The three-year action plan launched by the Financial Times Group in 2019 prioritises activities across five key areas:

• Bolstering governance, transparency and data
• Building an inclusive culture
• Adopting inclusive recruitment practices and processes
• Developing and retaining talent
• Strengthening its partnerships externally

The FT Group set workforce goals to address areas of under-representation, benchmarked against labour market statistics in the UK – where most of its employees are based – and what it knew about its demographic composition. All senior management leaders have personal objectives and action plans to promote inclusion and increase diversity within their teams.

It also established a global diversity and inclusion taskforce to oversee progress and accelerate efforts in areas like ethnic diversity. Its action plan was further supported and driven by FT staff, most notably through its employee-led networks and dedicated editorial working group on racial and ethnic diversity.

Governance and transparency: establishing a global D&I taskforce

The FT Group set up a global diversity and inclusion taskforce in 2020 to oversee progress and to accelerate efforts in areas like ethnic diversity. The taskforce includes the FT Group CEO; the global head of diversity and inclusion; the global HR director; the chief communications and marketing officer; the deputy managing editor; the VP of the FT in the US; the talent acquisition specialist in the US, and members of the Next Generation Board, a group of emerging leaders from across the FT.

The taskforce meets monthly and has a remit to:

• Champion the D&I agenda: bring visibility to D&I issues, ensuring their prominence in business goals and keeping the FT up to speed with best practice
• Promote accountability: review strategy and goals, monitoring data and sharing performance outcomes with staff
• Drive change: address barriers to success, directing focus and investment as needed
• Each quarter the taskforce sets aside a meeting to hear from the ERG leads on issues that affect their network and how the taskforce can best support and help find solutions

Governance and transparency: reporting gender and ethnicity pay gaps

The FT Group has made progress in reducing its UK gender pay gap, with its median gender pay gap decreasing from 15.9% to 13.4%. The pay gap has continued to shrink year on year as more women have taken on senior roles across the FT.

In 2020, the FT Group shared its UK ethnicity pay gap for the first time, which stood at 9.6%. This was due to the relatively low number of non-white senior leaders in the organisation and therefore the pay gap has remained at 9.6% but it has been an on-going issue that the FT is addressing as a priority.

Workplace culture: Next Generation Board

The Next Generation Board (NGB) is a group of 12 emerging leaders who represent different business areas and interests across the FT. Each NGB member has been paired with a member of the FT management team to provide reverse mentoring and exchange feedback and ideas. One of the principal aims of the NGB is to offer diverse groups within the FT more opportunities to participate in shaping company culture and policy.

Workplace culture: supporting employee networks

Across all offices and regions, FT employees have continued to drive awareness of inclusion and diversity in the workplace. Seven employee-run networks, including Proud FT, FT Embrace, FT Women, FT Parents, FT Sustainability, FT Mental Health and FT Access, have played an integral role in connecting individuals and providing a sense of community and culture. The networks have received their own budget so that they can organise staff events and bring in speakers to raise awareness of topical issues. In 2020, these events included Mental Health Week, UK Black History Month, Pride, Trans Awareness Week, International Women’s Day, Neurodiversity Awareness Training and Hispanic Heritage Month.

 Workplace culture: driving inclusive leadership

All people managers, senior leaders and the FT management board completed inclusive leadership training in 2020 to better recognise and practice key inclusive leadership competencies, and to incorporate diversity and inclusion into day-to-day people management.

Workplace culture: promoting flexible working

The FT Group has continued to evolve and promote flexible working arrangements and upskill managers to support a flexible workforce.

Workplace culture: discussing race in the workplace

Following the killing of George Floyd, the FT organised a series of interactive events for employees to talk about race in the workplace, and to learn about the persistent challenges that black and other ethnic minority groups face at work. More than 250 employees attended roundtable discussions, while 600 joined a live discussion on what it means to be an anti-racism ally.

Recruitment: improving recruitment practices

The FT Group’s recruitment principles have been designed to help standardise the interview process and reduce bias. In 2020, it updated the checklist for hiring managers to include diverse shortlists, mandatory scorecards to assess candidates in a fair and consistent manner, and initiatives such as blind CV trials. When hiring at manager level or above, candidates are evaluated on previous exposure to diversity initiatives as part of the decision-making process.

Recruitment: investing in young talent

The FT has offered internships, work experience, apprenticeships, outreach and workshops for young people through its early careers programme. By working with 20 partner organisations in the UK, it has been able to reach more diverse and underrepresented areas of society. It has also run the FT Talent Challenge, which brought together students and early career professionals to work on FT business cases and take part in a global competition.

Recruitment: Kickstart programme

This government programme offers the FT an opportunity to continue to diversify its workforce.

Recruitment: recruiting journalists from diverse backgrounds

Hiring more black and minority ethnic journalists has been a key priority for the newsroom. In 2020, FT editor Roula Khalaf commissioned the Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity to improve representation in the newsroom and measure the size and needs of the FT’s minority ethnic audience. The FT also created a new reporter role in the US to cover the financial, social and policy barriers limiting equal participation in society by minority communities.

The Maisie Hylton fellowship, established in 2019, provides two six-month placements at the FT to young journalists from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Recruitment: FT News School

In 2020 the FT, in partnership with Brooklyn Brothers, launched and delivered News School, a nightly education, mentoring and work experience programme designed to give young people from less advantaged backgrounds an opportunity to learn about the news, media and associated creative industries. The programme culminated in a virtual graduate showcase event. Each student was paired with an industry mentor and took part in a work experience placement. Following on from the success of 2020 News School, the FT launched 2021 News School in the UK and the US, offering around 70 young people the opportunity to join the programme.

Retaining and developing talent: supporting women’s career development

The FT offers a number of programmes designed to support and promote female talent across the business through mentoring, networking and skills development.

Partnerships: building a diverse talent pipeline

The FT has worked with 20 partner organisations who support with community outreach and talent for its early careers programme. These organisations include schools, colleges, universities, charities, foundations and specialist recruitment agencies.

Partnerships: putting disability on the agenda

In 2020, the FT joined the Valuable 500, a global CEO community dedicated to putting disability inclusion on the business leadership agenda. It participated in the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) #WorldUpsideDown campaign, which highlighted the issues that many blind and partially sighted people experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. The FT is also a Disability Confident employer and posts all its vacancies via Evenbreak, an advice hub and job board for disabled candidates.

Partnerships: supporting the future of the media industry

The FT sponsors a number of organisations that work to secure a more diverse future for the news industry. These include:

• The Journalism Diversity Fund, which promotes careers in journalism and awards bursaries to those from diverse backgrounds.
• The Student View, a charity that runs pop-up newsrooms in UK state schools for 14-17-year-old students.
• Creative Access, a social enterprise that supports people from under-represented backgrounds into creative careers.

Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign (FLIC)

In 2021 the FT launched its first charity, The Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign (FLIC). Financial literacy is proven to increase social mobility and improve financial behaviour for individuals and communities. FLIC aims to democratise financial education by providing free and engaging content to those who need it most: young people, women, and disenfranchised groups including minority ethnic communities and migrants.