1 in 3 firms struggling to build diverse leadership

Succession planning is becoming more and more biased, research has found, as talent leaders share that their organisations are struggling to create more diversity. 

Nearly nine out of 10 HR professionals agreed that their succession planning is biased, according to Armstrong Craven. 

In a survey of 213 HR and talent leaders, one in three said that their company is struggling to build a diverse leadership team through such planning. 

For example, just 36% of respondents stated that their organisational boards are increasing pressure to diversify leadership.

Reflecting on the study, Rachel Davis, co-managing director at Armstrong Craven, pointed out that bias tends to be driven by leaders who use their existing networks, rather than using different talent pools.

To combat this, she said: “HR leaders need to work with current and next generation leaders to help them take a broader view, supporting strategic thinking by bringing in different perspectives. 

“Building inclusivity is amongst the biggest business priorities, so it’s essential for organisations to get it right at the very top. Encouragingly, 85% of HR leaders have plans to actively attract or support leaders from underrepresented groups, so gaining a wider view and using external talent data will help them reduce bias in their succession planning.”

The research also highlighted an imbalanced approach to hiring from diverse talent pools, with nearly half of HR professionals having plans in place to actively attract ethnically diverse recruits for leadership roles. 

However, the data found that only 30% are doing the same for disabled individuals, while 32% are planning to attract recruits from lower socio-economic backgrounds. 

Peter Howarth, co-managing director at Armstrong Craven, added: “That there are such differences in diversity hiring is not surprising, considering only 38% of HR leaders use data to reduce bias in succession planning. Succession planning can’t be based on a gut feeling or somebody’s opinion of who could be a good replacement; it needs to be based on data which requires an assessment of business needs to ensure relevant candidates are sought to fill the roles.

“When it comes to diversity in senior leadership, since pre-Covid (2019) female representation amongst top senior managers has increased by nearly five percent, and ethnic minority representation has increased by three percent, but we are still talking about small numbers compared to the huge proportion of white males. We are not even skimming the surface of the neurodiverse and gender diverse talent pools.”

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