Q&A with Dr Sam Friedman, associate professor in sociology at the London School of Economics

This breakfast event will focus on discussing the benefits and challenges of collecting and analysing social mobility indicators. We are very pleased to have Dr Sam Friedman, associate professor in sociology at the London School of Economics, as our guest speaker. Sam’s research contributed to the UK Government’s consultation to develop a set of measures of social mobility in the workforce that were both useful indicators and feasible to ask staff.

The UK Government is driving a range of initiatives to improve diversity in the workplace as a means to increase productivity, and social mobility is an important part of their agenda. Financial services is an elite sector – a study from the Boston Consulting Group and the Sutton Trust suggested 37% of new recruits into the sector are privately educated, compared with 7% of the school population. Some firms in the sector are taking steps to be more socially inclusive in their hiring and work practices and measuring the socio-economic background of their existing workforce and applicant pools.