Thinking about social mobility is a business imperative: here’s what all businesses should be doing right now
Social mobility isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a business imperative: that was the message to the business sector on 3rd July, when the South-West Social Mobility Commission and the South West Business Council hosted Social Mobility in the Workplace: Tapping into Talent and Building the Workforce of the Future. The half-day event was chaired by Sir Michael Barber, international delivery expert and Chair of the new South-West Social Mobility Commission. The event brought together business and civic leaders from across the South-West peninsula to learn about what the business sector can do to address this vital challenge.
The event called attention to the peninsula’s social mobility challenges, with Anne-Marie Sim from the South-West Social Mobility Commission presenting data from the Commission’s new report and urging all businesses to commit to doing something about these challenges. An impressive line-up of subsequent speakers then dived into what businesses could and should be doing:
Professor of Social Mobility, Lee Elliot Major shared top tips based on practices from a range of different businesses
Caroline Green imparted insights into how Browne Jacobson became the UK’s top social mobility employer
The Department for Education’s Kiera Harper urged businesses to consider offering a T-level placement
A panel of Sean Mackney, Brendan Staniforth, Suzanne Brown, Claire Taylor, Sharon Davies and Julie Hawker shared their perspectives on what and how to address the region’s skills needs whilst supporting diversity and inclusion
Exeter University Vice Chancellor, Professor Lisa Roberts and Barry Matthews from Pennon Group spoke about the power of collaboration and partnerships
Learning from young people in the region
The event had many highlights but one session in particular stood out: Jack, Bella and Zak, three young people who’d grown up and live in the region, presented their experiences of education and the challenges they’d faced in their lives. The audience were inspired by Jack, Bella and Zack’s courage and generosity in coming to share their experiences and found the accounts incredibly powerful.
Whilst this was about the individual life storied being shared, a common theme amongst the accounts was that the ‘challenges’ all three had had to deal with had been simply part of life – they weren’t things they’d conceptualised as challenges. Framing their experiences in terms of ‘challenge’ or ‘disadvantage’ had both pros and cons. For Jack, reflecting on the fact that he’d had maybe more challenges than most people in his life and had managed to overcome them was a positive and gave him a sense of confidence in himself. Bella similarly was aware that having had to overcome various complex factors including others having low expectations of her had made her achievements something she could be even more proud of. However, she critiqued the term ‘disadvantaged’ because of its negative connotations, explaining that she hated being thought of as ‘disadvantaged’. We will be discussing this crucial point around the terminology we use – including alternatives to ‘disadvantaged’ – in an upcoming blog post (watch this space).
Best practice exemplars and what all businesses should be thinking about… and doing
Lee Elliot Major, Professor of Social Mobility, University of Exeter
Lee had three take-home message for employers:
Think about how you can create more inclusive cultures, valuing talents from all backgrounds
Reassess traditional signals for selecting and promoting talent
Incorporate social mobility into your corporate identity and core values
Lee gave examples of exemplary practices from a broad range of employers from the Civil Service and Direct Line Group to McDonald’s and Timpsons, including novel recruitment practices, supportive progression pathways and provision of career guidance and support to employees from non-traditional backgrounds.
Caroline Green, Senior Partner and Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Browne Jacobson
Browne Jacobson is the number one employer in the UK according to the Social Mobility Employers Index. Yet, a few years ago they ranked 82nd. Caroline told interviewer Alice Thomson from The Times how the firm managed to go from 82nd to 5th in a single year.
Overall:
Key is taking a whole firm approach: it doesn’t need loads of money thrown at it, but it does need senior leaders to be involved
Viewing talent in ‘context’ to background, choosing potential over polish
The firm has targets but not quotas
They’ve seen benefits in the quality and motivation of their non-graduate recruits and increased diversity of thought
Recruitment:
Changed the language in their recruitment ads based on work with University of Nottingham linguistics department, which found that certain terminology was limiting applications from certain under-represented minorities
Began anonymising CVs
Removed the minimum entry requirements qualifications (2:1 degree and ABB at A-Level) to apply for entry level positions. and implemented a contextualised recruitment based on an individual’s attainment relative to average performance in their school
Partner with Smart Works, who provide work clothes for those participating in interviews and work experience programmes
Outreach:
Created FAIRE (Fairer Access Into Real Experience) – their flagship paid work experience programme for young people aimed at diversifying entry into the legal profession (generally, not just to the firm) – with over 160 staff involved in delivery. The programme guarantees 50% of participants will be from lower SES backgrounds and have no prior company connections or work experience. In its first year, 85% of the participants were in this demographic, exceeding expectations
Deliver careers events in specifically identified social mobility coldspot areas, often overlooked by other employers recruitment teams
Students hear from different role models, internal and external, with speakers from the company typically from socially disadvantaged backgrounds themselves
Demonstrate the wide range of different careers at the firm (only 50% of staff working in the firm are lawyers) – e.g. with staff talking about their job responsibilities via social media
Partnership with Forage to offer further virtual work experience
Apprenticeships:
Started solicitor apprenticeships through the school leaver route a few years ago with the first cohort completing their apprenticeships this year
Really this is just a reversal of changes over the past 30 years in which there was a shift to only accepting graduates
Kiera Harper, Director of Technical Education and Essential Skills, Department for Education
Kiera had a clear take-home message for employers in the South-West: that if there’s just one thing they consider doing today it should be to offer a T-level placement. Placements are a compulsory element of T-level courses so if employers don’t step up, schools and colleges simply cannot offer T-level places. T-levels offer students the opportunity to get some on-the-job experience as part of a qualification (with 80% of a T-level being classroom learning and 20% workplace-based), therefore sitting in between A-levels (which are 100% classroom learning) and apprenticeships (which are up to 80% on-the-job).
