If Not Now, When? Black inclusion at Tesco

Back in June 2020, Tesco became a signatory to the If Not Now, When? campaign for Black inclusion within business – acknowledging that companies needed to do more to increase their racial diversity, and pledging to set targets to increase this at all levels of our own business. As part of the campaign, which was originally published as an open letter in the Sunday Times, we asked other companies to join us in committing to sustainable actions on Black inclusion in the workplace.

Today, we are sharing our progress against the commitments we made publicly last year, and how we’ll be developing these even further in the future. The six commitments are:

• Diversifying the face of the organisation – including our commitment to the Race at Work charter and our own internal targets
• Measuring and capturing data – asking colleagues to share their personal diversity data through our ‘This is Me’ survey so we can understand where and how we need to improve; and ensuring more inclusive shortlists for our senior vacancies
• Leading the conversation on Race – we’re focused on ensuring our leadership teams feel confident in leading conversations around race from the top down, and supporting other colleagues through starting their own conversations. Our directors are also supported with inclusion leadership masterclasses, including one on race fluency
• A journey of learning – inclusive leadership is now measured as our business leaders’ performance; we’ve introduced mandatory training for all colleagues; and provided additional resources to support independent learning
• The elevation of Black voices – including joining the Black British Network and roundtable sessions; internal Black Advisory Group and celebrating the achievements of our Black colleagues
• Actions taken on Black inclusion and progression – the success of our Ethnically Diverse Talent Communities and Business Diversity internship; partnership with Arrival Education; and the introduction of a new Black Action Plan.

We are focusing on understanding the disparities and challenges faced by Black colleagues to deliver lasting change through our Black Action Plan, which we are planning to launch in early 2022. This Plan has been driven by our colleagues and aspires to achieve fair and equitable representation across four key areas:

• Talent Equity – increase Black talent representation at every level by 2030
• Community Equity – direct more of our community contributions to the Black community by 2030
• Commercial Equity – get to a place where more of our supplier partners are Black-led by 2030
• Brand Equity – direct more NPD innovation to address unmet needs of our Black customers by 2030

Please click here to read our If Not Now, When? Report for 2021