Posted 25 Jun 2024
We first surveyed our team on their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) data back in 2022, in the interest of living our values - particularly Know Your Stuff and Do it Right. We wanted to know more about our team’s demographics so we could understand what was working and where we had room for improvement.
Since then, our team has grown significantly, with our headcount more than doubling from 41 to 83. So, we circulated a short survey for our team to complete; we asked our team to share responses to questions around their gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race & ethnicity, nationality, caring status and socio-economic background. We also added in questions around age, neurodiversity and physical disability, based on feedback from the team, following our last survey.
We received an 86% response rate, so we’re confident that the data we gathered is an accurate reflection of our team demographics.
We’ve compared our findings to data for the UK and Italy in some instances, as 92% of our team are based in the UK and 8% of our team are based in Italy.
Gender
With only 1 in 3 employees in our team identifying as women, we still have some work to do in making sure Field is truly representative of the global workforce. Looking specifically at the Renewable Energy sector, which employs ~32% women and ~22% in the Energy sector overall, our team seems to be largely representative of this. The same is also true for the Tech industry, with women accounting for ~26% of the workforce.
Our gender split has become slightly more imbalanced from a year ago, so we have some more work to do here.
Some of the actions we’ve already taken as a business to try and diversify here include:
- Every job advert is run through a gender decoder to remove any gendered language and ensures attraction is as unbiased as possible
- We actively monitor our EDI data in the hiring process, including quarterly performance reports shared with our Senior Leadership Team, so we can quickly identify emerging trends and take action in response
- We publish salary bands on every job advert for full pay transparency
- Our gender pay gap data is reported internally to make sure we're spotting trends early and taking steps to mitigate gaps, before we reach the size of needing to formally report
Age
We added in age as a category this time around, after feedback from the team following our previous survey. We’ve got quite a young team here at Field, with almost 86% of us aged under 40. This makes sense, given we’re working in an emerging industry.
Like most businesses these days, we have embraced an inclusive culture through hybrid working and high flexibility. We actively encourage our team members to find the right balance for them between office and home working, which we know aligns with a younger workforce’s expectations.
Gender Expression & Identity
We asked our team if their gender identity is the same as their assigned gender at birth, almost 99% of Fielders responded ‘yes’ and the remaining responses preferred not to share.
Given that only 0.5% of the UK population, and 1% of the global population is estimated to be transgender, it’s not surprising that this group isn’t currently represented in our small team.
Sexual Orientation
Just over 10% of our team identified as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community,
Currently just over 6% of the London population and 9% of adults globally identify as LGBTQIA+, so it’s good to see that our team is broadly reflective of this.
Nationality
Our team is made up of 14 nationalities - Hungarian, Italian, German, British, Irish, French, Portuguese, Venezuelan, Nigerian, Greek, Cypriot, South African, Bulgarian and Australian.
We’re proud to have all of these cultural influences and languages within our team. One of the first company benefits we introduced is a Work From Anywhere policy, which allows all employees to work for up to 1 month per year from almost anywhere in the world. We know that our team has family and friends all around the world, so we want to encourage connectivity.
Race & Ethnicity
Just under 90% of our team are white/caucasian, which has increased from 2022 when this number was 78%. Our current team is also made up of a few other racial groups - 3% are Asian, 2% are Black, 2% are Hispanic and 2% are mixed race.
The UK population is also estimated to be 82% white/caucasian, so we have some more work to do here to make sure we’re increasing racial representation in our team.
Religion
The majority of Fielders do not identify as religious, 72% answered ‘no religion’. Of those of us that have a religious practice or faith, most are Christian, and 3% of the team chose ‘other religion’ which indicates they do not practise any of the major religions.
Caring Status
Most of the team (just over 60%) do not have any caring responsibilities, which makes sense, given our age demographics. However, 1 in 3 members of the team are balancing work with their caring responsibilities.
We’ve committed to supporting Fielder’s personal commitments from day one, and most of our company benefits are designed around what our team said they would most appreciate and need to find balance in their lives. With initiatives like our enhanced family leave policy (6 months primary carer and 3 months secondary carer leave, fully paid for all new parents) and our flexible working culture to support Fielder’s responsibilities outside of work. Most of our Senior Leadership Team are parents and regularly role model a flexible approach to work for the wider team.
Socio-economic Background
We use a recognised methodology to categorise our team based on their socio-economic background. We’re primarily made up of people from the middle classes, with only 14% of the team coming from a lower socio economic background.
We actively contribute to outreach programmes like STEM Learning, participating in activities to teach school children about STEM, with the aim to make careers more accessible for all young people. Some of our team members have volunteered at local schools for ‘Science Week’, presented during assemblies and shared information at careers fairs.
The aim here is to help create more education and ultimately employment opportunities in the long run for children from a wide range of socio economic backgrounds.
We also contribute to the apprenticeship levy, submitting a portion of our annual salary costs to fund learning opportunities for team members. The hope here is to help grow and develop career aspirations internally, which is particularly beneficial for those who are potentially discouraged from learning because of things like high university fees or other financial blockers.
Neurodiversity
This was a new topic for us this time around. We added a question to specifically ask about our team’s neurodiversity (whether medically recognised or self diagnosed) as we recognise that this is an aspect of personal identity that our team mates, and our wider culture in general, are becoming more aware of. Our survey results show that 7% of the team are self-diagnosed neurodiverse and 3% have a formal diagnosis.
Within that group, 50% have ADHD, 25% dyslexia, and 13% are autistic.
We’re striving to make our hiring process even more inclusive and accessible as possible, but we also acknowledge that there’s even more we can do here. Some of the things we’ve already done are:
- Ensuring that all interview processes are mapped directly against the requirements outlined in job adverts, so there are no surprises for candidates, and selection processes are rigorous and consistent across the board
- Prioritising practical skills assessments over interviews which focus on interpersonal/ soft skills
- Cross-team culture fit evaluations to remove bias
Our London office also has a high degree of flexibility for different working styles, whether you prefer the buzz of a communal breakout space, or if you’d rather sit in the quiet work area, the office has something for everyone. This is something that we’ll strive to replicate in our global offices as we expand and build our teams across Europe.
Conclusions
We’ll continue to survey our team periodically and publish our data internally and on our website. We’ve found that sharing our results internally has generated some interesting and useful discussions across the team about the nature of inclusion, and the role that each of us plays in creating and maintaining our company culture.
We want to lead by example in sharing this information in order to both celebrate where we’re proud of the strides we’re making, as well as openly discussing our shortcomings.
We’re working hard to make sure our attraction, retention and recognition practices are unbiased and actively work to help us build a diverse and high performing team. And we’re aware of the broader societal challenges that form the context in which we’re building our team.
It will take time to solve these problems for our industry. Which is why we’re combining the short term actions we can take to make Field a more inclusive business, with long term initiatives that will hopefully generate a more diverse talent pool in the future.
We also know that our sector is one that historically has been challenging when it comes to diversity, across the board. Because of this, it’s especially important that we maintain focus and transparency, and we also encourage others in the industry to do the same, to ensure that DEI stays at the forefront of our agendas.