A specialist warns that UK efforts to boost social mobility within companies may collapse unless the connection between leadership styles and workplace culture receives urgent attention. While the Social Mobility Commission has introduced updated guidance, Petra Wilton, the Chartered Management Institute’s policy director, said the report overlooked the extent to which “accidental managers” shaped workplace culture.
The commission’s analysis, titled The Role of Employers and Workplace Practices in Social Mobility, examines how businesses and workplace policies contribute to economic disparities and mobility challenges across the UK. Though employers have long played a part in social mobility, the report acknowledges a lack of full research on their specific impact in this area.
Frontline Leadership and Cultural Influence
The commission noted that while firms are increasingly gathering data on employees’ socio-economic backgrounds, accurately assessing these factors remains difficult. Parental occupation remains the most reliable—though imperfect—metric for evaluation.
Economic Origins and Career Trajectories
The report revealed persistent wage gaps, with individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds earning less than peers in identical roles, regardless of measurable qualifications. Socio-economic status also hindered career advancement, delaying promotions to senior positions and restricting access to influential professional networks for those from lower-income families.
Petra Wilton said: “When managers lack formal training, they risk falling back on informal networks and unwritten rules that can lock out talented individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds.” She emphasized that developing managerial skills to ensure fair hiring and promotion decisions isn’t merely ethical; it’s strategically beneficial, expanding talent pools and supporting organizational growth.
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Petra Wilton said: “Across the UK, 82% of managers are ‘accidental managers’, promoted for their technical expertise rather than their ability to lead people. As the Commission’s evidence underlines, workers from lower socio-economic backgrounds frequently encounter invisible progression barriers, opaque appraisals, and poorer relationships with their line managers.”
Guidance for Businesses
The commission’s review recommended an overhaul of its employer toolkit on socio-economic background, focusing on equality of opportunity, fair treatment and evidence-based practices rather than diversity alone. The review made recommendations for organisations, including: a renewed focus on equality of opportunity; promote evidence-based practice; encourage employers to measure socio-economic background; identify inequalities and evaluate interventions. Transparency and accountability must underpin the approach, it said. Industry-specific toolkits should be replaced with guidance on recruitment, progression, pay-setting and job quality, the commission recommended. Also, measurement should be upgraded, with free school meals removed as a measure.
The report found limited evidence that specific workplace interventions consistently improved social mobility or delivered business benefits. It concluded that a stronger evidence base was needed to help employers and policymakers identify which workplace practices reduced socio-economic inequalities and improved equality of opportunity. Rather than prescribing universal solutions, the revised toolkit would help employers measure inequalities, choose interventions and evaluate their impact.
The review was authored by Mark Williams, professor of human resource management at Queen Mary Business School in London. Though the Social Mobility Commission will be succeeded by the Class Unit within the Office for Equality and Opportunity, its formal dissolution won’t occur until after April 2027, following the completion of current legal obligations and new legislative frameworks.
Subscribers can access the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday Adam McCulloch first worked for Personnel Today magazine in the early 1990s as a sub editor. He rejoined Personnel Today as a writer in 2017, covering all aspects of HR but with a special interest in diversity, social mobility and industrial relations. His interest in industrial relations traces back to 1984, when, as a temporary facility worker for the National Coal Board, he witnessed a tense exchange between Arthur Scargill and NCB chairman Ian McGregor during a conference setup.
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