I follow discussions about diversity and inclusion with great interest. This is firstly because I think it’s pretty fundamental that everyone is treated fairly and with respect in any context, yet it’s also depressingly evident that this isn’t always the case and that many people have to contend with barriers and challenges that able-bodied white heterosexual men like me don’t have to think about and are probably still largely unaware of. Anyone in a leadership position should think about these issues and should expect to be challenged to act to promote diversity and inclusion.

What does that action look like for ACS? We have an objective that our organisation is fully representative of the sector we represent by 2025. That means that our boards, committees, events and team should be as diverse as our membership. We’re not doing this through ticking boxes related to characteristics, but we’re actively encouraging engagement and being more conscious that if we’re not representative, we’ll struggle to be an effective representative body.

We have some initiatives in place to help push us forward. Firstly, we conducted an audit of where the sector is now, and how retail colleagues feel about diversity and inclusion in their day to day lives. Some headlines from our colleague survey and other research:

• Two-thirds of store owners are men, 70% of colleagues are women, and our customer base is split evenly between men and women.
• 4% of colleagues are gay, 3% bisexual, and 2% say their sexuality matches neither of these terms nor heterosexual
• The ethnicity of store owners is fairly evenly split: 48% identify as white British, 44% as Asian or Asian British, but the vast majority of employees are white.
• 70% of colleagues say they feel their employer respects of all cultures and backgrounds, while 9% disagree with this statement.

You can take your own view of those findings and whether the sector is fully representing and supporting everyone who works in it. Personally I’m proud of just how diverse our sector is, and I’m pleased that most people feel respected although we shouldn’t congratulate ourselves too much: 9% equates to about 30,000 people not feeling their employer respects all cultures and backgrounds.

ACS is trying to promote diversity and inclusion through bringing together a really powerful and engaged employment group of HR professionals and independent retailers who can share good practice. We also have some more targeted activity. About two years ago we set up our Emerging Leaders Network to bring younger people working in the sector together. We’ve had some great meetings and we’ve found that they’re particularly effective when they focus on learning new skills from one another. We’re really keen that this isn’t a top down initiative, and that people are learning with their peers rather than being lectured by older leaders. The programme is run by our younger ACS colleagues led by Csaba Balla and Rosie Wiggins.

Then a year ago we set up the Womens Independent Retailer Network. This has already been a really successful programme, engaging more women in ACS’ work including attending events and discussing business issues from a perspective that enriches our understanding of the market. Again, it’s an initiative driven by women in the ACS team, led by Sarah C Johnson.

You will also (hopefully) notice that speaker programmes at ACS events are diverse. You’ll rarely see an all-male panel, for example, and we see our events platforms as the most literal representation of our sector.

I hope that gives you a sense of where we are as a sector and as an organisation. There’s a long way to go. I haven’t even touched on representation of disabled and neurodivergent people, although our Everyone Welcome guide is excellent in supporting colleagues and customers at a store level. We also don’t have any information or resources specifically related to trans people, and that’s important to address because they face such appalling discrimination in society and need to be shown respect when they’re working or shopping in our sector. We really want to hear from people who want to work with us to make continued progress.

We have gathered together a collection of primary and secondary research which demonstrates the diverse and inclusive nature of the sector. The slide deck is available on our Member Portal here.