairman, Kevin Ellis, is passionate about. “London has the most diverse talent in the world,” he said recently, at the Evening Standard’s Recovery Board. “It’s why it stands out as a city to international investors.”
If London is to continue to stand out, employers in all sectors need to continue to develop and nurture talent - in their organisations and the communities they serve.
We are keen to highlight the work different organisations are undertaking to upskill their people.
This year, PwC’s Building Public Trust Awards will, for the first time, recognise organisations who are leading the way and clearly articulating why and how they are upskilling their people and communities. Nominate your organisation
This is the second of six articles in a series exploring the UK public’s feelings towards the future of work, following our recent Upskilling Hopes and Fears survey.
Most companies would say they do not tolerate discriminatory behaviours - and so their workers do not experience them. But research is increasingly emerging to suggest the experiences and perceptions of employees may be different.
Our Upskilling Hopes and Fears survey of 2,001 UK workers (and 32,500 globally) suggests an alarming 41% of people in the UK believe they have been overlooked for career advancement or training due to their gender, ethnicity, age, religion, disability, social class, caring responsibilities or sexual orientation.
While these statistics are concerning in themselves, considering them in the context of the future of work raises more risks. If workers don’t currently believe opportunities are offered fairly, then these experiences may well be repeated as organisations move to new models. This means inequalities or perceptions of unfairness may be perpetuated during the reskilling process. Organisations need to take action at the planning stage to ensure inappropriate behaviours or unfair practices are identified and addressed before they undertake more fundamental work on reskilling.
Our research shows UK workers feel they have been overlooked for career advancement or inclusion in training because of their gender, race, age, religion, disability, social class, caring responsibilities and sexual orientation. |
Organisations have made significant progress in recent years towards empowering women in the workplace. But our research shows there’s still a long way to go. One in six women told us they felt they had been overlooked for career advancement or training because of their gender.
Our research suggests that there may be a link between experiences of discrimination and negative attitudes towards the future. Fewer than one third (29%) of women surveyed feel positively about how the future world of work is likely to affect them compared to nearly half (45%) of men. More women (41%) also say they feel nervous about what the future holds for them than men (29%). Active engagement in reskilling will be critical to the future success of many organisations - so pessimistic attitudes among such large groups are concerning.
It’s not just gender balance that’s been front-of-mind for organisations in recent years: the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement has helped to amplify conversations on race and ethnicity. Our research shows the issue remains an urgent one. Concerningly, one in four people of ethnic minority backgrounds told us they believed they had been overlooked for career advancement or training because of their ethnicity.
This could, in turn, be driving more pessimistic attitudes towards the future of work among people from ethnic minority backgrounds. More than one quarter (27%) believe it is likely their job could be made obsolete within five years, compared to 18% of white employees. At the same time, nearly half (43%) of workers from ethnic minority backgrounds say they lack access to technology which in turn limits their opportunity to learn new skills - higher than the one third (33%) of white employees who responded in the same way.
These statistics are particularly concerning because they suggest that future workforce changes could have unintentional negative implications for diversity. Addressing this disparity will therefore be key to ensuring that future workforce planning reinforces and drives diversity and equality.
Our findings emphasise the importance of transparency of decision making around areas such as pay, promotion, performance and access to learning. Transparency is often an important tool in calling to light and addressing unfairness and discrimination, and it can also help deal with perceptions of unfairness, so that everyone feels supported, confident and included at work.
But they also show that unacceptable levels of discrimination still exist in many workplaces. To make a change, organisations need to apply the same business acumen to diversity and inclusion as they would any other issue - with a clear business case, direct accountability, and specific targets and resources allocated.
Don’t assume your organisation doesn’t have an issue. Speak to your people to understand if and how they feel discrimination has impacted their career. One of the trickiest elements to tackling these discriminatory behaviours is that they may not be recognised as such by the person responsible. In other words, they may be microaggressions. In these cases, it’s important to understand how, when and where these behaviours are occurring. You can then begin to understand and tackle the root causes - whether that’s through education for staff, changes to key organisational processes, or leadership messages.
Make tackling discrimination a central part of your ESG strategy, and analyse your employee and diversity data to identify potential discrimination risks - both now and in the future. If you do nothing, you will create a more unequal tomorrow for your people and society. You will also create barriers to your workers’ development, increasing the risk of skills shortages in the future.
