Social Mobility Awareness Day

This Thursday is Social Mobility Awareness Day, and social media will no doubt be awash with posts from employers about all the great things that they’re doing to improve social mobility within their workplaces. It can be easy to be slightly cynical about awareness days – we should all be working to make real and lasting change all the time, not just one day a year – but I think that they can provide useful nudges to reflect on what we’re already doing, to check the progress that we’ve made over the past year to ensure that we keep moving forward, and crucially, to inform our ambitions for the future.

One of the possible downsides of awareness days, though, is that it can give the misleading impression that the vast majority of businesses are committed to making their workplaces diverse. Unfortunately, that simply isn’t the case. Lloyd’s Register has been working with Business in the Community on a new research project to identify what actions have the biggest impact on improving access to good work for jobseekers from low socioeconomic backgrounds facing compounding barriers, such as age, race and disability. As part of that research, we surveyed UK businesses to find out what actions they were already taking, and nearly half (47%)[i] said that they weren’t making any efforts at all to attract diverse talent. Among those businesses that were investing in an inclusive workforce, the biggest priorities were Race (32%), Young People (28%) and Gender (26%). Social mobility was far lower down the list of priorities, with just 16% of employers collecting recruitment data on socioeconomic background.

Yet the characteristics that we know create barriers to work are overrepresented in lower socioeconomic groups:

·?????? People in Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and other ethnically diverse households are more likely to be in persistent low income than people in White households.[ii]

·?????? Nearly half of everyone in poverty is either disabled or lives with a disabled person.[iii]

·?????? Nearly half of children in single parent families live in relative poverty and around nine in ten single parents are women.[iv]

As such, efforts to improve access to work for ethnically diverse jobseekers, disabled people and women risk leaving behind a significant proportion of the target group if they don’t also address the very specific barriers facing people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

At Lloyds Register, we believe in fostering a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace. Our commitment to these values drives us to support initiatives that empower individuals from all walks of life to access meaningful employment opportunities which is why we were so delighted to work with Business in the Community on this groundbreaking research project which combines qualitative and quantitative data from individuals and employers to make evidence-based recommendations for business action to make the biggest difference to jobseekers from low socioeconomic backgrounds who face intersectional disadvantages.

We encourage businesses to embrace these recommendations, not just as a moral imperative, but as a strategic advantage. By promoting social mobility and addressing intersectional disadvantages, businesses can tap into a wider talent pool, foster innovation, and create a more inclusive workplace culture.

We are committed to leading by example and supporting our partners in these efforts. Together, we can create a more equitable future for all.

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[i] YouGov 2024, commissioned by BITC. Total sample size was 650 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 18th March – 10th April 2024. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of those in senior management positions in HR or recruitment by business size, sector and UK region (aged 18+).

[ii] Gov.uk, 2023

[iii]Disability Rights UK, 2020

[iv] Gingerbread, 2023