Read: Launch of groundbreaking employer survey on social mobility to open up ‘black box’ of tracking equality of opportunity in careers

Leading social mobility campaigner and former Education Secretary, Rt Hon Justine Greening has joined forces with the Centre for Inequality and Levelling Up at the University of West London to launch a groundbreaking survey on social mobility tracking attitudes of employers.

The survey aims to  find out employer attitudes towards tracking socio-economic background of employees and how many are tracking the impact of their opportunities on social mobility of their employees. 

The new survey will ask employers whether they are tracking employee social mobility data, what their plans are to do so and what the barriers and challenges they see to putting in place effective tracking, for example not knowing the right questions, poor understanding of the issues or concerns over staff response rates.

Employers can track the socio-economic diversity of their employees using standard questions developed by the UK Government Cabinet Office in 2017 and updated by the Social Mobility Commission in 2021. 

Greening is urging employers through her Equality of Opportunity Coalition campaign to start tracking the social mobility data for their employees.  The data could provide crucial insight on the levels of access to opportunity and how open economic opportunities are to people from all backgrounds. Yet to date, tracking social mobility data of employees has not been commonplace across UK employers. The survey wants to find out why not and how to encourage greater adoption.

Greening  believes this is crucial for driving improved social mobility in the UK:

“As Education Secretary, I could use data insight on the progress of children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and on Free School Meals to target DfE efforts to close educational gaps. However when people leave the education system and enter the workplace, we lose all track of their progress in careers. It means a huge education investment but with no sense of actual outcomes accessing opportunities.

What gets measured gets done, so to drive stronger social mobility means getting employers tracking the key social mobility questions for their staff.  Understanding how to do that from this survey will be a gamechanger.”

Professor Graeme Atherton of the Centre for Inequality and Levelling Up says:

“‘It is vital that organisations understand who their workforce is so they can support them to achieve their potential. This project will unlock new knowledge that will contribute to addressing inequality and promoting economic growth in the UK.”

The short survey is being sent to HR professionals, has 14 questions and is open until mid-September with initial results will be collated and shared in Autumn 2023. 

Greening leads the Purpose Coalition of employers - many of which are already committed to tracking and reporting the socio-economic diversity of their employees in the UK’s first wide scale pilot of its kind.

 The Equality of Opportunity Coalition are employers who are committed to monitoring and sharing their socio-economic data. The work will also enable employers to benchmark themselves and share best practice on socio-economic tracking, providing a wider picture of social mobility and career progression across different sectors. 

The organisations involved include employers as diverse as the Co-op Group, UK Power Networks, Aldermore Bank, the BBC, the University of Northampton and Essex County Council, amongst a growing number of others. 

Please find a link to the survey here:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y3RQVS9

You can listen to Graeme and Justine discussing the survey on this week’s Fit for Purpose podcast.