Opportunity for all: How businesses can embrace social mobility for a stronger future

Emily Khan:

Welcome to the latest episode of our Business in Focus podcast. I am Emily Khan and I am your host for today. Social mobility, the opportunity for individuals to succeed based on their talent and determination rather than the circumstances of their upbringing, is in the spotlight following the impact of COVID-19. As we've discussed a number of times on this podcast, the impact of lockdown on schools, on workers, and our communities, has been an unequal experience. Our latest future of government research shows that 61% of the UK public believe that the pandemic has made social mobility more difficult. In this episode, we will discuss some of the ways that employers, educators, and government can work together, to create the pathways to allow people to succeed based on their potential, not on their background. I am delighted to be joined today in our virtual studio by Emma Cody, who led our Future of Government research on social mobility; and Armoghan Mohammed, our regional chair for the North. I know we've had a few challenges getting everyone's audio working today, but thank you both very much for joining me. Emma, I wonder if you could start by telling me a bit about why social mobility is so important to you?

Emma Cody:

Yeah absolutely, I would be happy to. For me, this is really personal. My personal journey, as you know, I came from a very large family, in a relatively deprived area, grew up in a council estate, that edged on to a relatively affluent town actually, which made life quite difficult because you could see a difference between your upbringing and the upbringing of others. I was one of those free school meal children, but I actually felt really very uncomfortable claiming the free school meal when others had their own money, so to speak to buy their own meal, as a result I was largely truant from my secondary education, which obviously, then had a knock on impact in terms of my access to opportunities as I left education. I was really very fortunate, actually, I had a lucky break in my very late teens, when I was working with a company as a temp and the partner that I was working with recognised something in me and gave me a chance to apply for my exams, on the promise that if I pass my exams, then she would sponsor me to become an associate and that's how I entered the world of PwC, where I am now. Like I said, for me, very personal because I've come through that journey. I am very passionate to make sure that I don't forget that journey.

Emily:

Thanks so much for sharing that to get us going, Emma, that really brings to life what social mobility is all about. Armoghan, do you recognise anything in what Emma has just shared there?

Armoghan Mohammed:

Yes absolutely, but before I start Emily, can I just say, thank you very much for inviting me onto this podcast, it's a pleasure to join you, and actually this is such an important topic.

Emily:

Pleasure to have you.

Armoghan:

Thank you. It's interesting, when I was growing up, so I effectively has benefited from social mobility. When I was growing up, I came here when I was about a year old from Pakistan, so I wasn't born here. A lot of the opportunities I've seen have come through some form of intervention or some form of support. I remember, people talk about social mobility now and it has a particular access connotation, but when I was growing up, we never had the word social mobility, what we called it, was opportunity. When I was growing up, it was all about where are the opportunities, where are we getting access to those. The second thing is role models, where are the role models. I have quite a really privileged role that I have in the North, as a regional chair, and I get the opportunity to speak to so many people. They all talk about the role models they've had, and actually the opportunities or the interventions that have happened to them to be successful and be their best. How we operationalise that, how we get people bought into that is really important, and I am thinking; business, government and individuals there. Emily.

Emily:

I am so glad I asked you both that question to get us going, this got us right into the heart of the topic and I can hear both of your passion for the topic. Thank you for sharing your personal experiences and areas of interest within the topic of social mobility. I mentioned in my introduction there our new Future of Government research and I am really keen that we get into some of the details of that. Emma, I use that stark statistic that 6 in 10 people feel that the pandemic has made social mobility more difficult, and that's quite a bleak place to start the conversation, but perhaps you can share a few other highlights of the insights the research has given us.

Emma:

Absolutely, it'd be a pleasure too, because as you say, that word stark, unfortunately, comes up all the time, when you start going through our research, probably the most in depth research we've seen for some time on this. Really for me, personally, what came out is really no escaping the impact that the pandemic has had on social mobility. We know there was an issue there before, but it seems to have really compounded the issue as we move forward and start our recovery process, but the research really shows people clearly believe that things are getting harder. Just to bring that to life, really quite disappointingly, only 30% of the public believe that everybody has the same opportunities to succeed. That's a really low number and that really speaks volumes to me that there is an absolute issue here and now that we need to deal with, but actually just moving on from that, 59% of those that we surveyed, believe that they had either the same or better opportunities than previous generations, but actually 52% of all of those surveyed, believed that actually it is going to be harder for future generations.

