Skip to main content

Social mobility masterclass for employers #3: Culture and leadership

The third session in our employers’ masterclass series, Culture and Leadership, took place on 16 September.

Inclusive teams make better business decisions 87% of the time – and twice as fast, delivering 60% better results; it makes sense for employers to nurture this talent.

A diverse workforce is a more productive workforce, so embed this ambition into your culture – and ensure your employees’ voices are heard, by encouraging people to share their ideas and experiences.

Our previous two sessions covered outreach and hiring. Once you have attracted and hired that diverse talent, how do you then nurture, develop and empower individuals working within your organisation? Culture and leadership is all about creating an inclusive and welcoming environment, enabling people to thrive.

One of the key ways you can do this as an organisation is by appointing a senior leader to champion socio-economic diversity. Our research shows that to succeed, you need buy-in from senior leaders. You can also benchmark progress by setting and publishing targets. And reward teams or individuals when solid progress is made, to spur people on.

This session took the form of:

  • A short presentation by the Social Mobility Commission.
  • An in-depth case-study from Grant Thornton, a leading business and financial adviser.
  • An interactive workshop for employers in which to explore ideas, share insights and tackle some of the challenges in developing an inclusive, diverse culture.

Using the insights from that workshop we are sharing a checklist Culture and leadership afterpack to help you refine your ideas and develop a ‘best-practice’ recruitment process. And you can find a video of the presentation and case-study above if you’ve not already watched it.

Our employers’ toolkit is also packed with ideas on the data you can use to measure progress, build a strong outreach programme or create a more inclusive culture. Each individual section includes tailored guidance, as well as videos that will give you our top tips on the key themes of dataoutreachhiring and progression – enabling you to become a real change-maker in this space. You can watch the Culture and Leadership video below.

We hope that you find these tools and videos both insightful and inspiring.