Analysis: How the Co-op is becoming anti-racist

As the second-highest ranked retailer in the Social Mobility Foundation’s list of top employers for social mobility last year, the Co-op has a long history of promoting diversity within its organisation and in the communities it works with. 

Since 2010, the Co-op has set up five separate staff networks, which group chief executive Steve Murrells says are designed to “champion best practice and a culture of fairness and equality” in the business.

The networks include Strive, which helps staff members aged 16-30 “shine in their careers by providing opportunities to support their progression”; Rise, which focuses on increasing cultural awareness and ethnic diversity; and Aspire, which promotes gender diversity.

One area where the Co-op is going further is racial equality and it has just published a new manifesto called Our commitment to racial equality and inclusion. 

Being anti-racist

On September 24, the day the Co-op unveiled its new manifesto and racial equality commitments ranging from campaigning about social issues and staffing, through to product procurement and community work, Murrells wrote a blog.

In it, after touching on the global Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the disproportionate effects of the coronavirus on minority communities, Murrells wrote: “At the Co-op, we believe that the act of not being racist is not enough. I’m crystal clear that we must be anti-racist.”

Co-op people director Claire Camara says the BLM protests and Covid-19 crisis had both been a big catalyst for the new manifesto but as an organisation, the Co-op’s work on inclusivity with its staff has been underway for more than two years. 

“Last year we did a lot of work around the lived experiences of various colleagues across our business,” she says.

“What became very clear was that for our BAME colleagues, in particular, their experiences were different and needed a lot more focus than other colleagues.”

As a result of a qualitative staff survey the Co-op undertook last year, Camara says the retailer has audited all of its HR and people function policies and processes to make them truly inclusive.

Alongside pledging to close the ethnicity pay gap within the wider organisation, the Co-op has also promised to “maximise” its use of the apprenticeship levy to focus on bringing ethnically and socio-economically diverse backgrounds into the business and published BAME leadership quota targets for the next year and for 2025. 

Camara says the BAME leadership goal is a perfect example of how the Co-op has put in place tangible targets on which the success or failure of this scheme can be measured. 

“Although our total workforce when it comes to BAME is currently around 11%, when it comes to leadership and management roles, that number is in fact 3%,” she says.

“We want to shift that from a 3% to a 6% target. In the context of the current environment and where we are economically, that’s quite a bold ambition we think, to double that number by the end of 2021/22.”

“Although our total workforce when it comes to BAME is currently around 11%, when it comes to leadership and management roles, that number is in fact 3%”

Claire Camara, The Co-op

By 2025, the Co-op’s target is to have 10% BAME representation in senior leadership roles. 

Camara says the manifesto is not just about changing the Co-op’s internal practices but completely revolutionising the way it thinks about doing business. 

“The manifesto is more of a call to action that goes beyond just the colleague piece. It brings in how we work with our communities, how we procure items, the ways we do business and invariably, what we’d like to campaign for,” she says.

In terms of campaigns, the Co-op is developing an anti-racism curriculum in conjunction with its Academies Trust, which currently manages 27 schools and sixth form colleges across the north of England, and will then lobby the government to roll this out across all schools nationally as well as pushing for all businesses to be mandated to publish their respective ethnicity pay gaps. 

Setting targets

Camara says the Co-op will also increase the already substantial number of local community causes it funds around black, Asian and other ethnic minority beneficiaries from 20% to 25%, and target racial inequality as part of a broader focus on inequality in young people.

The Co-op has also committed to creating diverse consumer and member panels to help it develop a better product offering for ethnicity minority groups. It will also partner and invest in suppliers that “have a strong focus on inclusion and closing the inequality gap” themselves. 

“This is all quite a shift,” says Camara. “Historically where you might have seen these solely in our people function, we’re now using that as core and totally aligned to our vision.”

The Co-op has always led the field in diversity and inclusion. This renewed focus on being anti-racist, which spreads across all parts of its business, will set a new standard that retailers across the board should follow.