New
research commissioned by educational charity The Sutton Trust and Deutsche Bank shows that 81% of senior financial services professionals believe the way interview candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds present themselves is weakening their employment prospects. The polling, conducted by YouGov to assess views on social mobility in the finance industry compared to others, included 1,008 senior figures across a number of sectors.
The poll follows on from a
survey carried out last year by the Social Mobility Commission, which finds that “young people from less affluent homes are often locked out of banking jobs because of their clothes, accent, dress and behaviour” – coined the ‘brown shoes effect’.
In addition to presentation, 77% of financial industry respondents cite school and university results as a factor preventing those from poorer socio-economic backgrounds from getting a job in the sector. Previous Boston Consulting Group data also shows an education-related “access gap” in the banking industry: “34% of recent intakes and 51% of leaders in the banking sector went to independent schools.” This compares to 7% of the population at large.
A further 62% of those polled by YouGov believe underprivileged candidates could be turned down due to assumptions that they won’t fit in with the working culture.
“We know there’s a social mobility problem within the banking industry and that addressing it makes economic and business sense,” says Tiina Lee, head of global markets, UK, and deputy CEO, UK and Ireland, at Deutsche Bank, who is quoted in a Sutton Trust press release. Sutton Trust and Deutsche Bank’s Pathways to Banking initiative, designed to improve access to the profession, is currently in development. The programme will support sixth form students from low and middle income households to access degrees that can lead to careers in finance.
“By reaching students while they are still in school, we hope to encourage more bright young people from poorer homes that a career in finance is open to them,” says Lee.
The Sutton Trust release
Falling behind
Those operating in the legal sector believe their firms do more to support young people from poor backgrounds compared to those who work in finance or IT, says
The Law Society Gazette’s Max Walters.
Some 59% of legal sector employees that responded to the YouGov poll think their firm supports disadvantaged young people effectively, compared to 56% in IT and 52% in finance and accounting. The construction sector comes out on top, with 61% of respondents saying they feel “social mobility issues were adequately addressed” by their company.
81%
The amount of senior finance professionals that believe presentation is weakening the employment prospects of interview candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds
According to the research, “the legal profession also offers young people the best chance to reach senior management or board level roles”, says Walters. Of those polled, 57% believe people from underprivileged backgrounds have the opportunity to reach senior positions, compared to “48% in finance, 50% in IT and 47% in media/marketing”.
The Law Society Gazette article
Facing the problem
The finance industry is yet to learn its lesson, says
The Independent’s James Moore, but banks could benefit from the message of Michael Lewis’
Moneyball: the art of winning an unfair game.
Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team, was confronted with a problem: stiff competition from larger teams, with considerably higher budgets and top-ranking players. In response, “Beane put together a team of rejects that won far more games than people thought they ought to have, partly by dint of the fact that they all scored highly when it came to their on base percentages, a statistic and talent that was being undervalued by other teams,” says Moore.
Beane's willingness to abandon “hallowed practice” in order to achieve success is an approach the banking industry could learn from. Banks are “wilfully passing on talent they might benefit from because of presentational issues”, says Moore, but “incredibly [the YouGov poll] found that many executives felt it was down to someone else to address the issue for them”.
Insular attitudes are causing the banking industry to fall behind other more “forward-thinking” sectors. Accountancy businesses are favouring their own testing methods over traditional exam results and degree classifications to widen and improve their talent pools, while publisher Penguin Random House announced last year that it had scrapped degree requirements for candidates in an “effort to add more diversity to its workforce”.
Evidently, the financial industry has a way to go in addressing its social mobility problem, but initiatives such as Pathways to Banking point towards a more promising, and accepting, future. The support of management will be crucial going forward – that’s “the lesson of
Moneyball”.
The Independent article
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