The importance of Social Mobility and why employers need to act now

Social mobility is not a new issue, but it is certainly one that continues to gain momentum in the wake of Covid-19 and the current cost-of-living crisis, both of which have only served to widen the gap between social classes.

With the focus on social mobility not going anywhere anytime soon, employers need to start taking steps now to drive social mobility in their own organisation.

At AMS we have been working with our customers in the public sector for some time on a DEI and Social Mobility programme and establishing diverse routes to talent in the recruitment of contingent workers, as well as continuing to look at what adjustments we can make in the hiring process to ensure it is more inclusive.

More recently we have conducted our first DE&I survey for the contingent workforce across the Public Sector Resourcing framework that includes questions related to social mobility. We hope to understand the demographic of the workforce giving us a “data” starting point which feeds our wider Social Value roadmap.  

This article by Dr Anne Sammon highlights some great points around how organisations can have a real impact in addressing social mobility - with insight into how to improve the hiring process, and considerations for training and the promotion process.

I was particularly interested to read that several companies, in addition to reporting on the Gender, Ethnicity and Disability pay gap, are also looking at reporting the Class pay gaps. This is a great way to drive targets and improve representation of individuals from a lower socio-economic background in senior leadership roles.