Our Race Action Plan

 

At Lloyds Banking Group, we stand against racism and discrimination in all its forms.

While we’ve worked hard over the years to create a more inclusive organisation, the launch of the Race Action Plan in July 2020 was a real turning point in our journey. Launched against the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter movement and the coronavirus pandemic, the plan has helped us to address the specific challenges we know our Black colleagues and customers are facing.

1.  We’ve set a public goal, complementing our broader 2018 Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic target, to specifically increase Black representation in senior roles from 0.6% at senior grades to at least 3% by 2025, to align with the overall UK labour market.

2.  Our Race Advisory Panel, made up of 25 colleagues of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic heritage, continues to influence and inform our ongoing diversity strategy and ensure we are making the right progress.

3.  We’ve worked in partnership with external experts to deliver a Race Education programme to all our people, including our people teams, senior leaders and line managers.

4.  We’re continuing to undertake regular listening sessions to gauge and understand our colleagues’ experiences and progress against our plans. 

5.  We’ve committed to publishing our Ethnicity Pay Gap report annually.

6.  We ensure diversity on all our senior executive recruitment shortlists with a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidate. We’ve trained recruiters, hiring managers and third-party suppliers to ensure they understand our expectations and have the tools to hire inclusively.

7.  We’re nurturing our talented Black colleagues by creating specific development and sponsorship programmes for both middle management and senior grades, so that we can help break the ceiling for senior role models.

8.  We're taking our work beyond our own organisation to help address challenges faced by Black communities, beginning with establishing the Black Business Advisory Committee and working in partnership with Foundervine and the Black Business Network.

Race Action plan: progress so far

  • Hiring & Progression

    Our Career Acceleration Programme for Black heritage managers and our Senior Leadership Programme have both resulted in 40% of colleagues securing senior manager roles or senior leadership roles or lateral moves to progress their career.

     

    We completed a full review of our people processes and agreed actions and recommendations to remove any issues of bias and deliver a proportional outcome for our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic colleagues.  

     

    We have supported the 10,000 Black Interns initiative with over 120 Black interns joining the Group for summer paid internships in 2022 and 2023.

  • Culture

    We've delivered a groupwide Race Education programme to over 10,000 line managers and senior leaders and over 72,000 colleagues and contingent workers. Race Education training is now included in onboarding sessions for all new colleagues and available to all new to role line managers.

     

    We have 60 trained colleagues who act as Race & Ethnicity Mental Health Advocates.

     

    We've implemented a Supply Chain Diversity strategy across the Group to ensure that our suppliers and partners match our goal to represent the society we serve.

  • Business & Community

    Through our four charitable Foundations we have supported a number of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic-led charities or projects and currently have 190 live grants, with over £10 million invested.

     

    We've published two ‘Black. British. In Business & Proud’ reports, in partnership with the Black Business Network, exploring the full entrepreneurial journey for Black business owners in Britain, highlighting some of the barriers to growth and unique challenges faced by Black-owned businesses in the UK.

     

    We've supported almost 4,000 Black entrepreneurs and business owners; resulting in 17,000 hours of total support across the programmes, events and initiatives we have played a part in.

     

    With the City and Mental Health Alliance, we collaborated on the Mental Health and Race at Work report, which seeks to build the business community's understanding of the challenges faced by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic employees at work, and how this impacts their mental health. 


What is it like to work at Lloyds Banking Group?

Sarah has worked with us for a few years and has been involved in some really impactful projects.

But don't take our word for it. Over to you Sarah...

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Race at Work Charter

In 2018, we signed the UK Government’s Race at Work Charter and have recently renewed our commitment to this. We currently meet and exceed its principal requirements.

We continue to work to increase the ethnic diversity of our workforce and unlock the potential of our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic colleagues.

 

Our REACH network

Our REACH network (Race, Ethnicity and Cultural Heritage) connects, supports and develops colleagues from a range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, with membership open to all colleagues.

It currently has over 4,000 members and 700 advocates.

Ethnicity Pay Gap Report

Following the launch of our Race Action Plan in July 2020, we committed to voluntarily publishing our Ethnicity Pay Gap Report.

We’re publishing our data because it is the right thing to do and we’ll continue to share this annually so we can track our progress and continue to take action to narrow the gaps that exist.

While our data tells us that on a mean average basis, none of our Black, Asian or Ethnic Minority colleagues are paid less at any individual grade, our Ethnicity Pay Gap Report reveals that there is a clear difference in the representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic colleagues within senior management levels in our business, and that this difference is at its widest amongst Black colleagues specifically.

Download the latest report

Other pages you might be interested in

Building trust among Black business owners and entrepreneurs

40% of Black businesspeople don't trust financial institutions to have their best interests in mind. Find out how the Black Business Network and Lloyds Bank aim fix this and build trust.

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Diversity and inclusion

We strive to create a fully inclusive environment for all our colleagues, customers and communities, one that is truly representative of modern-day Britain.

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Excelling Black talent

As part of our Race Action Plan, we’re committed to nurturing our talented Black colleagues by creating specific talent programmes, so that we can help break the ceiling for senior Black role models.

Read about the programme