In particular, there’s a lack of digital placements in the region. Any company – not necessarily a business dealing in digital – can offer a digital placement if they have digital work for a placement student to do (meaning most companies!).
Kiera emphasised that employers should see placements as a staffing and recruitment opportunity: the placement isn’t just work experience – students can and should be involved in real work and workplace responsibilities, with the placement adding up to 45 days across the year. Kiera noted that savvy employers could combine a T-level placement with an apprenticeship so that the T-level student covers the one day a week when the apprentice is in classroom-based training. Two SMEs could also split a T-level placement student between them.
Panel discussion
An expert panel comprising large employers and skills providers in the region responded with their perspectives on what they’d heard so far and what their priorities were for addressing social mobility.
Some of the key points to emerge were:
Social mobility is a key part of diversity and inclusion, but employers also need to consider intersections with gender, race/ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, etc.
The language we use around disadvantage: how do we talk about disadvantage whilst avoiding negative stereotyping?
Skills are a key current business concern, but employers also need to be thinking about the future and the changing nature of work including the impact of AI
The skills the education system provides may not be the ones young people need: what skills are the ones they need now and in the future?
Sean Mackney, Principal and CEO, Petroc College talked about the need to create and/or join up different systems – for example, connecting T-levels to preceding and subsequent phases of education/employment, thinking beyond the limited number of occupational specialisms currently on offer, and joining up different skills plans.
Brendan Staniforth, Strategy Delivery Director, Babcock highlighted the skills challenge for all employers across the region, especially in the more remote areas, and the role of business in inspiring desire and belief in young people. The medium term challenge for employers is to build the skills they need; longer term it’s about re-imagining what work will look like and the skills that will be needed. Brendan offered the example of Genius Within as a means of matching neurodivergent individuals with jobs in the company that suit their talents.
Suzanne Brown, Director, LiveWest talked about working with colleges to develop courses that meet skills needs. She highlighted the company’s Women in Trade apprenticeships initiative and the inspiration provided by young people meeting with existing female staff. She also noted that a lack of affordable housing in the region presents significant barriers to social mobility.
Claire Taylor, Vice Chancellor, Marjon University emphasised the importance of transferrable skills (aka ‘soft skills’) such as teamwork and resilience, and the role of both education providers and employers in building these. Given that these aren’t typically measured or tested for, they can be overlooked and under-supported. She also noted the importance of building progression into placement experiences.
Sharon Davies, CEO, Young Enterprise drew links between the region’s low qualifications and low productivity. She urged the inclusion of more practical real-world applied learning opportunities at an earlier age – to inspire young people and particularly those who respond better to different ways of learning beyond the classroom.
Julie Hawker, Joint CEO, Cosmic emphasised the digital skills gap in the South-West as outlined in a recent House of Lords report, and underlined the urgent need for digital placements in the region. She also drew attention to the importance of mind-set as skills needs change.
Professor Lisa Roberts, Vice Chancellor, University of Exeter and Barry Matthews, Group Deputy General Counsel, Pennon and Founder, SMBP
Lisa and Barry joined interviewer Alice Thomson from The Times to give a university and business perspective on social mobility – in particular around university-business collaboration and partnerships in outreach, work experience and course design.
Lisa explained that social justice and civic engagement are core priorities for the University, with the University having a key role to play in helping to improve economic growth and developing talent in the region. She outlined a range of initiatives currently being undertaken, including outreach work with schools across the region and partnerships with businesses and colleges. A particular success has been the degree apprenticeships programme co-created with employers, for which Exeter is the leading Russell Group provider.
Barry meanwhile explained how the Social Mobility Business Partnership (SMBP) coordinates businesses to provide work experience opportunities, enabling students to participate in a week-long work insight and skills experience programme. A range of organisations in the South-West are currently involved including Exeter University, and the model could potentially be expanded across the region.