Building a more equitable and inclusive society

Building an inclusive and more equitable Britain is deep rooted in our commitment to be a force for good because when our communities flourish, so does our business.

At DLG we have been raising awareness of social mobility related issues for a number of years after becoming signatories of the Social Mobility Pledge in 2020. This was when our Social Mobility strand was set up as part of the Diversity Network Alliance, with an aim to build a more diverse and inclusive culture and to assist with identifying, reducing and removing the barriers to career progression for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

 

Qoseen Akhtar is a performance consultant at Direct Line Group and also a member in the social mobility strand. Here she reflects upon her experience at DLG.

She says, "Social Mobility is when someone changes their social status – they move from one social ‘category’ to another. For me it means having the chances and opportunities to progress no matter where you come from. If you’re willing to work hard, learn and progress then there shouldn’t be barriers in your way. But for some, there are. We want to change that.

“The Social Mobility strand members are really focussed on what we can do to support those who are in situations they want to try and get out of. It could be as simple as mentoring someone on their CV or providing them with interview guidance. For me, it might be a small ask. For the person on the other end, it could lead to a life changing event.”

Direct Line Group are committed to making positive changes to break the class social barrier and have taken the following actions to support social mobility:

  • Through our Community Fund, DLG and the social mobility strand are able to team up with organisations who can support our aims of building a more equitable and inclusive Britain. We are proud that 275 employees have now collectively given up 1028 hours through volunteering.
  • We’re breaking down barriers to employment through work experience, insight days, skills development and mentoring, to support young people from a point of disadvantage to get access to the knowledge, skills, and networks they need to improve their life chances and employment prospects. So far over 3000 young peoples’ employability has been positively impacted by DLG’s Community Fund outreach work – with 54% having a parent with a working-class occupation, 82% eligible for free school meals, and 80% from an ethnic minority background.

Qoseen Akhtar,  Performance Consultant at Direct Line Group 

  • We’re focussing on enabling internal mobility by supporting our colleagues to develop critical future skills through our Ignite programme. Since the launch of our Ignite Programme in October 2022, nearly 200 colleagues have joined the Ignite community on Data, Business Transformation and Software Engineering apprenticeships.
 
  • To support inclusive recruitment, we’ve removed unnecessary educational requirements from job adverts and use augmented writing software to check for inclusive language. 
 
  • We’ve expanded the information we ask our people to share on our HR platform and now include socio-economic background information. This is so we can understand how well we represent society and where we see differences in outcomes for different communities, across areas such as recruitment, promotion, performance management and engagement, so we can take action to make things better.

 

As a Group we believe that people from disadvantaged backgrounds deserve a fair chance to realise their true potential. By celebrating diversity and inclusion across the business we can ensure we are truly representing our society while inspiring a pipeline of talent for the future.   

 

Find out more about our Community Fund here.