We potentially have reached that tipping point, which is not where we need to be right now. As a business leader, that to me tells me that there is something that we need to do now, because if we do nothing, then future generations will suffer as a result, and that just doesn't feel quite right, that I can say really stark, and it really highlights that now is the time to take action. When we were looking at this, we wanted to break our research into two themes, really. One, which is, what is the issue? The second part of it really is like what can we do to help? I will delve into that in a bit more detail, but just to bring to life some of the barriers that the people felt impeded social mobility, and they were all around not having the right skill sets through education, which made up about 30% of the response rate, but as Armoghan was saying around his personal experience has lack of support network and lack of role models growing up is a really big barrier. It came out as one of the top barriers to social mobility towards the general public overall, followed closely by disabilities, areas people grew up in, and the ethnicity, all are in the really high 20%, which again starks, allow us to see where we need to take some proactive steps to try and help him to be at this point.

Emily:

Armoghan, I am interested in your reflections, when you hear those stats and those barriers that Emma has just shared, how does that fit with the picture that you're seeing in your role looking at the North?

Armoghan:

Yeah, if we step back from the pandemic, it has accelerated a number of things. It has accelerated the role of digital skills. The danger with the pandemic is some businesses have done really well and others have actually slowed down. As a consequence, the people who used to work in those businesses, a number of those people come from underprivileged backgrounds. The key question is people who are already struggling, how do we make sure that the pandemic, we don't lose a generation of amazing talent. The two things we are talking about is we really need to make sure that the talents coming through and people have the opportunities to educate, to upskill, to get involved in different environments. Emily, if you think about the North, one, it's how people feel is really important. There was a YouGov survey I was reading recently, which said, 31% of the people in the Northeast, believe opportunities to progress in their area are good, but look at what people feel in London, 74%. We do have this line, and how people feel is really important. What their high street looks like is really important. Not just employment, it's actually the environment within people live, I think the pandemic has actually, as I said, it has potentially made it tougher for certain people in society to do well. That's my fundamental belief that's come out of that. I very much agree with some of the observations, but minor anecdotal, mindset of talking to people, mindset of walking down the street, mindset of talking to businesses and communities, so that's the perspective I'm coming from, Emily.

Emily:

That definitely resonates with a number of conversations we've had on this podcast series. I am noticing, as you talked there, a theme that's run through these, about the intersections between topics and different risks, so social mobility goes hand in hand with diversity and inclusion, it goes hand in hand with levelling up. Actually, addressing some of those challenges requires a holistic view in the round and the collaboration between people that maybe didn't collaborate in that way before, to address some of these systemic challenges to, as you say, create that kind of equality and that optimism, no matter where people are in the country. Emma, I would like to come back to you, you offered kindly to delve into a bit more detail on what we can do about it, which you said was the second area that the research addressed, and give us a flavour for what the priority areas for action should be that you've picked up in that section?

Emma:

Of course, what was very interesting is the amount of energy that came back from the research, but people having really good views on the practical steps. This wasn't about just taking what's wrong, but it was also the, how do we fix this, and what role does business and what role does government play in this. It is fair to say that certainly from a PwC perspective, we took this as a very clear message, that this is time for business to step in to step up and to help into being, because actually we have equal responsibility here as what the government potentially would do as well going forward. Some of those actions that came out in terms of public views, were that there are some really simple things. Things like offering more work experience placements, for example, which scored really highly that came out in this, were very high 70s, around 75%. Closely followed by encouraging businesses to work with schools and educational providers to raise awareness of career opportunities and the skill sets that perhaps individuals might need to access different career opportunities, Remembering, from the conversations that I and Armoghan had earlier on, which is that we don't necessarily will have access to the same education, if there is a way businesses can reach through that, to really advertise the breadths of opportunities that are there for individuals regardless of location and background.

A couple of other business critical roles that came out around opening up non-graduate routes into employment, that again was in the 70s around individuals, not necessarily like myself, having had a strong secondary or further education, but actually still having a very good skill set to be able to offer. How do employers reach beyond that graduate program to really encourage mobility within its own workforce, and then upskilling young people through outreach programs, which is really fundamental, it comes into that role model and that networking point that we talked about earlier on. It is actually giving people the visibility over what type of roles there are out there and the role models that they can access.

