‘This is about striving for honest parity’: Matt Chapman of the IWFM EDI Group on Race Equality Week

News

While I was away on business recently, I found myself musing on the difference between merely ‘travelling’ from A to B and truly going on ‘a journey’. Eventually, I settled on this: it’s easy to travel around as we do in our industry, but a genuine journey is something else entirely.

I’ve covered this theme in prior articles and blogs I’ve written: the sense of ‘journey’ as a physical, cultural and emotional shift such as the one that my own mother, a nurse, undertook when she moved from Jamaica to the UK in the late 1960s. Was her assimilation and acceptance in the UK immediate? Absolutely not. Did her long journey bring instant ‘success’? No, but it arrived eventually as the world began to turn differently over time.

However, there is sometimes the tension within me that despite the trails that were blazed, despite the doors opened by previous generations, there is still a stumbling block in the way of true diversity. My current involvement with IWFM’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) project has really amplified my thinking in this area in a wider sense; a sense of equity and inclusion for all. I then realised that rather than try to forge a journey forward here, I perhaps would have to initially look back.

The ’old ways’

When the proud stories of my family making it ‘here’ and then indeed ‘making it’ here are told, they feel to me both of a distant era yet also oddly current. People of all backgrounds can thrive in our country, but to me there is still that sense of well-intentioned misinterpretation and misunderstanding in the air. Why? Why haven’t the ‘old ways’ that have clearly been challenged and navigated before truly vanished from industry, culture and politics? This isn’t about cancelling or manipulating others; this is about striving for honest parity - the ‘right person for the job’ in simple terms. School leaders, looking harder than ever to reach all learners, talk now of the ‘equality of opportunity’, a rich phrase that points hopefully to a level playing field for all.

It’s incredible to me that some of the same assumptions, misunderstandings and outright prejudices my mother’s generation faced decades ago can still be seen and felt today. The sensible, aspirational ‘middle ground’ of new faces into the UK don’t make headlines but given the appropriate opportunity they could make a genuine difference.

If you were to hear of an articulate Humanities graduate arriving in the UK with just £100 in their pocket, you’d be forgiven for thinking that I am once again referring to the 1960s. However, my friend and colleague Nana Osei exchanged Accra in Ghana for his aunt’s house in Bromley a mere 17 years ago. The UK was Nana’s goal destination, one he had eagerly learned about at both boarding school and university. Nana felt he had to tactically trim down his longer given name and began work at a well-known high street fashion chain as a cleaner, a role that required a two-hour commute. In fact, over time Nana began to actually lose money due to his travel commitments. This was the only job Nana could get at the time, despite other applications. The role was about hard work and enabled Nana to maintain his intrinsic interest in people. Gentle, gradual progression came via similar roles in stores in Croydon and then Oxford Street before a 2009 promotion to Area Manager appeared.

Invisible barriers

Nana wasn’t automatically ‘owed’ anything in this or any other era; there is no suggestion here that he should have been promoted faster by default or by virtue of being black or, say, African. However, when I first met him in 2011, it struck me that frankly he was far too ‘low down’ for a proud, hard-working graduate with fluent English, undeniable talent and an infectious, keen optimism. Why was this? Why was someone who was ready to work, ready to progress, ready to travel across London on public transport and then walk another thirty minutes to a site seemingly ‘stuck’?

Nobody’s perfect but Nana as a personality or employee certainly wasn’t the barrier, so what was it? This article and its themes are certainly not about ‘looking for it’ to justify a point or soothe a failure. However, without indulging, ‘it’ is still unfortunately there in the fabric of many situations; harshly and upsettingly apparent in racist ‘workplace banter’ I have been the butt of, sometimes amusingly apparent in the raised eyebrows of those perhaps not expecting me to be visibly dual heritage when they had read my name as Matthew Chapman. ‘It’ is still tangibly out there, and Nana has also seen all sides and all extremes on his journey to becoming an Operations Director; a journey laced with, in his own words, not just success but fear, rejection and paranoia.

Surely a range of experiences from being abused on the street while innocently asking for directions, to an elderly lady excitedly rubbing his ‘dark skin’ while at work aren’t merely coincidental or isolated? Surely being initially overlooked when he wanted to get involved with a local football team and then only getting a call back when his London-accented wife made a second approach isn’t something to shrug off?

Recognition

When Nana was used in a promotional image celebrating the link between one of his previous employers and a global retailer, it was undoubtedly well-intentioned and meant as a showcase. However, why should it be that consciously special that a black employee was pictured? It could be said that Nana’s personal decision to give his two daughters what he sees as ‘British’ first names is somewhat sad but is openly rooted, protectively and pre-emptively, in Nana’s own journey.

Eventually, Nana switched to Operations Manager within the same FM provider and then stepped up to Regional Operations Manager. As those he previously mentored and trained overtook him promotion-wise, as they passed him on the ladder, he began to look around. Nana is now an operations director of SB-FM, where I am proud to be the CEO. His role has been gained on merit, a deserved vindication of and reward for everything I have known about him and his work for the past fifteen years. In fact, Nana declined a substantial pay rise offer from his employer to join SB-FM. Why? The pay rise was seemingly a token gesture to retain him pretty much at the same level he was at with no actual career progression apparent. As Nana has said to me several times, he knows his worth and values his self-respect; the recognition and development my company has afforded him is worth so much more than a cursory pay increase.

In our industry, especially from the point of view of a growing and expanding company such as ours, we need the correct people in the correct positions or otherwise our brand and reputation suffer. To be truly future-fit, we need the correct people and infrastructures regardless of their roots. Nana is already integral to my company’s rapid growth and he is thoroughly correct to describe himself online as dynamic and resilient, ambitious and kind; he brings these qualities and values to the table every single day.

Creating a better journey

So, what is the solution to ensuring that the journeys of others, people of all backgrounds, can be smoother and fairer? How can we include, integrate, and engage in a productive and forward-thinking way?

A potential answer lies in data and metrics such as performance, reviews and people’s holistic feedback, but not as the be-all and end-all. Technology will support us on this journey, helping the often-unseen colleagues, such as the next Nana Osei or Beverly Chapman. We need a system that both values individuals but builds in an impartial and balanced playing field when it comes to recruitment and performance. The human touch, the human connection needs to work hand-in-hand with technology. When I think of the sheer effort and graft within Nana, someone who criss-crossed London on the underground with equipment in tow, I think of how organisations measuring, reviewing and implementing best practice will ensure that such commitment and application will not go unnoticed in future.

For me, for Nana, for IWFM and the EDI Focus Group, we now begin a new journey forward together; not simply travelling and moving to functionally provide, but a true journey of open-mindedness, parity, and true opportunity for all that deserve it.

Matt Chapman is CEO of SB-FM and a member of the IWFM EDI Focus Group.