Richard Rowntree, MD, at specialist buy-to-let lender Paragon laid the groundwork for the session outlining his own personal experiences and the work the lender has been doing on social mobility, diversity and inclusivity in-house.
“Those that are not from a professional background progress 25 per cent slower than their peers, and that’s not related to performance,” said Rowntree.
He added: “And this is that bit about fit and polish and conforming to that sort of cultural norm prevalent in the firm. It doesn’t matter if you’re working for a small family business or a multi-national bank. You adapt your way and your style to fit what you think works in that organisation, because that’s how you get on right?”
“But just think about how much energy that takes to potentially hide your background and try and fit into what you think of these cultural norms are, when that could be invested into your job, into your career, or into yourself. So, there’s a lot a lot of wasted effort that we think you could tap into and just forget the business case for this,” he added.
Rowntree said the raft of brilliantly talented people driving fantastic results that get held back in their organisations just can’t be right. Moving away from ‘group think’ has to be good not just in terms of the results of better management inside firms, but also the outcomes for customers on sprawling issues like Consumer Duty.
“The more we can represent our community when building products, I think it’s got to be a positive,” he said.
Rowntree said when you report back, post-event you can make a business case with data to create a social mobility initiative inside your own firm. He added ProgressTogether.co.uk, a membership body focusing on progression, retention and socio-economic diversity in financial services, can offer this data and the tools and benchmarking to get started.
He added, to effect real change, members have to show real commitment.
“One of the things we’re very aware of with the financial services sector is we didn’t want firms to pay their membership, put a logo on the website and go: ‘I’ll be great.’ They need to take action,” he said.
Progress Together membership at a firm-level is about agreeing to champion the cause, collect data inside your company and attend webinars and half-day workshops to further understand the work that can be done. Rowntree outlined the importance of leadership and mentoring to the cause and pointed out everyone wins from a mentoring relationship, including hugely boosted promotional prospects for mentors.
The value of lived experience
The second half of the DIFF event was an experimental debate, called a fishbowl, with a format intended to break down barriers to emotional debate. Our chosen speakers sat on seats in the middle, surrounded by the rest of our delegates in a concentric circle, in a bid to break down the mental perception of barriers created by a stage separated from an audience.
Our key speakers included Kevin Roberts, managing director, mortgages, Legal and General Mortgage Club, Rachel Geddes, founder and owner, Global Mortgage Management, Rob Gill, managing director at Altura Mortgage Finance, Chloe Timperley, senior policy adviser, Association of Mortgage Intermediaries and Dina Bhudia, CEO at P2M.
AMI’s Chloe Timperley, currently helming the launch of the Association’s industry-wide mentoring scheme alongside the membership body’s stated bid to drive up cross-sectoral behavioural standards, said social mobility is absolutely tied to geographic mobility.
“All the best opportunities seem to be down south, and especially when you get to those senior levels, and when you get into those big corporations where all those opportunities are concentrated.”
She added that social mobility is also strongly tied to parental support onto the housing ladder, adding, “We all know the power of the Bank of Mum and Dad.”
“So we’re talking about stalling career progression,” she said. “We’re talking about people getting into their 30s. And sort of thinking I want to put down roots somewhere, but there’s no way I can afford to buy a house in London near to my fancy corporate job. So, I’m going to have to leave this job and try and find something in my local hometown, where I can afford a house, and that brings you back to my situation, where I managed to get a house in Sheffield,” said Timperley.
Dina Bhudia, CEO of mortgage broker P2M said her south Asian background, culture and faith had technically suppressed her and inhibited her belief in herself from the very beginning. She told a personal tale of not living up to parental expectations on university, to the inflexible working life at a bank, making career progression impossible as a working mother, to facing every-day sexism from male Asian clients telling her they didn’t want to speak to her in her current role.
The debate went on to circle the power of confidence and the undermining effect of imposter syndrome. Bhudia added that feeling excluded is a vulnerability, making the next generation very fragile, “because they, on top of everything, they use social media to get validation.”
The debate turned to people management and Altura’s Rob Gill reflected that he had a major revelation a few years ago.
“Where you’d start managing people and you’d have a team of six, seven, eight and someone would always have a problem. You can end up with a lot of issues,” he mused.
“But actually, the light bulb moment is realising that your job is sorting out people’s personal problems. That’s almost 80 per cent of the job of a manager. They’re already good at their job. They can do it. They’re trained. They’re diligent. They’re organised. They’re motivated, So, what you need to do is try and help them with their personal problems and remove those obstacles, so they can get on with the day job.”
On helping people less used to performing to order, which is the format of a traditional a job interview, PR consultant Simone Fassom said preparing for interviews was a skill that needed to be taught and would open up new diverse talent pool to companies.
She added: “I am neurodivergent and autistic and if you’re able to prepare a candidate in advance and say these are the kinds of questions we might be asking [in the interview]. We want you to tell us about this. These are the people you’re going to be meeting. I think we can put any number of people at ease in preparation for that.
“It could be that they have a disability, or it could be that they’re from a socio-economic background which makes them feel I can’t achieve this, but actually give them time to just go away and do the preparation and they’ll nail it.”
The value of role modelling and reverse mentoring was also drawn out by another delegate, who said having a managing director who understands life from your perspective is invaluable for every firm.
She said to Bhudia: “As a female black woman, coming from a different background, big congratulations to you. You need to see it to believe it. If I don’t see it, I can’t aim for it. You are definitely a role model for all of us.”
Five takeaways
• Companies must encourage and benchmark social mobility by collecting and collating data on employees
• Mentoring and reverse-mentoring ought to be employed to increase employee awareness of obstacles to social mobility
• Barriers to the property market have become obstacles to social mobility and career moves
• Individual managers need to help their reports hurdle professional and personal obstacles to progression
• Consider a more supportive, instructional recruitment style