Finally, around reaching through to support those from disadvantaged backgrounds, through the recruitment process, because you can have best education in the world, but actually, if we don't know what roles to apply for or we don't necessarily have the skill sets to enable us through an interview process, for example, then actually, that falls apart very quickly. Seeing it really from the beginning to the end, all the way through is that extra support that businesses can step in and offer. Then just from a government point of view, and we obviously worked with lots of different organisations and the purpose of the Future of Government research is to be able to look and see if we can help bridge the gap somewhat. The role of governments from a public perspective is really around the quality of education in schools and how can government work with schools to improve the education program that's out there. Again, that scored really highly, with over 43% of public feeling really strong actually the government could step in. Then likewise expanding apprenticeship programs, and finding ways to incentivise businesses to expand their apprenticeship programs to be able to encourage opportunities for all, rather than just those sort of school leavers in higher education individuals.

Then the final point really, which links into another part of the research, which I won't go into just yet, but it was around how do we upskill school leavers on a broader range of skill sets, for example, digital skills and those interview skills that we talked about earlier on and that came in again very highly with over 25%. Some really practical ideas coming forward from the public, we think these steps will really help.

Emily:

Thank you for sharing those. I love an actionable insight in these conversations. Armoghan, I would be interested in your reflections on those actions that Emma just shared there. What do you think businesses should be prioritising in terms of their response to this challenge?

Armoghan:

There are three things that business leaders and hence businesses can do. The first is advocacy, it's really important when a business leader says social mobility, and improving social mobility is really important to our business. The first thing, the business leader can do is to be an advocate of social mobility, irrespective of their own journey. People will have different journeys, but if that's one of the key leadership traits they have, it affects the culture of the whole organisation. Businesses need to attract and recruit people from disadvantaged backgrounds. But why do we need that, because we need diversity of thought, we need diversity of creativity, and how do you innovate.

I've always found that having a range of people in a room really does help drive innovation. Businesses definitely need people from the cross section of society, and one of the things, it's really important to us from a PwC perspective is, we really want to help to recruit and develop people at PwC from a range of backgrounds. There's lots of interventions we are doing around coaching people around interviews, reaching out to schools, reaching out to colleges, apprenticeship schemes. There is lots of stuff we are trying to do to convene that. The third thing is, it's related a bit to the last one, but it's the community. Businesses operate in a particular community, it is a real privilege to be able to operate in that community in a safe environment, there is laws, your business is being protected. Actually, how are you supporting local social mobility with disadvantaged communities? How are you supporting volunteering programs? To my mind, these three things, business leaders, and hence businesses can really think about, advocacy, inclusion, and community. I wish there was a nice acronym there and I could use a buzzword, Emily, but had just put it like that, advocacy, inclusion, and community.

Emily:

I really like that answer Armoghan, it's very memorable, and gives some really clear things that people could be getting on with right now. I am going to pick up on the very current live topic of conversation around return to work and hybrid working, is something that a lot of business leaders are focusing on right now. Do you think there is a link in that movement, as we come back into the workplace and an opportunity there for people to address social mobility as well?

Armoghan:

It's interesting, there seems to be a spread of views around that in business. There are some people saying actually we want to go back to full time office presence, and then there is a group of people or organisations who are saying, actually, you don't need to come in at all. From a PwC perspective, if I think about how did I learn. If you think about the journey, a lot of people go on, there's a bit about understanding their job. Whether we call it technical skills, or just understanding how do you do this job well? There is then a bit around how do you manage people, which effectively for me is, how do you work with people? Then the third thing is, actually how do you lead people, how do you get buy in and how do you get follow-ship. If I think about those three tenets, where have I learned a lot from? Some of it was classroom based, but actually quite a lot of it was observing people. The benefit of remote working is you can work for a whole range of organisations, and you can do it from the area you're working, so the world becomes smaller. The opposite to that is actually, where do you learn, how do you learn, what's the best way for you to learn? So, from my mind, it's a combination of two. The freedom you get from living in let's say, Huddersfield, and working for an organisation in the Southeast, it gives you a lot more accessibility, but the other side of that is, you've got to make sure that, I always think about careers in decades, your 20s, your 30s, your 40s. As you move through, technical competence, management, leadership. What's the best way for you to learn under those three topics? It may change over time, you never stop doing all three, you just end up accentuating one more than the other. The flexibility people have these days is really beneficial overall.

