Wireline Issue 45 - Summer 2019

BP is deeply committed to creating an environment where diversity and inclusion are valued, celebrated and integrated within its business strategy – and it’s working. Around a third of BP's North Sea employees are actively engaged in one or more BRGs. It was also the first company in the North Sea to support Grampian Pride. In the US the company has introduced recruitment, development, advancement and inclusion programmes to achieve specific ethnic minority recruitment goals. BP’s gender balance is also steadily improving, with women representing 34% of BP’s global population in 2018, up from 32% in 2015. This kind of work never stops but what BP has achieved so far deserved recognition. One step organisations can take to hold themselves more accountable andbemore attractive towomen is by being transparent with their employee pay scales. Both BP and Spirit have made their gender pay gap figures public and are actively addressing this discrepancy. Ultimately, the ‘argument’ for diversity and inclusivity in the workplace is not up for debate. “There’s no competition in this for the industry, we’ve all got to do it because we have got to attract people to work in our industry and if we don’t do that, we fail,” Grayson states. It is equally important for executives and leaders to display their commitment making diversity and inclusivity a priority. “Leadership need to be visible and ‘walk the walk, talk the talk’. You need to be authentic, immersed and engaged in the issue.”

For International women’s Day 2019, the company’s EVP technical & operated production Neil McCulloch, pennedanarticleforEnergyVoiceonthevalueofgender equality for businesses and how efforts to achieve gender balance are not an attack on men. “Viewing gender imbalance as a women’s issue and leaving it to women alone to ‘fix’, means that any failures will rest at the feet of women instead of being identified as systemic deficiencies. The fact is that in most businesses both the human and financial resources are controlled by men,” McCulloch wrote. In 2016, OGUK introduced a new award category for ‘Diversity and Inclusiveness’ at its annual industry awards. The award, last year sponsored by Spirit Energy, ‘recognises a company that drives improved business results through recognising and promoting the value of diverse teams and inclusive behaviours.’ The most recent winner of this award was BP, whose efforts in this area have been extensive and led to real improvements in its workforce. At the heart of this effort are its Business Resource Groups (BRGs), employee-led business groups that raise awareness, educate employees and initiate policy changes on everything fromethnicity, gender and sexual orientation to more flexible ways of working. Crucially, each network has an executive sponsor to help them grow and line managers support staff who want to get involved in a BRG alongside their day job.

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