A radical UK diversity reform just got parked

Hello and welcome to Working It.

I’ve been in a mudbath at the HowTheLightGetsIn philosophy and music festival in Hay-on-Wye, which was enormous fun, if detrimental to my white trainers.

I was there to join a panel discussion, debating “what is meaningful work?” (I’m keen to hear your thoughts on this: [email protected].)

I was being deeply straightforward about it — talking about our jobs and paid work — while Guy Standing, a well-known economist, was suggesting that all paid work should be called “labour” — and that real meaning is to be found in the (usually unpaid) work that builds community and care. I don’t disagree but, at risk of sounding like the corporate sellout that I am💰, I do think we can find meaning in our paid jobs, too.

Guy also wrote an excellent opinion piece in the FT last week about how much time is wasted at work — if you are familiar with the late David Graeber’s “bullshit jobs” thesis, this will resonate.

Read on for news of City regulators hitting pause on a set of wide-ranging diversity and inclusion proposals. I have also paused Office Therapy while I try to sort my own life out 👀 . . . but it will be back next week.

The mystery of the missing D&I proposals 🕵🏻‍♀️

Back in the heady days of autumn 2023, I wrote about some pretty radical rules on diversity and inclusion strategy that were being proposed by the UK financial services regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority.

This is what employment law experts at Linklaters said about them: “If enacted as proposed, the new rules would mark one of the biggest attempts by a regulator to shift the dial on D&I in a sector, and set an example for other sectors, industries and jurisdictions to follow.”

Regulated firms would be required to “publish a diversity strategy, set mandatory diversity targets, disclose annual diversity data across many demographics, including religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation, and report on a firm’s inclusivity”.

The FCA put the proposals out to consultation, and earlier this month its chief executive, Nikhil Rathi, told the House of Commons Treasury Committee that his organisation was hitting the pause button:

On the broader data and diversity questions, we had 257 responses, so there has been a very extensive response to the consultation. We are not prioritising moving forward on that at this stage. We need to take the time to understand it.

I spoke to Linklaters’ employment counsel Simon Kerr-Davis and Laurie Ollivent, a senior associate. They have both been monitoring these developments. Laurie said the FCA announcement came as a surprise: “The understanding that we had had from the regulators was that they were pressing ahead with it. There have been a lot of views shared and responses as part of this consultation . . . but we were still expecting them to be continuing with and we weren’t really expecting the scope of them to change that much when the final policy statement was published.”

Simon pointed out that half of the same FCA consultation was about cracking down on “non financial misconduct” — behaviours such as sexual harassment and bullying. And those new regulations, the FCA has confirmed, are going to be prioritised and implemented.

On the D&I part, Simon pointed out: “Many of the employers that we have been talking to have started to do their planning and introduce new systems to try to gather data. There is a message that needs to get out to employers that there is a pause — they should not overinvest as this may not ultimately be the form that the regulatory steps actually take.”

So, if you work in financial services and have been tasked with building the internal strategy and processes needed for the proposed FCA reforms: time to stop that work🚦.

A pause from the regulator does make sense: if Labour wins the UK election in July, it has plans for mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting and a Race Equality Act, which will cut across some of the FCA proposals.

But there is a wider context: the global landscape for D&I is changing. As Laurie said: “There is a lot more scrutiny on what action employers can safely and lawfully take to prioritise D&I in the workplace now, particularly in light of what is happening in the US after some of their legal developments.”

We will return to the subject of “non financial misconduct” in another newsletter. It’s a huge topic. All thoughts on regulatory interventions on D&I — and anything else: [email protected].

This week on the Working It podcast

I was intrigued to see a new social media label given to “personality hires” — those bouncy, effervescent (and potentially annoying?) people who have populated offices since forever, and who we may suspect of having been hired because they are socially able, rather than on the basis of their skills.

