Lloyds Banking Group has reduced diversity targets that impact annual bonus payments for senior staff and its wider employee base.
The British banking giant’s decision concerns its “group performance share” scheme – the bonus pot for its 66,000 staff members – which also makes payouts to its chief executive Charlie Nunn and CFO William Chalmers.
Payouts to the executives are linked to the bank’s performance across various metrics in a scorecard, with diversity contributing 7.5%. This scorecard also affects the overall staff bonus pool, which amounted to £368 million in 2024.
Last year, as in previous years, the diversity goal aimed to boost “gender and ethnic representation in senior roles”, defined as employees graded F or above. This year, the target is focused on increasing diversity in “executive roles”, defined as “grade X colleagues only”, according to the FTSE 100 firm’s latest annual report.
Estimates suggest there are likely to be many more employees at grade F or higher compared to grade X, although Lloyds did not disclose these figures.
It is reportedly maintaining its internal diversity goals for grades F and above, while its decision to focus bonus targets on executive roles aligns with the objectives of the government-supported FTSE Women Leaders Review.
The company denied it was weakening its diversity targets, stating it was still passionate about diversity, and that “its 2025 ambitions remain stretching”.
A Lloyds Banking Group spokesperson said: “Lloyds Banking Group is a proud leader on diversity, equity and inclusion, and in 2014 was the first FTSE100 company to establish a gender target to improve the representation of women in senior positions. Through steady progress, over 40% of senior roles were held by women at the end of 2024.
“Our dedication to diversity remains steadfast and, following more progress in building a more inclusive workforce led by senior leadership hires in 2024, we have moved to new ambitions that better align to our strategic goals and accelerate meaningful diversity in our leadership team from 2025.”
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