Being inclusive is not just best practice and good for society: it also makes good business sense. Everyone wants to have the widest talent pool to recruit from, and be able to benefit from the creativity of thought, problem solving and innovation that comes through the collaboration of a diverse team.
Yet, research has consistently shown that people from more affluent backgrounds take a disproportionate number of the best jobs and that employers tend to disproportionately employ graduates who went to private schools and elite universities. In addition, according to PwC research, over half of millennials do not feel that opportunities are equal for all despite the fact that companies talk about diversity and inclusion.
In the UK, as across much of the globe, the IT sector is desperately short on skills. If we’re going to solve this digital skills gap and remain competitive in every sector, then we have to open up our recruitment policies to embrace talent regardless of background.
This is what we do at FDM, a successful FTSE 250 company. When our CEO established the business 26 years ago, he was interested in hiring people with talent, enthusiasm for the work and who demonstrated that they had the aptitude to learn the necessary skills, regardless of background. This has always been central to our recruitment.
With an absolute commitment from the leadership team, diversity and inclusion has become embedded in our culture, resulting in over 75 nationalities working together as one team. Our statistics show that 26% of our employees and circa 50% of our senior management team are female and in the UK, of our 2016 trainee intake, 31% were the first in their family to attend university, 56% attended a state school and 51% were from a BAME background.
We work hard to enable those from any background to succeed. We have found that by being proactive, you can make a real difference and the result is that you bring in a great diversity of talent which ultimately drives the success of the business.
For other companies who are starting to address their own policies around social mobility, I would start by measuring where you currently are to identify what you need to do. By engaging with your employees through an Equal Opportunities questionnaire you can r aise awareness of your own diversity and plan accordingly.
We have a number of measures in place to help us improve our social mobility. Firstly, we are degree agnostic and don’t select on UCAS points. We are open to all degree subjects with a minimum level of 2:2. We don’t limit our recruitment to a small number of universities and instead actively engage and recruit from over 130 so that we can find the very best talent. This also supports Universities’ Widening Participation programmes.
During recruitment, we have deliberately chosen to introduce any test elements at later stages of the process after meeting the candidates. This gives them a chance to feel more confident and comfortable with us. We’ve also introduced game- based assessment that helps remove any additional potential bias and provide meaningful data insights on candidates’ strengths and role affinity; data is blind to bias.
In addition, we use strengths based questions to remove the bias of social capital that can help some candidates in competency-based questions. We remove the candidate’s university from the information given to interviewers. FDM’s graduate recruitment team has also been trained in unconscious bias.
We are also passionate about ensuring that university students are given the opportunity to experience the world of work: to this end, we provide a number of paid internships and placements to support their university courses. The students are exposed to the business environment and are actively working on real-life projects that help them develop their skills and understanding of what business needs from them once they finish their degrees. It’s a great opportunity for them to get experience that will enable them to better apply the theory they gain from their degree to the real world.
As a company that is working in a sector where skills are in short supply, we’re also very concerned about the future talent pipeline. IT has a poor image among young people as a career option. One of the biggest reasons for this appears to be the lack of understanding by young people, their parents and their teachers about the reality of working in technology. To help counter this and bring to life the array of opportunities on offer in this ever evolving industry, our Diversity and Inclusion team work with local schools to open their eyes to a career in tech. We’ve developed a programme of sessions where students and their teachers come in and experience the working environment, learn Python coding and, very importantly, professional skills such as communication, personal branding and presentation that they will need to start work. One headmaster has commented that the programme has opened up opportunities to his students that were beyond their horizons.
These are some of the insights that have enabled us to grow our business successfully over the last 26 years. What’s very clear to us is that social mobility helps create a truly successful and resilient business. However, authenticity is key in this: young people want to work for businesses that share their values and will see through any business that doesn’t, in their eyes, deliver on what they say they are doing. On the flip side, if you get this right, then you become a company that people want to work for, and remain loyal to, and are recognised for your achievements and commitment.
No single organisation can change the world, but by learning from each other, sharing best practice and driving forward as a business community, we can make differences that matter to society and also create successful companies. Sharing what we do, what works and what doesn’t work is important if we are going to shape an environment that allows everyone to achieve their potential. Every successful company should contribute to promoting equality both in business and our wider society.
TheStudentEmployer
ise.org.uk
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