Highland Spring Group signs Social Mobility Pledge to help boost opportunity across the UK

Highland Spring Group has committed to boosting opportunity by taking steps to boost social mobility in four key areas; outreach, access, recruitment and progression across its business.

Highland Spring Group joins the more than 700 other public and private sector employers, representing over 8 million employees and students, that have already signed up to the Pledge.

The commitments form part of the Social Mobility Pledge initiative, which was first launched by former Secretary of State for Education, Rt Hon Justine Greening in 2018. 

The Pledge aims to tackle Britain’s long standing social mobility crisis, where often an individual’s future prospects are too heavily linked to their past, by sharing best practice and encouraging organisations to go further to create a bigger local impact in their communities. 

Ms Greening pointed to recent research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) which shows that today if someone was born in a position of disadvantage, it will be harder now than at any point over the last half century to move up the social ladder.

The stark message from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) in the new report reveals how entrenched poor social mobility remains in many parts of the country. In response, Justine Greening has renewed her call on more organisations to step up and put in place measures to support access and progression in the workplace. 

Employers like Highland Spring Group who have signed the Pledge, commit to taking steps to boost opportunity in four key areas: outreach, access, recruitment and progression. 

Signatories from the business world include companies like bp plc, Centrica plc, Flutter Entertainment, the BBC, The Adecco Group, the Co-operative Group and Teleperformance.

Universities are also well represented, with University of Greenwich, Staffordshire University, Loughborough University and Liverpool John Moores University among those institutions that have signed the Social Mobility Pledge. 

Justine Greening said: “Achieving true social mobility in Britain and levelling up our country is a huge challenge but one that Britain’s employers are rising to.

“Employers like Highland Spring Group have a crucial role to play and can be an incredible force for good in spreading opportunities more evenly across communities and to people that have missed out for far too long.

“I hope many more employers will follow Highland Spring Group’s lead and consider how they can go further, faster in being a force for good.”

Ms Greening, who grew up in Rotherham, was the first member of her family to go to university and later became the first Secretary of State for Education to be comprehensively educated. 

Simon Oldham, Managing Director, Highland Spring Group said: “We are committed to improving social mobility within our own business and the local community so becoming a signatory of the pledge is a natural step forward in our journey to make a positive difference in this area. We know that businesses have a huge role to play in creating sustainable change and we will continue to take actions that have a positive impact for people, society and the planet.”