Our research shows worrying levels of discrimination still exist in the UK workforce, which is limiting the success of upskilling programmes.
This is part one of a six-part article series exploring the UK public’s feelings towards the future of work, following our recent Upskilling Hopes and Fears survey.
Recent PwC research has revealed a paradox in the way the UK public feels about skills.
On the one hand, many people are conscious the world of work is changing, with just over a third (36%) agreeing that “traditional employment won't be around in the future”.
But elsewhere, our research reveals a frightening lack of appetite for upskilling in response to the transformations people see happening around them. Almost 40% are unwilling to learn new skills or re-train to remain employable in the future. This is significantly higher than the global average of 23%, and makes the UK one of the least prepared to upskill out of all 20 countries we surveyed.
So what’s behind the public’s hesitation to upskill?
Our research suggests the UK public might not fully understand the extent to which automation will impact their lives: they are the least likely to think their jobs are at risk. Just one in five think their jobs will be obsolete in five years, compared with two in five globally. While our positive outlook isn’t in itself a bad thing, it might be misplaced: PwC research shows 30% of jobs are at risk of automation by the mid-2030s. This is particularly worrying when you consider that UK workers are 20% less confident in their ability to adapt to new technologies entering the workplace, compared to the global average.
It’s not just a lack of awareness that is dissuading the UK public from upskilling: training opportunities don’t come cheap. Almost half (44%) of respondents don’t believe they’ll earn enough to pay for further education or retraining. Cost anxieties are worryingly common among the young: 50% of 18-34 year olds told us they can’t afford the training or education they need. This is affecting their employment opportunities, but it also has negative implications for the UK’s future economy.
While COVID-19 has accelerated many people’s digital development, it’s also exacerbated inequalities in the workplace. While only a quarter of respondents overall were unable to undertake any learning in the last 12 months, the picture was much bleaker for semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers, with 45% unable to upskill this year. And for those who did manage to squeeze in training, it was most commonly a case of learning on the job.
A third of respondents lack access to technology, which limits their opportunities to develop skills. Concerning, too, is the fact that the “internet generation” is not immune to this barrier: 49% of 18-34 year olds lack access to technology. And there are shocking inequalities between ethnic groups in terms of their access to technology: 43% of workers from ethnic minority backgrounds lack access to technology, compared with 33% of white respondents.
While everyone should be in control of their own development journey, employers have a crucial role to play. They need to give employees opportunities to gain the skills to use advanced and ever-changing technologies in the workplace and their daily lives.
Not everyone has to learn to code, but many people need to understand and manage artificial intelligence, data analytics, autonomous vehicles and other technologies we can't yet predict - those emerging now and those that will be created in the future.
Upskilling is not simply a matter of teaching people how to use a new device. That device may be obsolete by next year. The upskilling experience involves learning how to think, act and thrive in a digital world that is sustainable over time.
I have worked in reward for the past 20 years and in all that time relatively little has changed to the broad reward elements. Most organisations still take a ‘one size fits all’ approach with some flexibility in benefits.
But a confluence of factors, including the increased focus on diversity and inclusion, digital disruption, changing employee lifestyles and priorities, and the socio-economic realities of ageing populations mean a ‘one size fits all’ approach is no longer relevant.
And then there’s COVID-19. The pandemic has shaken up the world of work and ensured change that was long overdue in reward is now inescapable.
Here are five areas employers should consider as they plan a reward roadmap. While responses will be driven by many things - costs, business transformation, talent and skills challenges - these should be high on any to do list.
In our consumer lives, instant feedback is the norm, on everything from the service we receive at the doctors to the coffee we buy on our morning walk. Yet many employers still run a process of annual reviews, generating a narrow performance rating, which defines pay and bonuses. Instead, employers should consider a suite of incentive schemes that can keep up with the pace of change in many roles and provide recognition for different needs - from greater use of team bonuses and project success awards to peer-to-peer tools that are becoming part of the reward fabric.