On the podcast this week, I was delighted to talk through the pros and cons of choosing to hire an office “vibe lifter” with NYU professor — and Working It regular — Tessa West. Then I talk to a self-proclaimed personality hire, Bella Rose Mortel, about her approach. If you want more, Bella has a newsletter called, yes, The Personality Hire.

Five top stories from the world of work

1. Night Nannies: A work perk too far? This feature covers a new trend: businesses paying for employees’ unbroken sleep. Kate Hodge finds start-ups embracing it, to help new parents. Come for the fascinating read, stay for the 😱 comments.

2. The difficulty of dealing with death in the workplace: Psychotherapist Naomi Shragai writes about the things we often don’t talk about — the death of a colleague or boss being one of them. These crises demand good leadership and open conversations.

3. The humble email sign-off is not what it used to be: Pilita Clark picks up on the (apparently now uncool) and unintentionally funny trend of putting status markers in email sign offs — “what I am reading”, Strava scores and wellbeing among them.

4. Nicolas Berggruen, the modern-day Medici: A billionaire known for living in hotels, and convening global thinkers and tech magnates at his own institute, has bought some extraordinary property in Venice to make a permanent base. An eye-opening HTSI read.

5. The limits of ‘unlimited’ leave: The FT editorial board weighs into the debate about unlimited holiday days. Only 48 per cent of Americans take their full vacation entitlement anyway — in this instance, more might even mean less.

One more thing . . . 

Beth Gibbons is well-known as Portishead’s singer, but she keeps out of the limelight: she doesn’t give interviews and has only just released a debut solo album, Lives Outgrown. I already love it. As Ludo Hunter-Tilney says in his FT review: “Appearing as its maker approaches her sixties, it deals with subjects that rarely turn up in debut albums: mortality, menopause, the ‘burden of life’ (as one song puts it).” Beth takes all that — and turns it into something haunting and beautiful.

This week’s giveaway: mental health conference tickets

We have 10 in-person tickets worth £250 each to attend the Human Sustainability summit in central London on June 13. It’s run by the people behind the InsideOut awards, promoting mental health initiatives at work. Speakers from Tesco, Deloitte and Unilever will share insights on best practice for the new (to me) concept of “human sustainability” in workforces. The full line-up is here (scroll down to see it). The FT is a sponsor and I’ll be moderating a panel, so do say hello 👋 if you are there.

Enter using this form and we will pick winners at 12pm BST on Friday.

A word from the Working It community

Last week’s newsletter about the different priorities that keep men and women in jobs (tl;dr: money for men, balance for women) drew some interesting responses. This is my favourite, from a woman who is staying anonymous 🤫.

The real issue is that men and a large chunk of successful women have realised that money buys balance. Women can have it all if they aren’t trying to do it all by themselves. Go into the homes of top women and they have an army of support . . . just like a man. Drivers, night nurse, tutors, live-in au pair, etc.

I’ve had to highlight to my younger female mentees that they have to get as far as they can financially before they have kids. Many of them will probably marry equally or down the ladder. They will probably be the main or equal breadwinner. Telling men [I was dating] that I had a cleaner who also picked up forgotten groceries and brought home my dry cleaning was a litmus test. If they thought it was wasteful, we broke up.

A female executive I heard at a talk shared about how she had moved abroad for a job. The PA of the man she was going to work for called to express concern about the fact that she had requested visa support for her nanny, cook and driver. The female executive told the male boss that if he still wanted her to come, she would only do 50 per cent of her job, given that she was also going to have to cook dinner, watch the kids and drive them around . . . especially given that her husband also had a good career. The visas came through.

I wish I had had a plain-speaking mentor giving advice like this early in my career. Any thoughts? Let me know.

And finally . . . 

In the UK we have an election coming up, and if the relentless gloom is too much for you, may I recommend Sketchy Politics — a video series from my FT colleagues Miranda Green and Robert Shrimsley. Miranda and Robert are serious political experts who are also very funny. It’s an unbeatable combination: their latest video is called Starmy Weather 🌦️. You can also play around with our model to predict the general election result.