SOCIAL MOBILITY
Gender Inclusion | Race | Social Mobility | Age | Disability & Neurodiversity | LGBTQ+ |
This page is a space dedicated to fostering upward mobility and creating opportunities for individuals from all walks of life. We believe that everyone should have the chance to achieve their potential, regardless of their background or circumstances.
Through the content shared on this page, we aim to shed light on the challenges faced by those striving for upward mobility and aligned with our Blueprint, highlight good practices to support our industry to become more inclusive.
- Support the ABI industry pledge on apprenticeships and work to increase the intake of apprenticeships.
- Establish a programme of work experience, traineeships opportunities and/or T-levels to bridge the gap between leaving school and starting a formal apprenticeship. Set DEI criteria for offering work experience and traineeships to ensure these can be accessed by people from all backgrounds.
- Consider partnering with organizations such as the Social Mobility Foundation to offer internships or mentoring to young people.
- Establish a network of relationships with local education and skills providers to ensure they are aware of the opportunities insurance and long-term savings firms operating in their area offer, and the skills required.
- Increasing opportunities for ‘mid-career’ apprenticeships to ensure talented people previously unable to access training or qualifications at the point they were school leavers can still progress later in life.
- Set targets to ensure a diverse group of candidates are interviewed for every role. Simplify role descriptions to ensure they focus on the key transferable skills needed for a role (rather than experiences only people from certain backgrounds will have).
- Consider becoming member of Progress Together, a membership body focused on improving progression, retention and socio-economic diversity across the financial services industry
- Consider joining the Social Mobility Employer Index, developed by the Social Mobility Foundation. It is a benchmarking tool that enables organisations to assess and monitor their progress on social mobility. It ranks Britain’s employers on the actions they are taking to ensure they are open to accessing and progressing talent from all backgrounds and it showcases progress towards improving social mobility.
- Adopt recommendations from the “Who gets ahead and how?” report published in 2020 by the City of London and Bridge Group. The research found that almost nine in ten senior roles in financial services are held by people from higher socio-economic backgrounds, compared with a third of the UK working population.
- Review participation by employees in DEI and social mobility surveys, and consider how to understand the reasons why any employees did not participate.
- Work to improve the granularity of regional data on DEI and social mobility characteristics in order to tailor strategies and targets to the needs of the areas where your employees live and work.
- Encourage all employees to participate in data collections, ensuring they are given adequate time to complete any surveys.