As our relationship with the office changes, so must the links between the office and reward. It will be led by working styles and there should be a reward response to the different groups that emerge. Employers should be reviewing what additional financial support they need to provide home workers to cover costs of the home office. With many people planning to move away from the commuter belt, in line with plans to be in the office less, many organisations must also review the relevance of regional pay models such as London weighting. This will be one of the hardest changes because of contractual and fairness dimensions. Pay is fairly inelastic - even if locations are not.
More organisations are starting to look at how they give employees greater choice. And there are connections into other areas of HR. For example, individuals could transfer their bonus into a learning budget, or trade benefits on a real-time basis - just as we do with points on our supermarket loyalty cards. A ‘reward passport’ which gives individuals a draw-down account for areas such as wellbeing spend, training and travel to the office will give employees greater autonomy to ensure their reward matches their needs.
Fairness is an increasingly high-profile topic which strikes at the heart of an organisation’s culture and reputation. Reward and remuneration committees are playing an ever greater role reacting to investor and regulatory pressure to address pay as part of a commitment to diversity and inclusion. Reporting of pay gaps will continue, and organisations need to take a more proactive role in addressing imbalances in both representation and pay.
Innovation, agility and flexibility are more important than ever and reward can play a significant role in enabling or hindering new working models. Flatter pay structures could allow for greater movement in an agile world. And what can we learn from gig worker models? A greater focus on outputs will also further liberate high performing employees from restrictive ‘nine to five’ thinking, putting greater emphasis on what they do, not where or when they do it.
At the heart of these changes, must be a recognition that employees need choices and a reward system that recognises their contribution, reflects a changing world and keeps them motivated.
Employee wellbeing has risen rapidly to the top of the corporate agenda. But looking after their people in a world of work shaped by COVID-19 and lockdowns creates challenges for every organisation.
As the first wave of lockdowns hit, the focus was on reacting quickly, ensuring employees were safe and responding by providing reassurance and support. Many companies are now evaluating their position and reimagining what their wellbeing strategy needs to look like long term.
There are many challenges when it comes to implementing a successful wellbeing strategy: employees are increasingly dispersed and physically disconnected; the borders between home and work life are more blurred than ever; and the physical, mental and emotional impacts of long-term working from home are becoming evident.
A robust wellbeing strategy however, can ensure a resilient, happy and healthy workforce which in turn leads to increased productivity and cost reductions linked to lower absenteeism and attrition. In addition, the enhanced company reputation which results can help attract and retain the best talent, a goal shared by 100% of attendees at our recent client employee wellbeing seminar.
Nearly a quarter (22%) of attendees at this seminar said they either had no employee wellbeing strategy before COVID-19, or had only an informal policy which was not revised. More than half (56%) had a known policy and responded reactively to COVID-19 in line with this. Only 22% had a known policy and were able to proactively respond.
As organisations look to the future with a view to designing and implementing a relevant wellbeing strategy, it is crucial to remember there can be no ‘one size fits all’ approach. Organisations will have different priorities and abilities. Within an organisation, different personas will have varying needs (for example, a new graduate intern will face different challenges compared to a working parent). Territories and cultures will respond to corporate interventions in differing ways.
Our top tips to assist in designing the right strategy for your organisation would be:
Read more about how employee wellbeing plays a crucial part in shifting to hybrid working and the virtual organisation or get in touch.
In 2019, just under 25% of the working population of the UK belonged to a trade union, increasing slightly for the third consecutive year. The public sector had 3.77 million union members, and the private sector 2.67 million. Female membership is on the rise, reflecting the changing shape of the UK workforce and perhaps the nature of campaigns and workplace disputes that unions support, concerning discrimination and flexible working.
This year, unionised businesses have had to engage with trade unions to consult on change driven by the unprecedented impact of COVID-19. This has ranged from consultation about the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, where furlough arrangements were introduced by collective agreement in many unionised organisations, through talks about home and flexible working, to redundancy consultation. Businesses growing under COVID-19 that need to change their working methods rapidly are as likely to be consulting with unions as those facing contraction or closure.
