{"id":134905,"date":"2021-03-24T15:52:31","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T14:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=134905"},"modified":"2021-03-30T08:55:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T07:55:26","slug":"accessmatters-with-the-social-mobility-foundations-sarah-atkinson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/accessmatters-with-the-social-mobility-foundations-sarah-atkinson\/","title":{"rendered":"accessmatters with The Social Mobility Foundation\u2019s Sarah Atkinson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u2018Something isn\u2019t working when talent still isn\u2019t making as much of a difference as background. <\/strong><strong>Whole communities can be left behind from success, from aspiration. <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/statistics-from-ciprs-state-of-the-profession-2020\/\"><strong>PR is no exception<\/strong><\/a><strong>.\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sarah Atkinson from The Social Mobility Foundation joined us for our latest accessmatters session, which focused on social mobility \u2013 or the lack of it \u2013 in the UK, including the PR industry. Problems with diversity and social mobility in our sector are well-known by now, with CIPR\u2019s State of the Profession highlighting issues with class and background, race and gender, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/state-of-the-profession-in-2020-theres-still-a-way-to-go-with-diversity\/\">year<\/a> after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/pr-is-not-diverse-enough-results-from-ciprs-state-of-the-profession-2019\/\">year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NP7Ke-e7xMQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>PRs are more likely to have completed a degree in comparison to the general public. They\u2019re more likely to come from a background where their parents also undertook higher education. According to the numbers, there are twice as many PRs whose parents or guardians completed a university degree (or an equivalent) than those who received income support or free school meals during childhood.<\/p>\n<p>For Sarah and The Social Mobility Foundation, change is long overdue: \u2018We know there\u2019s a race problem in PR, we know that there\u2019s not enough people with disabilities working in the industry. Racial disadvantage is completely entwined with economic disadvantage.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Even if you went to a good university, you\u2019re likely to earn less money if you come from a working-class background. And if everyone comes from the same background in PR, you\u2019re going to have something missing when trying to engage the public.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The Social Mobility Foundation works with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to improve their confidence, give them the skills to \u2018schmooze\u2019 (of <em>course<\/em> those from working class backgrounds can schmooze just as well as those from middle class families when given the opportunity and experience, said Sarah during the session) and links with potential mentors and future employers give them the head-start they won\u2019t have in comparison to many others at the beginning of their career journey.<\/p>\n<p>What can those making the big decisions in PR do to help with welcoming (and keeping) those from disadvantaged, low-income or working-class backgrounds into the workforce? To start, recognise the problem.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It\u2019s generally assumed that once you\u2019re at work, your background doesn\u2019t matter anymore, that it goes under the radar. If you actually come from a disadvantaged background, you damn well know it does matter,\u2019 said Sarah.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018There are two practical steps to start with \u2013 data and leadership. These things go together. We need to measure a baseline for the workforce with three key questions: did your parents go to uni? What school were you at at 14-years-old? And were you on free school meals? It\u2019s not perfect, but it\u2019s the best analysis we\u2019ve got. You can start to measure whether we\u2019re making change.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Leaders from privileged backgrounds may feel uncomfortable, might feel that they\u2019re being patronising when talking about this. Make a clear personal commitment, and don\u2019t say too much in the beginning.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018People have to trust others to have the right intentions. If you come from a working-class background, you need to know it\u2019s not going to matter in a negative way, to trust that positive things can happen.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>And when it comes to recruitment, Sarah urged that organisations start the right way: \u2018Analyse the process &#8211; that\u2019s critical in every company. If you\u2019re automatically asking for degrees for jobs where they\u2019re not needed, or if your process filters out those from low social economic backgrounds, that\u2019s undermining any other efforts you make to be inclusive.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Very few employers are good at this when it comes to progression at the senior level,\u2019 said Sarah. \u2018It\u2019s really hard to get there if you come from a low socio-economic background. If you\u2019re there already, work with your employees and start focus groups \u2013 ask, have we got some unintended bias going on?<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Because there\u2019s getting in, and there\u2019s getting on and you need to have something that addresses both.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The assumption can be that if you work on the \u2018getting in\u2019 part, your pipeline, it\u2019ll all work out. But we know that\u2019s not true from all the work we\u2019ve done on gender \u2013 we\u2019re still waiting for more women to reach the top spots.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018As a minority in the PR industry, you either have to hide it, if you can, or take it on as a \u2018fun personality\u2019. We\u2019ve heard this from ethnic minorities and those from working class backgrounds \u2013 \u2018It\u2019s a burden of the work I have to do, I have to be this perfect person, or a comedy stereotype\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It\u2019s tough on people who have to do the work. If you aren\u2019t one of them, be an ally.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The best thing we can do for social mobility is to talk about it more,\u2019 believes Sarah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For more from accessmatters, catch up with our previous sessions with <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/accessmatters-with-kdp-coaching-consultings-katie-phillips\/\">KDP Coaching &amp; Consulting\u2019s Katie Phillips<\/a><strong>,\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/we-want-to-level-the-playing-field-accessmatters-with-taylor-bennett-foundations-melissa-lawrence\/\">Taylor Bennett Foundation\u2019s Melissa Lawrence<\/a><strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/cut-for-time-extra-answers-from-our-accessmatters-session-with-manifests-julian-obubo\/\">Manifest\u2019s Julian Obubo<\/a><strong>\u00a0or check out\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.accessintelligence.com\/accessmatters\/?__hstc=211078666.b30a806f0cf1a0d9376ad08a389fbcfa.1605518524491.1616491334063.1616496650433.282&amp;__hssc=211078666.4.1616496650433&amp;__hsfp=2542996813\">the accessmatters hub<\/a><strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Something isn\u2019t working when talent still isn\u2019t making as much of a difference as background. Whole communities can be left behind from success, from aspiration. PR is no exception.\u2019 Sarah Atkinson from The Social Mobility &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":134906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7401,7272,3725],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134905"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134905"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134957,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134905\/revisions\/134957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}