COMMENT A recent study by the Institute of Fiscal Studies into social mobility is an unsettling read. The findings show that your parents’ income and wealth is of ever-growing importance in determining your own position in the lifetime income distribution. In a nutshell, social mobility continues to fall.
For a nation that prides itself on entrepreneurialism, a get-up-and-go mindset, an underdog against the global superpowers, this in my book is a failure. A failure for young people today and a failure of the promises we make to children as they go through the education system. Working hard is not enough on its own to fulfil your dreams – it’s the circumstances of your parents, it seems, that determine what you’re able to achieve in life.
Diverse communities
As a leader in a business that focuses so greatly on people and communities, this concerns me. Diversity of thought, background and experience builds a rich viewpoint and perspective for a business. And for any business that faces into communities, it is vital that it can reflect the richness and diversity of those communities. If all our decisions are made by people with similar backgrounds and experience, it’s going to be difficult for us to evolve. It’s going to be impossible for us to challenge tradition.
So many factors influence the opportunities – or lack of – that young people feel are available to them as they approach the end of their education years. We don’t have all the answers and we can’t fix it all. But we can, and we will, take steps to tip the balance so that studies like this, over time, show more and more hard-working, talented people from lower socio-economic backgrounds in the higher achievement brackets.
Across the industry positive steps are being taken to create more interventions targeted specifically at creating opportunities for people from under-represented backgrounds – from social impact funds and apprenticeship programmes to local networks and organisations working across all UK regions to inspire and inform young people about the many paths to careers that await them when they finish school.
Career credentials
At Landsec, we have started exploring how we can make a difference – to our business, our industry and to society at large. Through Landsec Futures, we have launched an internship programme, developed in line with the UK Social Mobility Commission Toolkit, to provide young people with six months of paid work experience. They don’t need previous work experience or university qualifications. We will be welcoming our second cohort next month, who I know will make great contributions to our business and, hopefully, bolster their career credentials too.
And while creating more opportunities for people from under-represented backgrounds is key to ensuring the long-term success and diversity of our industry, we also need to understand how this lack of social mobility is limiting the potential of people across our businesses today.
At Landsec, we have started collecting data on the socio-economic backgrounds of our existing and future employees, as part of our new diversity and inclusion strategy. This will help us better measure the impact of our actions in creating a business and an industry where everyone can fulfil their potential – whatever stage of their career they’re at.
Actions like this, alongside a continued focus and more discussion on the issue, may just help us to move the trend line and keep the promises we make to our children that hard work, talent and drive really is enough to succeed in life.
Jennie Colville is head of ESG and sustainability at Landsec
