Read: The pathway to progress

Close to 20 per cent of the financial adviser market use True Potential’s products and services.

These include investment management and business support services, as well as financial services technology.

The company has expanded rapidly since its inception in 2007, ranking as the fastest growing financial advice and technology services company headquartered outside London in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 Deloitte Technology Fast 50.

Across the group, True Potential has over £52bn assets under administration. In 2017 and 2018 it won its category at the European Business of the Year award, beating 34,000 other firms from 35 countries. The company is powered by a commitment towards creating opportunities for all.

This is evident in its products and services, which are equally open to both high net worth individuals and pension savers who wish to start by putting aside as little as £1 for their future. It can also be seen in its approach to employees.

The UK’s lack of social mobility is particularly prevalent in financial services.

Led by founder and managing partner David Harrison, True Potential has found a highly effective solution.

Its Pathway to Progress is designed to speed young people with limited life chances into fulfilling and ever-developing careers.

The Pathway to Progress

True Potential believes that youth outreach and talent acquisition programmes should not be delivered as standalone activities – and certainly should not be considered ‘tick box’ or merely ‘CSR’ exercises.

There is a much bigger prize at play.

The company urges that they are run with purpose and focus on a natural strengths process that factors in disadvantaged areas.

Crucially, they must give candidates of all backgrounds a real opportunity of employment and a clear path towards a flourishing career with a contextual focus on an individual’s life journey. While this may consume more management and HR time in recruitment processes, it ultimately ensures candidates are selected on a broader range of considerations.

True Potential has achieved this as part of its pathway that has three stages – outreach, employment and progression.

These are seamlessly connected and managed with one overriding goal: To create a pathway towards success at work based on talent, attitude and aptitude.

Stage One: Outreach

Give opportunities, new skills and career aspirations to young people in disadvantaged areas.

As well as working with schools, True Potential has helped create a school that could set disadvantaged people on the path to success.

Through its sister organisation, set up by company founder David Harrison, it supported the launch of the Beacon of Light in Sunderland.

The initial £150,000 contribution from the Harrison Centre for Social Mobility (HCSM) to the sports and education facility was more than a mere financial donation, however.

It was the catalyst for a new education programme run by HCSM at the centre that aims to complement core skills in maths and English to inspire a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs – and provide support and education for those that need it most.

The Beacon is located in Sunderland Central parliamentary constituency. Sunderland Central is ranked 24th out of the 29 North East constituencies for social mobility, according to a report by the House of Commons Library.

In terms of youth social mobility, it is ranked 357th out of 533 English constituencies, placing it in the bottom third nationally. The Harrison Centre at the Beacon hosts workshops which give teenagers and young people the skills, confidence and experience necessary to get on in the world of work.

There are four programmes in total aimed at ages 14 to 19+ and attracting young people from across the surrounding region, many of which are from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The young people True Potential engages with receive a head start in pursuing their career ambitions, but True Potential is rewarded too; by unearthing talent that could drive its business forward in future.

During the coronavirus crisis, True Potential and its partners at the Foundation of Light stepped up their efforts to ensure people in disadvantaged communities were not further left behind.

The Foundation redeveloped the programmes delivered at the Harrison Centre – Back in the Game and Back on Track – to move to an inclusive e-learning programme of delivery.

All 34 Back on Track participants continued to be engaged by course tutors through Microsoft Teams, and for learners who did not have access to technology or the internet, tutors posted workbooks and course resources to learners at home and drove to participants houses to pick up learner work to continue the assessment process.

Harrison Centre learners completed qualifications across the four months of lockdown which included: Maths and English, Personal and Social Development, ICT, Sport, Health and Social Care and Customer Services, all of which had a module of managing finances embedded into the work programme.

Learners have now returned to staggered classroom delivery with 98 per cent of learners returning to face-to-face delivery. On the Back in the Game programme, tutors developed 15 new programmes specifically designed to meet the needs of lockdown, engaging the adult learners and their children together in course activities to ensure positive family relationships over the course of lockdown.

Within three weeks, tutors had developed new schemes of work to provide accredited programmes focusing on health and wellbeing, physical activity, work skills and employability as well as managing finances and home cooking skills. Within a month of launching the programmes, the Foundation had enrolled 76 learners on programmes, offering daily contact with participants via Microsoft Teams to support participants through their programmes.

To ensure the hardest to reach learners can benefit from the Harrison Centre’s employability programmes, the team is taking forward examples of what has worked well in lockdown to include a mixed delivery approach from September, with online learning and face to face classroom delivery.

Delivery over lockdown has been a real success and has generated new ways to support young people to make the most of their talents and potential.

Stage Two: Employment

Develop recruitment policies that reward talent, effort and determination, not the candidate’s connections or background.

In April 2018, True Potential became one of the first companies in the UK to sign the national Social Mobility Pledge.

Companies representing over seven million employees have since signed up, including John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Vodafone, ITV, BT, Adidas and Thomas Cook.

The Pledge commits businesses to working with schools, offering apprenticeships and adopting fair recruitment polices. The latter point means that a person’s upbringing should not influence hiring decisions.

To achieve this, True Potential uses an approach known as name-blind recruitment.

This is an extra safeguard against the risk of unfair bias for one candidate over another.

True Potential runs a thriving apprenticeships scheme that leads young people into exciting careers in the fast-moving worlds of financial services and technology.

Despite the UK going into lockdown and the after effects on the economy, True Potential has continued to thrive. It has grown its team with 58 new hires joining the firm during the coronavirus lockdown.

The expansion of its head office team is a result of strong management leading to even stronger financial performance in the second half of 2020

The firm recorded a £15.7 million profit between April and June at the height of the coronavirus crisis. The results meant True Potential was able to keep all 300 employees in full employment and nobody was furloughed.

The new recruits, who have joined the team between April and September 2020, will fulfil various roles within True Potential‘s head office, including customer support, technical support, IT software development, compliance and marketing.

This is yet further evidence that purpose and profitability go hand in hand, opening up new career opportunities underpinned by sustainable businesses.

Stage Three: Progression

Create a continuous pathway of opportunities that leads to rewarding jobs and ongoing career development.

Social mobility means more than simply opening up access to jobs. It means empowering people to go as far in life as their talents, hard work and attitude will take them, unhindered by unfair bias.

True social mobility occurs when an individual is able to fully unlock their potential and continually build on it.

But True Potential is located in one of England’s cold spots for adult social mobility. Its neighbouring constituency, Newcastle upon Tyne Central is ranked 417th out of 533 in England for social mobility.

This underlines the need locally for stronger pathways, first into employment and then crucially, the opportunity to forge a career with the skills needed to thrive as the 4th Industrial Revolution approaches.

To dramatically improve the career trajectory of people from all backgrounds, True Potential opened its own academy.

The True Potential Academy is a conduit between the company’s various outreach and education activities and exciting careers in financial services and technology.

Harrison Centre students and apprentices are given the opportunity to join the academy. Here they have the opportunity to learn about and experience many aspects of working life with True Potential. They then may have the opportunity to secure full-time employment with the company. The academy is also open to existing staff who want to turbo-boost their career progress – or switch into a new field.