Black high­flyers are still hitting glass ceiling

Black high­flyers are still hitting glass ceiling

By Maxine Myers (Source: The Voice)

THE GLASS ceiling is still pre­venting black managers from.stepping up into executive jobs despite a range of Government diversity initiatives over the last few.years, new research says.

Boardrooms across the public and private sectors remain white, says a report, Race to the Top, by the charity Business in the Community (BITC).

The organisation analysed data between 2000 and 2007 and concluded that management prospects are dispropor­tionately bleak for black people, nd likely to worsen over the ext decade unless action is taken.

Sandra Kerr, National Director for the BITC’s Race for Opportunity campaign, called the findings "devastating': "There is definitely a need to put this at the heart of the agenda for Government and business," she said.

                                         

The report also states that since 2000 a number of Government-led legal measures and race quality initiatives designed to increase top-level opportunities for black man­agers have had minimal impact. Kerr said that now was a time for solutions.

“Chief executives need to walk into their boardroom, take a look around and ask themselves 'does this represent in anyway, shape or form what I see around me when I walk around street every day?”

They need to do something about it"