Levelling The Playing Field—Social Mobility In The Workplace

There's an apparent inequality of opportunity in the labour market based on where you were born and what jobs your parents did. As the Social Mobility Commission says, “the ‘rules of the game’ can be stacked against people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.”

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “Social mobility refers to how a person's socio-economic situation improves or declines relative to that of their parents or throughout their lifetime. It can be measured in terms of earnings, income, social class, and well-being dimensions such as health and education. Promoting social mobility benefits individuals, the economy, and social cohesion.”

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said those growing up in the north of England and the Midlands, as well as those from a minority ethnic background, find it a lot harder than others to become wealthier than their parents.

Education, economic conditions, workplace culture, discrimination, social networks, government policies, and other factors influence social mobility in the workplace.

These aspects together effect an individual’s ability to start or advance in their career and improve their socioeconomic status within an organisation or industry.

Businesses with firm environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals are looking at how they can promote diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of their social agenda. However, many businesses struggle to define social mobility as a diversity class and ultimately determine how to engage with it.

Research demonstrates that diverse companies can outperform because they recruit from the widest pool of talent and, in doing so, improve customer approval, employee satisfaction, and decision-making, all of which lead to improved performance.

Improving social mobility is a massive and complex endeavour. There’s a role for families & communities, education & training, and social and government policy. However, business can play its part.

Steps for businesses to take to improve social mobility include the following:

Get to know your workforce to help craft an effective strategy. Tracking ethnicity and gender for ESG is commonplace; socio-economic backgrounds are often forgotten about. Collect data about your current workforce to understand how many employees are from disadvantaged backgrounds and how they’re progressing through the company. Knowing this information will help you identify which areas are working and which need improving.

Engage with local schools through school visits, career talks, offering work experience placements, or providing mentorship opportunities. Barriers that prevent people from low socio-economic backgrounds from succeeding start before they’ve started their careers. Reaching young people before they enter the workforce can have a lasting impact on their future by expanding their awareness of industries, roles, and opportunities for which they may not be aware.



Recruitment methods often exclude people from less advantaged backgrounds who are more likely to lack relevant contacts, information, and qualifications. Widely advertise vacancies rather than just recruiting from personal networks. Arrange a diverse interview panel so applicants can see someone who looks like them. Avoid discriminating against those from lower-socioeconomic backgrounds and offer paid internships so that those without financial means are able to get a foot in the door.

Develop your own workers with training and development opportunities and focus on reaching out to the wider community to offer training opportunities. This could be done in collaboration with educational institutions, charities, and local industries.

The senior management team set the mood for the whole business. Give responsibility to a senior leader to champion the importance of social mobility within the business. Their responsibility should include identifying biases or exclusionary recruitment practices, identifying barriers that may be holding certain employees back, and providing support to team members from all backgrounds to reach their full potential.

Ian Garner

Ian Garner is a retired Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI) and the Institute of Directors (FIoD).

Ian is a board member of Maggie’s Yorkshire. Maggie’s provides emotional and practical cancer support and information in centres across the UK and online, with their centre in Leeds based at St James’s Hospital.

He is the founder and director of Practical Solutions Management, a strategic consulting practice, and is skilled in developing strategy and providing strategic direction, specialising in business growth and leadership.