Co-op store staff

The opportunity effect

How social mobility can help drive business and the economy forward

At Co-op, we’ve long been advocates of fairness in society. That is why social mobility is a core part of our strategy.

It’s also why we’ve partnered with Demos, to develop a new report – The Opportunity Effect – which takes a fresh approach by exploring the economic benefits of improved social mobility for businesses.

We want the findings of this report to inspire business leaders and Government to take collective action to promote social mobility in the workplace. And that’s not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it makes economic sense.

The Opportunity Effect builds on the work we have already done and marks a key milestone in our campaign to promote social mobility.

Shirine Khoury-Haq, CEO of the Co-op, said:

“This report marks an important moment in the UK’s productivity debate and puts social mobility at the heart of that discussion. It shows that breaking down barriers to opportunity can be a booster for the UK’s economy and for business performance.

“At Co-op, we’ve made social mobility a core part of our strategy, becoming the first retailer to publish a socio-economic pay gap report. Being able to support colleagues when they need it, and in particular women, helps retain valuable talent and makes good business sense. But we cannot do it alone. We ask that businesses, the public sector and government work collaboratively to embed support for greater social mobility within our working cultures. It cannot be right that our life chances are often defined by our backgrounds, and this is an open goal of an opportunity that we must take action on.”

Key findings

  • Increasing social mobility in workplaces could boost the UK economy by £19bn and UK business profits by £1.8bn annually.
  • Potential £6.8bn increase in tax revenues, enough to fund 100,000 teachers or 900,000 school places.
  • 29% of consumers are more likely to buy from companies promoting social mobility.
  • 76% of senior business leaders believe social mobility would help attract and retain staff and 71% believe it would aid business results.
  • 64% of senior business leaders support at least five strategies to increase social mobility.

Help us spread the word

Whether you’re a success story yourself, you’re proud of friends and family who are, you’re in a business excelling in this space, or you’re simply passionate about the movement to improve social mobility, download our toolkit to help spread the word and have your say.

Recommendations

To make progress, we need the business community to be on board and to be supported by a favourable policy environment. Through this research, we want to demonstrate that breaking down barriers to opportunity can have a positive impact on the UK’s economy.

Our recommendations to government outline various ways to make this happen:

  1. Give the new Skills England body a statutory responsibility to improve outcomes for those from lower socio-economic backgrounds to spread opportunity throughout the country.
  2. Create a Better Opportunities Fund, to deliver the government’s mission of ‘breaking down barriers to opportunities’.
  3. Consult on minimum training and skills expenditure per worker for large employers.
  4. Introduce a lower rate of business rates for social enterprises and co-operatives to boost social mobility.
  5. Ensure that increasing social mobility is considered as part of the social value calculation for government procurement.
  6. Consult on expanding pay gap reporting to socio-economic backgrounds as the government expands reporting to ethnic minority and disability pay gaps.
  7. Businesses should be encouraged to ask job applicants to voluntarily share information about their socio-economic background, such as their parents’ occupation.
  8. Create a ‘Social Mobility Data Lab’ to bring together data and information from across the public sector, business and civil society.

The Opportunity Effect

Download ‘The Opportunity Effect’ report here

Read our full story here

Read more about our Social Mobility work and campaigns here