“I’ve never had sushi”: 23 ways to drive social mobility

Words / Matthew Rock, James Sutton & CMI members

People from so-called “lower socio-economic backgrounds” shouldn’t have to rely on tenacity and determination to get ahead. Here are the active steps their managers and employers should be taking to support them

Even in 2022, your background can still influence your chances of success in life. It’s not always a question of the obstacles you have to overcome; it’s sometimes about fighting the self-doubt and feelings of unworthiness.

Gemma Donnelly had a lot going for her growing up. She came from a loving family. Her mum and dad – “one of 15 in a massive Irish Catholic family” – supported her in everything she wanted to do. Gemma was clever, did well at school and went on to become one of the first people in her family to go to university.

But money was always tight growing up. Things that many people take for granted – such as going on school trips – required a bit of financial sacrifice for her family. And she wasn’t exactly surrounded by ambition. “At school, we were told you could be a teacher or a police officer; no-one wanted to be a doctor because no-one’s parents were doctors.”

Gemma Donnelly

Mike Pinches

After university, Gemma worked in a pub and as a teaching assistant, but she was keen to push on. When she spotted a Home Office job advert in her local paper in Sheffield, she applied for a role as admin assistant, even though it was the lowest rung in the Civil Service and she had a good university degree. “A lot of it stems from a lack of confidence and not really feeling as if I was worthy,” she reflects.

Today, 15 years in, 38-year-old Gemma is a Level 6 civil servant, a programme delivery lead at the Education and Skills Funding Agency. And she’s a passionate and prominent advocate for social mobility. “I don’t want kids not to realise what’s out there and not fulfil their potential because they haven’t had their eyes opened.” She gives talks in schools and mentors five people across the Civil Service.

Having her own mentor was a turning point for Gemma. When she applied to do a Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship, she had to find a mentor. She landed on Alison, a deputy director in her department. The two women didn’t know each other beforehand but ever since they’ve been meeting once a week for an informal check-in. “Hands down, it’s been the thing that’s helped accelerate my career.”

Perhaps more than anything, the relationship has helped Gemma realise that it’s OK not to know stuff. “If you’re from a lower socio-economic background, you’re constantly asking yourself, should I know this? You don’t want to come across as stupid.” She says this applies to a lot of experiences, even trivial ones. “Not everyone has had sushi before. If you’re from a lower socio-economic background, you may not know what to order.”

Here are lots more ways you can support your team members and new recruits from lower socio-economic backgrounds. All these ideas are drawn directly from a recent Manager’s Voice poll of CMI members. We’d like to thank everyone who shared their views.

RECRUITMENT

1. Give attitude the same weighting as you would experience and qualifications. “We clearly state on our ‘person specification’ that experience is as valued as qualifications,” says one respondent.

2. Use clear inclusivity messaging throughout your recruitment process. Then make sure you continue to use this in company updates and reporting.

3. Consider starting a nongraduate scheme which leads to apprenticeship training. This respondent’s comment brings this point home powerfully: “Routinely asking for a degree during recruitment, although often appropriate for the role, limits opportunities for those like myself from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who were unable to go to university due to social circumstances and who now find themselves unable to do a degree due to work commitments.”

4. Treat apprenticeships and paid internships with as much respect as graduate schemes and conventional hires. One respondent said that “the biggest difference would be to offer apprenticeships at a foundation degree level and a commitment to provide the work experience to fulfil this training.” Another said that their organisation’s Apprenticeship Levy is used to support another company in the sector to take on an apprentice.

5. Build links with local schools and colleges, particularly in areas with lots of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. This will help you identify talented people who may lack the connections/formal qualifications to progress. More organisations do seem to be thinking this way: “Apprenticeships and connections with local universities will become part of the next stage of recruitment,” said one poll respondent.

6. Get some socio-economic diversity in your interview panels. This would help to reduce the risk of people simply hiring in their own image, and it should be a familiar idea from other aspects of EDI-friendly recruitment. It helps for all roles to have clearly defined lists of the skills/ experiences required, so that there’s less room for bias in the interview process.

7. Try blind CVs. As one respondent put it: “While policies are in place to improve recruitment from lower socio-economic backgrounds, bias still exists in the process. The only way to remove it is to not provide hiring managers with all the information about a candidate’s background and to base the process on job-related skills only.” One organisation we heard about actively encourages applications from anyone who identifies as being part of a disadvantaged group. “This benefits our organisation because it keeps our minds open to talent and skills that might not come through the usual routes.”

