About the Social Mobility Pledge
The Social Mobility Pledge campaign, co-founded by Rt Hon Justine Greening - drawing especially on her experience as United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women & Equalities - and entrepreneur David Harrison, Chairman of True Potential in Newcastle. Justine is a leading advocate for social mobility and the Social Mobility Pledge is the largest business campaign of its kind.
The Social Mobility Pledge is a coalition of over 800 organisations globally have made their Social Mobility Pledge and are collectively covering over 8 million people; this is made up of over 700 businesses and more than 50 universities, covering over 6 million employees and more than 2 million students. It encourages organisations to being a force for good by putting social mobility at the heart of their purpose. Organisations taking steps to boost opportunity and social mobility is more important than ever as we face the challenges of a growing opportunity gap in the wake of COVID-19.
Our objectives:
1) To engage organisations on social mobility and to grow the Social Mobility Pledge coalition.
Our first objective is to engage an increasing number of organisations on the issue of social mobility and encourage others to make their Social Mobility Pledge.
2) To open source share social mobility best practice and build a mosaic of success.
We work in partnership with select organisations through the Purpose Coalition, a group founded by Social Mobility Pledge signatories who wanted to go further in demonstrating their commitment to social mobility and equality of opportunity by open source sharing their best practice in their publicly available Action Plans.
3) To drive action on social mobility and help organisations go further faster.
We are actively working with Social Mobility Pledge signatories to put social mobility and equality of opportunity at the heart of their recruitment by using the Purpose Goals architecture in their recruitment processes.
What is the Pledge?
Making your Pledge represents a powerful and pioneering shift towards being a truly purpose-led organisation committed to social mobility and equality of opportunity, by committing to outreach, access and recruitment. It is a straightforward step that any organisation can take, and you will be joining a coalition of over 700 organisations. Organisations taking these steps to boost opportunity and social mobility are playing a part in closing the opportunity gap.
Outreach
We will work to reach out to schools or colleges to provide coaching through quality careers advice, enrichment experience and mentoring to people from less privileged backgrounds.
The simplest approach for employers to reach out to schools or colleges is to work through one of the large number of great social mobility organisations - such as Sutton Trust, Big Issue, Young Enterprise, Inspiring the Future, the Careers and Enterprise Company, Princes Trust, the Social Mobility Foundation, upReach, Making the Leap, The 93% Club and The Talent Trap.
Access
We will work to provide structured work experience and apprenticeship opportunities to people from all backgrounds.
The gap between what young people want and what’s on offer is huge; a study in North East England showed that 83% of young people there actually thought work experience should be compulsory as part of the education offer. We ask employers to plug that gap and provide work experience either directly or through another body (e.g. local authority or charity).
Recruitment
We will work to adopt open employee recruitment tools and practices which promote equality of opportunity for people from less privileged backgrounds.
This means organisations are clearly and openly adopting recruitment tools and practices which promote social mobility and equality of opportunityThere are many different ways to do this and we encourage organisations to try new approaches.
Progression
We will work to ensure that employees from less privileged backgrounds can progress fairly through our organisation.
Progression is essentially an employee’s journey within an organisation and the various roles they can move into. Fair progression is about ensuring internal promotion, ongoing training, increases in pay and responsibilities are open to people of all backgrounds on the basis of talent not background. Ensuring fair career progression for people from less privileged backgrounds means organisations can unlock the full potential of their workforce, making it not only a matter of social mobility but also an investment in long term success. That’s why through our Equality of Opportunity Coalition of employers more and more are now setting targets for socio-economic diversity. You can find out more here
Ready to make your Social Mobility Pledge?
Questions? Chat to us here: team@socialmobilitypledge.org
The Social Mobility Pledge campaign is run by the team at thisispurpose.com