Should the HR profession contribute to social mobility?

It is now sometime since Alan Milburn published his report on Social Mobility in 2012. Two years on it is difficult not to accept the widespread view that social mobility in the UK is still not being achieved.

Most would argue that our collective DNA should give everyone a fair chance in life but in reality this is not happening.

And the facts are that in many countries around the world, if you are born poor, you are likely to die poor, or if your parents received poor education, you are likely to end up in a poor job. There are two notable exceptions in Canada and Australia, where sons are twice as likely to exceed the career achievements of their fathers when measured against the likelihood in the UK.

Alan Milburn identified that social mobility was most prevalent in the UK in the late 50’s and 60’s since when it has been flat lining. Today’s realty is that the UK’s top jobs are disproportionately held by people from a narrow range of backgrounds: – 71% Senior Judges; – 62% Senior Armed Forces Officers; – 55% Top Civil Servants; – 36% Cabinet; – 45% Newspaper Columnists

As demonstrated by a Milburn’s survey of the backgrounds of 4000 business, political, media and public sector leaders. There is undoubtedly a glass ceiling for the ‘forgotten middle classes’. For the first time in 100 years, children are arguably worse off than their parents – in no previous generation have the prospects for children been worse than their parents. Home ownership in the 25-34 age group has halved. First time buyers in London are now predominantly in the 40-45 age group. 5 million people earn less than the living wage of £7.65 per hour.

The question to ask of the HR Profession is the following, “Is there a collective responsibility of the HR profession to contribute to social mobility and are current selection methods working to maintaining the status quo meaning that through inaction are we currently collectively failing society”.

Author

Barney Ely

Director at Hays

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Barney is Director at Hays Human Resources, the leading UK HR recruiting experts, leading a team of 80 HR recruitment consultants in 40 locations across the UK.

Barney also has operational responsibility for Hays offices across the South of England, with responsibility for teams placing professionals in over 20 industry sectors, from accountancy and finance to construction, IT, marketing and education. Across many of these sectors, Hays also has further teams dedicated to public services, not-for-profit, executive and international recruitment

Barney is an active partner to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), sitting on the CIPD People Management Awards panel.

Barney joined Hays in 1993 as a business graduate and has spent much of his career recruiting for blue-chip organisations and SMEs.