Networks

The network theme includes two types of networking discussed by interviewees. Firstly, both groups discussed the importance of informal networking, particularly its role in the promotion system. However, their reactions to networking behaviour were different: whilst minority-ethnic interviewees reported difficulty accessing informal networks and were concerned with the fairness of informal processes, majority- ethnic interviewees emphasised the role of actively promoting themselves and engaging in the informal nature of the organisation. Secondly, minority-ethnic (but not majority-ethnic) interviewees reported participating in a formal network, which related to the organisation’s minority-ethnic support forum, as a means of overcoming some of the difficulties associated with informal networks.

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Informal Networks

Interviewees from both groups identified that informal networks were important for career success, particularly in informal promotion situations. They reported that hiring-managers would promote or select individuals without going through a centralised assessment centre, and whilst these procedures were often formal (e.g. interview boards), successful candidates were often those who already knew the hiring manager and were lined up for the role. There was also a system where individuals could be temporarily promoted without going through formal procedures, which most interviewees considered as important for gaining permanent promotion at a later date. Several interviewees from both groups reported that those who were rewarded with temporary promotion were usually those who were well networked and had contact with senior decision makers. Not being within those informal networks was also perceived as a significant barrier to career success:

“I know a number of people who are trying to move on and the number of jobs that aren’t advertised. You find someone who’s new in a role and that job hasn’t been advertised. My head of unit, since he arrived he’s kind of pulled the unit and the unit is now comprised of people who he’s worked with before and he likes and he has recruited into those jobs because he likes them and not because that job has actually been advertised. So networks are really, really important.”

[Participant 37, Majority-Ethnic, Female]

“You are in the right place at the right time; obviously I have never been in the right place at the right time to be promoted. Some of it is probably knowing people and they know you and a job comes up and they say ‘oh you are the man for it’. But the system is based on the formal and the informal. If you know people who are good and you trust them, then you are likely to work with them, if you don’t, you are in the great unknown and it’s too hard”.

[Participant 6: Minority-Ethnic, Male]

There were differences in how the minority- and majority-ethnic interviewees regarded these informal systems. Minority-ethnic interviewees reported informal processes as unfair. The next quote is from an interviewee who described how her line manager had ignored her interest in an opportunity for temporary promotion and offered it to someone else in the team:

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“I think within [the organisation], there hasn’t been open and fair recruitment because to be honest with you, I actually got tha t fed up that I resigned from [the organisation] , on the basis that there was an opportunity for promotion, temporary promotion”

“It had been fixed basically for somebody else to get the job, so it wasn’t open and fair recruitment”

[Participant 12, Minority-Ethnic, Female]

Many of the minority-ethnic interviewees attributed this difficulty in accessing informal networks to their ethnicity:

“it’s a very incestuous place. It’s who you know, who you are friends with, who you drink with that gets you promoted, I saw a lot of that. And as an Asian woman I never went to pubs, so I was always excluded. I was never there with the pub banter so it was like, they had all been out, I didn’t go out with them, so I was never really part of the gang”

[Participant 16: Minority-Ethnic, Female]

“I think you do get gangs of people who work together and some senior person moves on and brings three or four of their friends along with. This kind of thing does happen, it happens everywhere. So yes I think it is quite clique-ey. The criteria seems to be that you have to behave in a certain way and people think you have to fit the mould and it’s almost as though, if you don’t fit the mould of behaving in a certain way, confidently, with a few jokes and quips here and there and networking efficiently then you have problems. And I think that can be harder for people if you are from a different ethnic background”

[Participant 5: Minority-Ethnic, Male]

Of particular note however, was that not only did minority-ethnic interviewees report having difficulty accessing informal networks, many also reported a strong faith in the formal systems of the organisation, such as assessment centres and competency- based assessment. Several also considered informal networking as unfair and a form of behaviour that they did not want to engage in:

“Ability to drink is not one of their competencies, and yet that’s what the favourites in my current unit are seen to be doing most, there is a real clique in my unit at the moment. The favourites are the people that are schmoozing with the head of unit. I don’t want to be involved in it.”

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In comparison, majority-ethnic interviewees were more ambivalent towards informal networks and how they influenced the promotion system. Many regarded networking as a normal feature of organisational life; even when they reported their career success had been held back by informal networks. They typically saw it as their responsibility to enhance their personal networks and used self-promotion to enhance their networks and chances of successful promotion. Examples of this included asking contacts to recommend them to hiring managers, and contacting the hiring department to increase managers’ awareness of them:

“I’ve gone for jobs and felt the interview was biased in the sense that they already knew who they wanted, and that’s the kind of worst position to be in, because you think “why did you bother interviewing me”. But it’s about how wellyou promote yourself beforehand.”

[Participant 35: Majority-Ethnic, Male]

“the posts were advertised, and these were sought-after posts, you know, crème de la crème and I kept on bombarding the guy who was advertising with emails, and phone calls and I knew of him before, from a previous job, so it was like trying to use our personal relationship to try and get this job.”

[Participant 32: Majority-Ethnic, Female] “I got [the promotion] through again, just knowing. I ended up going with the [manager] but when I knew I was coming up to a move, coming up to the end of 2007 I just let people know that, “look, I’m going to be looking for a job have you got anything for me?””

[Participant 21: Majority-Ethnic, Male]

Whilst self-promotion was not mentioned by minority-ethnic managers for their own careers, several did discuss others’ use of this tactic for career success. As with informal networking behaviour, these minority-ethnic interviewees expressed their dissatisfaction with others’ self-promotion tactics:

“He got a job, by getting a friend of his to ring the line manager and say what a good egg he was, and I just felt that that was wrong”

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F ormal Networks

Within the minority-ethnic template there was also a second level-two code related to the formal support network, which was created and sponsored by the organisation. Although there were similar support networks for majority-ethnic employees, these were not discussed by majority-ethnic interviewees. The minority-ethnic interviewees who had joined this forum reported it was a good source of peer support and provided them with opportunities to learn from minority-ethnic role models. It was also used for gaining skills through training and listening to influential speakers and as a method for raising diversity concerns as a united front to senior management. However, several minority-ethnic managers who were active members in this support forum reported receiving a negative backlash for their membership activity from colleagues and the wider organisation:

“I had been tarred, I had been marked for raising those issues, but the one thing I had believed in was exactly as I say, was [the support forum]. I sometimes felt like I had kind of like risked my career at the cost of trying to show people what it was like to be a BME person”

[Participant 16: Minority-Ethnic, Female]

Accordingly, some minority-ethnic interviewees were concerned about others’ perception of their participation in such groups. Nevertheless, the support forum was perceived as important for career success and a key way for overcoming some of the difficulties interviewees associated with the informal nature of the organisation. Importantly, those who discussed the support forum considered it a legitimate, or as can be seen from the quote below, a ‘professional’ form of networking and did not report associating networking within the group with the negative connotations they had of informal networking behaviours:

“In the [support forum], I was taught how to chair meetings, how to network with people, how to speak to senior management, how to socialise in a professional way, whereas in [my department], I wasn’t heard, I wasn’t developed, I wasn’t talked to, and I was looked down at”

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