Having said that, to benefit from that flexibility, you've got to get the job in the first place. You’ve got to get the access to the education in the first place, you've got to get access to digital and digital upskilling, you've probably got to have people who as I said role model. We can't immediately jump to saying, actually it has given us a lot flexibility, we've got to put some of the building blocks in place as well, Emily.

Emily:

I definitely recognise, what you describe there, and actually that's one of the most compelling answers that I have heard for the need for balance and it can't be all homeworking, you need that office working for the richness of learning and opportunity that it creates. Emma, does that strike a chord of what we've seen in the research findings around post pandemic return to work.

Emma:

It does, and it's really fascinating hearing that perspective actually because it resonates completely. Actually, when you were asking the question around, what are the things we can do to help career progression, the two highest scoring responses came back was finding the time to work, because people are still juggling, taking children to school, or another job, or education, whatever it might be, but those fixed hours can be really quite hard to juggle when you have other commitments that are there, and then also access to this digital skill set as well. One of the questions that we talked about prior to doing the research, was there was a hybrid working, work from home standpoint actually help with social mobility, people are having to rely on traveling into a city centre or to specific timetables would have become more flexible, does it help, and we thought, actually, yeah, that's a great start, isn't it, but exactly, as Armoghan said, we could work from home forever, but actually if the other building blocks aren't in place and taking other steps help, then it won't necessarily fix anything. On the digital side of things, I completely agree with what Armoghan said, actually, there is so much value in learning softer skills or the conversational skills, and that does actually lead straight across the digital, because you could give everybody a laptop in the world, but if people don't necessarily know how to engage in a conversation through a virtual forum or use the technology that's at their fingertips, then it doesn't take people any further forward. My personal view is the hybrid working will absolutely go some way to help, because it means people will access more opportunities then perhaps they might have done before as they've got the ability to work more virtually, but I still think that there's a huge value that people take away from that in person working at the same time or a combination of the two.

Emily:

We are almost out of time here today, folks. One of the things that I like to do in these conversations is to get really specific about the actions that people listening can take personally. I am going to take us right back to the beginning of the conversation. Emma, I know that you're really passionate about what we can do as individuals to improve social mobility. What one thing would you like our listeners to take away that they can do personally after listening to this?

Emma:

It is tricky to have just one thing, but I think there's something about being bold and sharing your story. The more business leaders I speak to, the more I realise how vast people’s journeys into their roles really is. Actually, by sharing our stories, we’ve started to build confidence in ourselves, and we start to build awareness. We start to listen to other people's journeys as well. There is something about being out there with your own personal experience and just to chuck one last thing, and if I may, which is around being really open minded to those around you, because you just never know what someone else is juggling or the journey that they've been on. Just be kind to people and just take the time to listen, engage, and go and share as much as you can your network to be able to reach out to others, and you never know you might be a role model to somebody in the future, perhaps you haven’t thought about doing.

Emily:

I love that answer, a three for the price of one, top tips from you there Emma. Armoghan, what would you add to that?

Armoghan:

The thing about social mobility or opportunity, or whatever we call it, is we can have a very academic conversation around it, and we can showcase and talk about it with tremendous amount of passion. If we want to change our future, we are going to have to change it now. I remember years ago, listening to a lecturer, and he was talking about technology adoption. He said, the future isn't where it used to be, because of the new technologies that are coming through. I could almost say the same thing about social mobility. If we want the future to be in a different place, we've got to intervene now. One of the things, for example, we did was, we launched an assurance centre in Bradford. We did that because it was one of the 12 opportunity areas that the government has outlined. We set up links for Leeds University, where we are doing a technology apprenticeship scheme and we have 36 computer science graduates from our first fully funded course. These things we are doing in the community, we're trying to strengthen links between schools and colleges that we have, the key thing people can do something about it, so intervene now. If someone triggers something, does something different, we're going to have a different future and that's what this is all about.

Emily:

That’s a lovely way to draw this conversation to a close that we need to, if we want to change, we need to act now. Thank you, Armoghan for that final thought. That draws us to the close of another episode of our Business in Focus podcast. Thank you both so much for sharing your personal stories and for such a fascinating discussion. Of course, thank you to everyone for listening. If you would like to explore our social mobility findings in more depth, please visit pwc.co.uk/driving-social-mobility and of course don't forget to subscribe to keep up to date with future episodes. Thanks everyone, stay safe, and tune in again soon.

Participants

• Emily Khan
• Emma Cody
• Armoghan Mohammed