8. Think about specific challenges that some people will face. Don’t assume that candidates can afford to travel across the country to get to an interview and then claim for it. If you routinely hold interviews in London, you might automatically be selfselecting people from wealthier backgrounds. These are the sort of assumptions that cumulatively count against people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

CULTURE

9. Start by making the point that we need to consider socio-economic background. Lots of senior managers won’t even have thought of it.

10. Talk about socio-economic background alongside your existing work on race, gender etc. Talking about the struggles of “white, working-class men” can sometimes feel like it’s intended as a counterpoint to a “woke” agenda, but it’s important to acknowledge that it’s a legitimate area of focus in its own right. One respondent says: “Our managers specifically support and promote the inclusion of those from lower socio-economic backgrounds – it’s just part of our language and anti-discrimination practice.”

11. Encourage managers to challenge behaviours which don’t fit the organisation’s values or which may harm an individual. One example might be people who comment on others’ accents in a derogatory way.

DATA

12. Start collecting data about people’s backgrounds from the outset, in order to give you a better picture of progression trends over time. Then track it. In one respondent’s organisation, annual data monitoring includes socio-economic status, which is reported to the board and an equality subgroup.

13. Make sure you actually do something with the data that you collect. It needs to lead to follow-up work, ideally by setting measurable goals.

14. Interrogate what people really mean when they selfreport their socio-economic background. Including questions about their parents’ occupations and their highest level of educational attainment in the data collection process would help to identify where people are calling themselves workingclass when they’re actually comfortably middle-class.

COACHING & MENTORING

15. Put a future leaders programme in place, with training for progression. Start with a good, solid employee evaluation process and build out from there.

16. Consider establishing social mobility networks. This might involve groups for people at the same level (to share their experiences), and groups which cut across different levels to give senior staff a sense of the obstacles that “first-generation professionals” face (see our feature in this edition on the rise of this term). One word of caution: make sure you act on any issues or grievances raised by such networks. A lack of action will suggest a lack of genuine commitment.

17. Use coaching and mentoring to encourage people from lower socio-economic backgrounds to aspire to greater career progression. Gemma Donnelly from the Education and Skills Funding Agency says: “A lot with people I manage say, ‘I earn more than my parents so I can stop now’.” Encourage them to be ambitious. When setting up mentoring schemes, pay specific attention to how you pair up mentors and mentees – think about the skills of the mentor and the interests of the mentee.

18. Use personal development plans to support people and identify any weaknesses or training needs. One respondent said: “Each role should have a development/skills plan for progression to their next, more senior role, with the organisation providing the necessary training or supporting individuals to acquire skills. Each individual should have a development plan that is actively managed by their manager, and not left up to the individual.”

TARGETED SUPPORT

19. Think carefully about what you’re asking of people. Some people may not be able to pay upfront for their own travel to work events, for example. Have financial support schemes in place to cover the cost, make sure people know about them, and make sure they feel comfortable enough to say when they need to use those schemes.

20. Consider the intersections with other EDI characteristics. For example, women from lower socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to have caring responsibilities. What can the organisation do to support them? Offer flexible working to support people with childcare needs. Similarly, consider whether those individuals who are more likely to come from disadvantaged backgrounds (eg, veterans, care leavers and ex-offenders) need dedicated support. And might these groups benefit from dedicated recruitment schemes?

LEADERSHIP ROLE MODELS

21. Could your leaders tell their own personal story? One CMI member in our poll explained how the socio-economic background of his company’s owner plays an important role. “He has achieved success and has developed a premium client base despite not having a university education or coming from a wealthy background.”

22. Leaders themselves need training to understand the issues around socio-economic background. At one poll respondent’s organisation, senior leaders undergo inclusive leadership training programmes in subjects such as white allyship. Others talk about inviting notable speakers to talk about race, disability and equality issues. “The challenge is the bias still held by many senior managers to select people from higher socio-economic backgrounds. The perception is still very much that they will be better candidates.”

23. Finally, just don’t overlook this topic. With so many other diversity and inclusion priorities to think about, socio-economic background tends to be one that gets forgotten. Try to provide managers with a simple toolkit to allow them to focus on this and set clear objectives.

Need a helping hand? To make sure everyone has the chance to reach their full potential, CMI is offering 75 people a yearly bursary of £1,000 for up to three years to invest in management and leadership training. Visit www.managers.org.uk/campaigns/bursary to find out more