There is no doubt that trade union influence is sector-specific and can be significant, reflected, for example, by the union pay premium which in 2019 was 10.3%. With some notable exceptions, we are often surprised by the limited engagement at Board and C-suite level, with the impact of industrial relations. Collective relationships govern a wide variety of working arrangements, both formally and informally. The larger the unionised workforce, and the longer the tenure of employees, the more likely it is that these are well established. They may in reality only be known in any detail to very few people. Despite being seasoned veterans in other areas, many executives lack experience in this field. It is typically devolved to operational or functional teams, risking silo-led decision making, or sits in a small specialist team in HR which can detach corporate decision making from the realities of implementation. Both of these approaches can lead to a limited understanding of what arrangements are in place, and the evolution of corporate myths about what is, or is not, possible.
As a Board or Executive in a unionised business, understanding the industrial relations framework of your organisation will enable you to ask relevant questions and reach balanced conclusions about how your workforce operates and the options available to you both legally and industrially. Your industrial relations team needs your input, so they understand your risk appetite and can consider the widest possible range of options to reflect this. How long is it since your business stopped to consider these sorts of issues? As the pandemic causes organisations to look for smart ways to restructure, grow and face into the new normal, now more than ever Boards and Executive Management need to understand the trade union dynamic in their business. If properly understood, the relationship can enable (rather than frustrate) meaningful and rapid change.
Please do not hesitate to contact Tom Williams, Julia Harrison, Laura Nadel or your usual PwC contact if you’d like to discuss any issues relating to the issues raised in this note.
In the shadow of coronavirus (COVID-19), the ways we are learning to adapt at work are much like the ways we are learning about the virus. We watch, learn and respond - then repeat with the benefit of experience. Here we look at how successful approaches being used in unionised organisations can help clients plan effectively during the pandemic.
A shared understanding of the scale and impact of the pandemic has led to unprecedented levels of cooperation between stakeholders. Management and unions are focusing on outcomes which benefit both employees and employers. Robust consultation is alive, but at present realism and pragmatism have generally replaced adversarial industrial relations. At a macro level, this was exemplified by advice issued jointly by the TUC, CBI and ACAS in September 2020 on how to avoid, or where necessary implement, redundancies. Unions and employers are facing the future with a shared desire to survive, with hard choices being made fairly and openly. Change activity can happen faster, but with more genuine dialogue, if parties focus on minimising negative impacts on employees whilst also delivering effective outcomes that mean businesses survive the pandemic. Employers who have not pursued a cooperative approach have received strongly negative reactions in traditional and social media, in turn opening up political scrutiny.
To take advantage of this approach consider opening up new ways of talking to your unions. Look beyond your existing facilities to create a forum to look at future-proofing your organisation and its people, where participants must commit to focusing on jointly beneficial approaches and day to day talks are off the agenda.
Probably the most successful approach to effective planning when the future is uncertain, but one that can easily be missed in a crisis when strategic planning can lack the immediacy of tactical solutions. Finding a path to change once is hard. Having to start from scratch if the environment shifts and the plans you have agreed were not enough will add significant effort, human stress, time and cost. Whilst we may not know what is around the corner, trying to achieve one-time agreements about how and who to engage with, change processes, redundancy selection and flexible working opportunities, will mean that organisations facing difficulties during the pandemic are well set up to react quickly if additional change is needed.
Look outside your organisation to seek ideas from the wider market. Use benchmarking to find out what creative solutions other businesses in your sector and beyond have used to build scalable options for change.
Another point that can be neglected, but which is often the difference between successful and unsuccessful negotiations, is the positive effect of good working relationships. Operating in an uncertain environment every day is exhausting, and this may feel like a nice to have, not an essential point. Putting up a logical business case for change is critical, but in a crisis, a business must connect with its people in a way that engages them to effect change quickly. Achieving this often relies on trust and good faith between key leaders, employees and union negotiators. Those businesses who spend time getting to know and understand these critical constituencies will be a step ahead: and importantly, it’s never too late to start.
Above all, engage directly and regularly with your stakeholders: listen to them. Time and resources are stretched everywhere, so pare back and approach employee engagement using existing data, simple communications tools and channels, and key messages that reflect both business-critical issues and an understanding of what matters to your people.
Please do not hesitate to contact Tom Williams (tom.d.williams@pwc.com), Julia Harrison (julia.harrison@pwc.com), Laura Nadel (laura.nadel@pwc.com) or your usual PwC contact if you’d like to discuss any issues relating to the issues raised in this note.