Equality, diversity and inclusion
We want to create a workplace where all colleagues feel championed and supported regardless of their background or identity.
By truly embracing our colleagues’ diverse perspectives we can deepen our understanding of our customers and stakeholders, enhance innovation and creative thinking and continue to drive the business forward and achieve success.
Historically, the housebuilding sector has attracted fewer women and people from ethnic minorities. This is changing but more work is needed before our business and sector is fully reflective of the UK’s diversity.
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21st Century Leadership
Line managers are equipped to develop a more diverse and inclusive culture.
Employer of Choice
Our working environment and culture, polices, development and progression opportunities support greater equality, diversity, and inclusivity.
Expanding our Reach
Expanding our recruitment
channels and embracing the diversity of our customers and colleagues.
Our ED&I Committee oversees implementation of our strategy and is chaired by our Group HR Director, who is a member of our GMT. Each regional business has an ED&I Champion and an ED&I Action Plan. We have set quantitative aspirational targets to help drive progress and accountability.
We are fully committed to equality of opportunity in all our employment practices and have a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination or harassment of any kind including on the grounds of age, disability, gender, gender reassignment, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
We publish our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy online. This is supported by more detailed policies in areas such as Maternity and Adoption Leave, and Menopause. We have set quantitative aspirational targets to help drive progress and accountability across our business.
We published our second Diversity and Inclusion Report in early 2024.
Embedding our diversity commitments
Learning interventions help us to embed our diversity commitments. In 2023 this included:
E-learning: We are rolling out our Diversity and Inclusion e-learning to all employees to increase awareness of our ED&I strategy, policies and expected standards of behaviour. By the end of 2023, 76% of employees had completed the module which is now integrated into our onboarding process. We will also be launching additional e-learning for line managers reflecting the important role they play in creating an inclusive culture. This covers topics such as embracing and respecting differences, bias, stereotypes, microaggressions and prejudice in actions, psychological safety and belonging, privilege and allyship. We expect all line managers to have completed the training by mid 2024.
Respectful workplace: This culture change and training programme aims to ensure that all our operations are inclusive and welcoming places with zero-tolerance for bullying, harassment, inappropriate comments and behaviours. Management teams in 17 of our regional businesses have participated so far. This includes visual signage and information for use around sites, respectful workplace training for all employees, an updated site induction and enhanced site facilities. Participants each make a commitment to take responsibility for inclusion.
Reverse mentoring: We run reverse mentoring which partners colleagues who are black, Asian or from another ethnic minority with members of our senior leadership team. The programme aims to raise awareness among senior management of how the policies, processes, customs, and practices of our business can impact those from a minority background, whilst providing employees from under-represented groups with access to the insights and experiences of senior leaders.
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What our employees say
We track employee perceptions on our diversity approach through regular surveys. Our most recent survey showed that:
- 96% of employees agree that they see employees from all cultures and backgrounds being valued and respected by others
- 95% agree that they have equal opportunities to progress regardless of gender, ethnic origin, disabilities, religion or sexual orientation
- 91% agree that the Taylor Wimpey culture has become more inclusive over the last 12 months
Inclusive recruitment and retention
Returning to work
Our Maternity and Adoption Leave Policy includes a guaranteed four-week phased return to work after maternity and adoption leave, paid at a full-time rate. Our employees are offered coaching before, during and after parental leave to help ensure a smooth process and return to work. This is one-to-one for directors and offered in groups for other colleagues.
Inclusive recruitment hiring practices
To reach a diverse range of candidates we work with organisations such as Vercida a diverse jobs board, workingmums.co.uk, Sponsors for Educational Opportunity London and Black Professionals in Construction we are working with University Outreach to develop a more ethnically diverse pipeline of future talent.
We provide diversity training for hiring managers and review our job adverts, careers site and candidate communication to ensure they are inclusive. We track candidate ethnicity, gender and age.
We have also launched our career convertors programme for people leaving the armed forces and a new schools outreach programme targeting schools with a diverse student base. Read more in Skills and development.
Engaging our people on inclusion
Throughout the year we engage employees and leaders on the importance of diversity. This includes:
We partner with expert organisations to help us make progress. Our partners include:
- Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion (ENEI) which supports our Race & Ethnicity Network
- WorkLife Central which provides our employees with access to digital resources on inclusion, wellbeing and careers
- Stonewall, the UK’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organisation. We are a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions Programme since 2021.
- Henpicked which is helping us to provide a menopause friendly environment
- Tall Wall which provides specialist coaching to working parents among our workforce
Our GMT was 33% women (2022: 38%) and we also had 44% women on our Board of Directors (2022: 44%). The figure for GMT members and their direct reports was 28% (2022: 21%).
5.7% of our employees were from a minority ethnic background (2022: 5%). In regional business management roles the figure was 3.7% (2022: 2.5%).
62% of graduates were women and 17% were from a minority ethnic background. In our other early entry talent programmes the figures are 15% and 7%.
2% of employees identified as LGBTQ+ (2022: 1.5%). This data relies on self-declaration by employees and 65% of employees now report their sexuality (2022: 64%).
Gender pay gap
Our latest data shows that our mean gender pay gap was 6% in favour of men (2022: 2% in favour of women) and median pay gap 2% in favour of men (2022: 1% in favour of men).
The shift in our pay gap this year reflects a number of factors, including a reduction in the overall size of our workforce, more highly paid women than men leaving the business, and a reduction in commission due to market conditions which affects our sales function, which is 83% women.
We will continue to focus on our programmes to increase female representation across different functions and levels of the business which will reduce the pay gap over time.
More analysis of our pay gap is included in our Diversity and Inclusion Report.
