Social Mobility Toolkit for the Professions - Equality and Human ...

Monitoring social mobility continued
choose firms based on their profile. Data will also be collected
and published by approved regulators so as to reveal trends in
the various strands of the legal profession.
a word on progression
both the consultations and the results from the online survey
of professionals confirmed the importance of assessing and
improving progression of those from diverse socioeconomic
backgrounds within the professions.
the 280 or so professionals and soon-to-be professionals that
we surveyed revealed that progression, specifically expressed
through personal satisfaction in one’s career and having
aspirations for the future, was of great importance to them.
those responding highlighted the importance of continuous
learning, training and development, mentoring and
management structures and clear progression routes through
the organisation. the benefits of having clear and effective
progression routes for an organisation include higher employee
engagement, a more skilled workforce and lower staff turnover.
Various stakeholders feared that individuals from lower
socioeconomic backgrounds, especially those that had taken
“alternative” routes into a given profession, would face a glass
ceiling and be unable to grasp opportunities to progress.
it is, however, very difficult to design a standard survey to
assess progression through the professions because:
� progression is a subjective concept that is hard to define
or measure those consulted in this project variously took
“progression” to mean any or all of the following: a salary
increase; an increase in responsibility; promotion to a
defined, higher rank; the acquisition of a further qualification;
and satisfaction with knowledge and skill development.
our survey of professionals revealed that “whether a
professional is satisfied with their career progression” and
“a professional’s aspirations for the future” were much
more important indicators of the state of progression in a
profession than more objective measurements around salary
increases and job seniority;
26 Social Mobility toolkit For the proFeSSionS
� progression looks very different from one profession to
the next For instance, while the number of employees an
individual manages could indicate seniority in one profession
(engineering or construction), some senior roles in other
professions (law) do not involve a people management
function;
� progression is impractical to measure within the
organisational or firm structure professionals are likely to
work for different employers through their career, and
voluntary career moves are likely to entail an increase in
salary and responsibility. Short of a central database that
tracks professionals through their entire lives, it is extremely
unlikely that data collection at employer level will yield
significant insights into progression.
For these reasons, it was decided that measuring
progression was beyond the reach of a first toolkit
looking at improving access to the professions.
however, we stress the futility of improving access to
the professions if entrants encounter further barriers to
progression.
When looking at their organisation’s socioeconomic make-up,
employers should look at the socioeconomic makeup
of different levels of the organisation, whether
individuals have different socioeconomic backgrounds from the
bottom to the top of the organisation.
When it comes to tracking progression, professional bodies/
regulators hold a formidable advantage in that professionals
typically remain members/registrants of the relevant body for
life, no matter how many times they may move employer.
therefore, we strongly encourage professional bodies/
regulators to collect and analyse data relating
specifically to progression. cohort studies – in which a
specific group of individuals are monitored over time – could
yield valuable insights into progression.