Credit to KPMG – more needs to be done in the City to bring working class people in

At the City law firm where I worked as a trainee solicitor, I was once taken to one side by a senior partner and told (I was asked but it was really an order) to have “a word” with another member of my intake.

He was in the habit of wearing dark coloured shirts and the bosses did not like it. While there was no dress code, the men all wore plain white shirts or in some cases, those awful blue things with white collar and cuffs. Never, did they don the purple, navy or God forbid, black, that my fellow junior was wearing.

It also happened that he was a Scouser, from a working-class background. He was also bright, cleverer than many of the partners he was serving. Like a lemon, I did as instructed. It was embarrassing. He did change. Try as he might, and however able, he was never going to make it to partner. He later left to go elsewhere.

This memory returned after reading of KPMG’s move to insist that 29 per cent of their partners and directors by 2030 must hail from working-class backgrounds. The accounting and consulting firm defines “working class” as having parents with “routine and manual” jobs, such as plumbers, electricians, butchers and van drivers.

All their 16,000 employees will receive training on “invisible barriers” that exist for people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. KPMG says that currently 23 per cent of its 582 partners and 20 per cent of its 1,297 directors are from working-class backgrounds. Those from such backgrounds are typically paid 8.6 per cent less than those whose parents worked in “higher managerial, administrative and professional” jobs, the firm says.

For KPMG this is a case of lurching from one extreme to the other. It was only seven months ago that Bill Michael, former chair of the firm, had to resign over comments he made to KPMG staff on a Zoom call. The bluff Australian told them he viewed unconscious bias as “complete and utter crap” and said they should “stop moaning” about working conditions during the pandemic.

Now this. Michael’s successor, Bina Mehta, chair of KPMG, who comes from a working-class background herself, explains: “I’m a passionate believer that greater diversity improves business performance. Diversity brings fresh thinking and different perspectives to decision-making, which in turn delivers better outcomes for our clients.”

What’s initially depressing is that they feel the need to write the policy down and go public. Still, after Michael’s outburst, and the searing impression that KPMG is an organisation led by Neanderthals, the firm probably had to do something visible.

Disquieting, though, that they should settle on only 29 per cent. It seems arbitrary and still low. Really, all they are saying is that the partners will go up a paltry 6 per cent and the directors a not much more 9 per cent.

Nevertheless, KPMG has declared this target. In the City, where one leading institution goes, especially where something like HR practices is concerned, others will follow, so expect more of the same in the coming months.

There is a Stalinist aspect to this that sticks in the craw. No one likes publicly prescriptive quotas. It smacks of the proportions being declared at Oxbridge regarding students from state schools and the diversity percentages now being advertised virtually everywhere.

Some in the City are harumphing that they don’t inquire of an applicant’s parentage, that they have no idea whether someone is working-class. To which the retort, to borrow Michael’s choice phrase, is that they are talking complete and utter crap.

It might not be on anyone’s form to specify what their parents did, but as sure as the right way to hold a knife and fork, they know. It’s evident in conversational references to schools, to pastimes, be they golf, tennis, squash, sailing. It’s obvious in clothes, witness the pointed dig at my colleague for his shirts. And yes, table etiquette is a test.

As candidates go through the recruitment mill for some City firms they may suppose it’s jolly nice to be invited to dine with one of the chiefs. They must not be fooled: this is not a case of extending warmth and friendliness, every move they make, each minute detail, is subject to scrutiny and sheer snobbishness.

In their eyes, the firm wants someone who is one of them, “our sort”, who behaves and thinks like them, who one day can entertain clients, host boxes at Lord’s and lunches at Wimbledon, and hold court at the Chelsea Flower Show’s Gala Night.

It goes against the grain to say that from now on at KPMG, if there are two candidates and a goal to hit, and one is working-class and the other is not, the former has an in-built advantage. But then, turn it in its head: until now, the latter was the likely winner. The difference now is that KPMG is up-front.

Credit to them. Hopefully, 29 per cent will soon be overtaken. In a City riddled with hideous in-built prejudice, this is a long overdue and welcome development. More, please.