The BT Group Manifesto was launched in 2021 and is our plan to accelerate growth through responsible, inclusive and sustainable technology. It is rooted in our purpose, to connect for good, and it will help us achieve our ambition – to become the world’s most trusted connector of people, devices and machines. Our Manifesto includes measurable commitments to amplify our positive impact for people and planet – combined with a clear commercial agenda.
Responsible
New tech must earn people’s trust and transform lives for the better.
Inclusive
The future of tech must be diverse and inclusive for everyone to benefit.
Sustainable
Tech must accelerate our journey to net zero emissions and a circular economy.
Having a workforce that reflects our customers is mission critical for BT Group to ensure our products and services are accessible and inclusive by design.
Whether it’s in our EE stores, our contact centres, connecting customers in their homes, or making decisions about products and services in meetings – we must understand the experience and needs of our customers to meet the expectations of all our stakeholders.
Inclusion by design is the key to our strategy and will help us drive productivity, innovation and growth for the UK and beyond. BT Group is modernising to be the most trusted connector of people, devices and machines. In parallel we are taking action to modernise our workplaces for contemporary societal structures.
Along with our financial reports, our 2024 Annual Report contains a summary of the initiatives we delivered in FY24 (2024 Financial Year) to build a diverse and inclusive BT Group. The report also highlights our seventh Gender pay gap report, fourth voluntary Ethnicity pay gap report, and first Disability pay gap report, and the progress we have made so far towards achieving our diversity targets in relation to women, ethnic minority colleagues and disabled colleagues.
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BT Group plc - Annual Report 2024
pdf - 6.56 MB
Our Manifesto includes bold targets for diversity. We’re making progress in our ethnic minority and disability representation. But we’re clear that there’s much more to be done.
This table shows the progress we have made against our stated Manifesto targets for women, ethnic minority and disability representation at various levels of the organisation.
Click image to enlarge
Diversity data for all protected characteristics and special category data (as defined by UK employment law and GDPR respectively or local laws as relevant to other geographies) is collected through voluntary disclosure directly into SAP SuccessFactors (our nominated HR system). Data is stored, reported, and used subject to local laws and advertised employee privacy notices. Due to local restrictions on capture and reporting of ethnicity and disability, only information relating to the UK is shown.
a UK population only.
b For the purpose of the UK Corporate Governance Code 2018, our leadership comprises the Executive Committee (excluding Executive Directors on the Board but including the CEO, Openreach) and all Executive Committee direct reports (excluding admin roles). This totals 28 women (33%) and 56 men (67%).
c For the purposes of the Companies Act 2006, our senior management comprises those employees responsible for planning, directing and controlling the activities of the group, or a strategically important part of it (members of our senior leadership and senior management teams, and directors of the group’s subsidiaries but excluding directors on the Board). This totals 196 women (35%) and 355 men (65%). Numbers presented include 70 subsidiary directors (50 men and 20 women) who are not otherwise members of our leadership or senior management teams.
Ambitions into actions
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My role and how we work is flexible
We’re hard-wiring inclusion and flexibility into the way we design roles at BT Group through flexible ways of working that support colleagues at various stages of life to grow a career with us.
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I’m safe and respected at work
We’re taking steps to prevent harm, discrimination and microaggressions and creating safe and trusted spaces that colleagues can go if they need support.
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I’m treated fairly in hiring, performance and promotion processes
We’re looking at all the barriers of an individual joining BT Group, performing to the best of their abilities, accessing inclusive policies and development that enables them to progress their career.
We’re making sure that every single manager across BT Group knows what it means to be inclusive. Managers are upskilled and held accountable to remove existing barriers and to take different approaches to address barriers experienced by our colleagues.
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My work environment and tools are accessible and inclusive
We’re focusing on making reasonable physical, environmental and system workplace adjustments to enable our people to do their best work.
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My manager and our leaders are inclusive
Making sure that every single manager across BT Group knows what it means to be inclusive, upskilling to make sure different approaches can be used to address barriers and held accountable to take committed action to remove existing barriers.
Working Inclusively across BT Group involves everybody, from our leaders, all colleagues and our external partners.
We believe everyone has a role to play in making BT Group more inclusive for our customers and our colleagues.
Our Inclusion team oversees our overarching approach, strategy and portfolio, reporting to the Executive Committee and updating the Board on our strategy, and progress against our targets.
BT Group maintains a very active set of award-winning colleague-driven people networks who champion members’ concerns and are sponsored by senior leaders, playing a key role in ensuring we maintain an intersectional lens as we work to achieve our Inclusion ambitions.
- Able 2 – Supporting Disability
- Ethnic Diversity Network
- Gender Equality Network
- Pride – Supporting LGBTQ+
- Carers Network
- Peer to Peer – Offering a listening ear
- Armed Forces Network
- Christian Network
- Hindu Network
- Jewish Network
- Muslim Network
- Sikh Network
We also partner with external organisations to ensure that we are aligned with external best practice. These include Stonewall, Investing in Ethnicity, the British Disability Forum, Carers UK and The Social Mobility Foundation.
Our pay gaps
The median pay gap narrowed to 5.6% in 2023, from 6.1% in 2022. The mean pay gap widened to 4% in 2023 from 3.7% in 2022.
While both the median and mean figures continue to sit below the telecommunications industry averages, we are not complacent and we are doing more to attract, recruit and retain women in order to achieve balanced gender representation at all levels across the business.
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Gender pay gap statement 2023 (pdf - 246 KB) - - New
Although UK organisations are not legally required to publish their ethnicity pay gap, as part of our overall commitment to I&D, we have published our fourth Ethnicity pay gap (EPG) figures.
At the snapshot date of 5 April 2023, our median (binary) ethnicity pay gap was -1.8%, a reduction from -1.2% in 2022. The mean (binary) ethnicity pay gap was -0.8%, an increase from -0.3% in 2022.
Like last year, we have examined our UK EPG data in more granular detail. This is because we recognise that a binary ethnicity pay gap can mask the disparate issues that people from different ethnic groups face at work and in wider society. Examining the data at a more granular level provides a more nuanced picture:
-3.4%
mean
( 2022: -3.6% )
-2.9%
median
( 2022: -2.4% )
5.1%
mean
( 2022: 6.6% )
-0.9%
median
( 2022: -0.3% )
0.1%
mean
( 2022: 3.3% )
4%
median
( 2022: 5.2% )
-3.7%
mean
( 2022: -6.2% )
-8.7%
median
( 2022: -9.3% )
To address our current ethnicity pay gap, and improve ethnic diversity across BT Group, we are delivering a number of initiatives to attract, recruit and retain more people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
This is the first time the business has conducted a disability pay gap analysis to understand and address any inclusion barriers that are preventing disabled colleagues from thriving at work.
We have applied the same methodology as the gender and ethnicity pay gap analysis.
The 2023 disability median pay gap was 0.0%, and the 2023 disability mean pay gap was 0.7% across the business.
Within our four entities, the pay gap does vary with some positive and some negative results in each entity. When aggregated at a BT Group level, the median pay gap evens out at 0%, and the mean pay gap at 0.7%.
