Embracing diversity and inclusion

Few other companies are as diverse as BAT and diversity is a key element of our ethos.

We have very diverse customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. We need a diverse workforce to meet their needs.

Across our Group there are 138 different nationalities represented at management level. We value this kind of diversity because it encourages innovation, creativity and different ways of thinking. It creates a fascinating place to work, with opportunities to collaborate with a wide range of people from various countries, cultures and with different perspectives.

We are proud to be a diverse global organisation that encourages our people to value their differences. We think of diversity in its widest sense, as those attributes that make each of us unique.

We are committed to increasing the proportion of women in senior leadership teams to 40% and in management roles to 45% by 2025.

In 2022, we achieved some impressive results which reflect the great progress we have made:

•  41% of women in management roles and 30% on senior leadership teams;
•  Over 57% of our graduate intake and 47% of our external management level recruits were women; and close to 20% of our management level women employees were promoted, compared to 16% of male management level employees.
   

Three strategic pillars underpin our D&I strategy: driving ownership and accountability; building diverse talent pipelines; and creating enablers. They are proving to be highly effective in empowering us all along our journey.

We continue to receive notable external recognition for our D&I efforts. These recognitions are a tribute and celebration of the innovations we’re making to our working environment and the ways we continue to build an engaging, diverse, and inclusive culture.

Read more about some of the diversity initiatives that help us stand out from the rest.

As well as striving for gender balance, our D&I strategy focuses on diversity of nationalities and ethnicities across our organisation. Our target is to achieve at least a 50% spread of distinct nationalities in all our regional and functional leadership teams to better mirror our consumer base. In 2022, this was achieved for 100% of our leadership teams.

In 2022, we asked all our UK employees to voluntarily self-declare their ethnicity, with 80% choosing to do so. This provides us with a fuller picture of the diversity of our employees, so we can ensure we are focusing our efforts in the right area and increasing transparency. As part of this, we have published ethnicity pay gap data for UK employees in our Diversity and Inclusion Report.

You can view data on the proportion of women in senior management in our ESG Performance Data Book.

In 2021, we became the first in our industry to achieve accreditation with the Global Equality Standard and UK National Equality Standards. In December 2023, we have achieved the Disability Confident Leader (Level 3) status, an important recognition by a major UK government-backed accreditation scheme, for the way we attract, develop and support people with disabilities and long-term health conditions. We have proudly progressed since earning the Disability Confident Employer (Level 2) status in May 2022, building on our success in becoming Disability Confident Committed (Level 1) two years prior.

Our employees come from many cultures and backgrounds, and our business benefits from the breadth of ideas and experiences they bring.