Lloyds becomes first FTSE 100 firm to set official diversity target

Lloyds Banking Group (LON: LLOY) has become the first FTSE 100 firm to make a formal diversity target.

Britain’s biggest high street lender has set a target to have staff from black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds filling eight percent of senior management by 2020.

Lloyds has said that currently, 5.6 percent of senior roles are taken by people of BAME populations.

“What gets measured gets done and we are confident we can meet our diversity goals with the right focus and determination,” said Lloyds’ director of responsible business and inclusion, Fiona Cannon.

“We recognise that companies with diverse management teams perform better and have made a public commitment to create a truly inclusive workforce. It is our ambition to better reflect the customers and communities which we serve.”

As well as in increase from BAME backgrounds filling senior roles, the group also hope to raise the total number of non-white staff to ten percent of its total workforce by 2020  “to accurately reflect the customer base it serves”.

This is a positive step for the group, who are supporting November’s government-backed review into ethnic diversity, which recommended that the UK’s top companies should end all-white boardrooms by the year 2021.

The report stated that all FTSE 100 companies should have at least one non-white board member by 2021, and FTSE 250 companies should follow suit by 2024.

As of the end of July 2016, only 85 of the 1,050 director positions in Britain’s top companies were held by ethnic minorities.

“Today’s FTSE 100 and 250 Boards do not reflect the society we live in, nor do they reflect the international markets in which they operate. Whilst we are making good progress on gender diversity in the boardroom, we still have much to do when it comes to ethnic and cultural diversity,” said Sir John Parker, the former chairman of mining giant Anglo American (LON: AAL). 

The firm’s new target will be part of the group’s Helping Britain Prosper plan, and will be published with its results on 21 February.