Standard Life named “Social Mobility Champion”

Edinburgh-based insurance giant Standard Life has been recognised as one of 11 Social Mobility Business Compact Champions across the UK by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

The news follows a 12 month assessment against a demanding set of criteria that considered leadership, recruitment practices, out-reach and work experience, culminating in a panel review led by BIS.

The Social Mobility Business Compact aims to give all young people fair and open access to employment opportunities and Standard Life is the only company based in Scotland and the only investment company to have achieved the “Champion” status.

Welcoming the recognition, Sandy Begbie, chief people officer, Standard Life, said: “We’re immensely proud of this achievement. We’ve made an ongoing commitment to help break down barriers to employment and completing the rigorous process for this Champion award recognises both the significant steps we’ve been taking and the success of our approach in achieving positive outcomes all round. We couldn’t have done this without the support of our people and the partners we work with.”

“We’ve been leading on issues such as the UK Living Wage and have ensured that all our young interns and apprentices receive this as a minimum. We believe that building a diverse and inclusive workforce is crucial to our culture and our future business success, and we want to attract talent from across the board. Supporting young people into work, irrespective of background, is an important aspect of that.

“As part of our approach we’ve introduced new recruitment practises and built on the success of intern initiatives like the Edinburgh Guarantee Scheme to help more school leavers. We offer Modern Apprenticeships and Traineeships to encourage young people to pursue technical and specialist career routes, including 12-month work placements at Standard Life Investments through the Investment 2020 initiative. Early last year we also supported the launch of a Young Persons Development Network.

“Establishing strategic partnerships with organisations like Skills Development Scotland and Career Ready has been key to us making such good progress, enabling our people to use their skills to support school children and young people at crucial points in their lives, while gaining greater insight into the challenges many young people face. Over the past few years we’ve also built several charitable partnerships focused on supporting younger people. The work of organisations like SkillForce, Prince’s Trust and Tomorrow’s People are great examples of the real difference support at the right point can make when it comes helping young people build resilience and reach their potential.”

The Social Mobility Business Compact calls on businesses to:

The champion tier of the Social Mobility Compact was launched in 2014 to increase the pace of change and encourage businesses to go further in their efforts to improve social mobility.

Mr Begbie added: “Our recognition as a Social Mobility Compact Champion will sit proudly alongside our Gold ‘Investors in Young People’ award as testament to our culture, our people and our innovation. Everyone deserves the opportunity to work and to realise their potential and it’s clear that tackling barriers to social mobility is the right thing to do and brings real business benefit. We would encourage all organisations to get involved with this initiative and to make social mobility part of their DNA.”