A far from standard approach...

During one of those corporate ‘deep, long look at the business’ moments, investment savings business Standard Life realised that it didn’t have that many young people among its numbers any more. How did that happen? Because, according to Sandy MacDonald, head of sustainability, the business had stopped being a traditional school entry point.
“We weren’t heavily recruiting in those areas where we’d traditionally been first port of call for school leavers, ie in customer service and IT. In past years these areas were more densely staffed but changes in technology had meant we had fewer opportunities in these areas and therefore we were not the immediate point of entry we once were,” he explains.
This realisation coincided with the government of the day writing to every FTSE100 company asking them to address the issue of youth unemployment.
One of the first steps Standard Life took was to sign up to the Edinburgh Guarantee scheme, the Scottish capital being home to the company’s corporate HQ which is home currently to 4,500 staff.
The Edinburgh Guarantee is a partnership between local businesses and The City of Edinburgh Council, offering recent school leavers paid work experience for six months - which Standard Life pays at the UK Living Wage level. Over the two years since its first candidates joined in February 2012, it has started 93 young people on its scheme.
Many of those who have already completed the scheme have gone on to permanent jobs with the company. The others have moved to further employment, training or higher education. “The scheme gave us added impetus,” says MacDonald.
In numbers the change is most marked in 2007/2008 when there were 592 unemployed school leavers; in September 2014, due to the scheme, there were just 230.
Standard Life has now built the scheme into its business model.
Standard Life’s position in pioneering social mobility is not just about employment, maintains MacDonald: “It’s about progressing up the career ladder and helping people break out of traditional set work patterns of progress. In the UK, people in low paid jobs often stay in them, resulting in a cycle of low pay. It’s about breaking that model.”
So, as an employer there are different routes Standard Life can take. “We can fund programmes and we can build programmes,” says MacDonald. For example Standard Life’s work with the Career Academies and the Prince’s Trust, create steps towards getting a job – be it at Standard Life or elsewhere. “What we do is about layering interventions. It’s not always about creating opportunities for people at Standard Life, but it’s about a more general, bigger picture in its bid ‘to build more prosperous futures’, the business’s ‘why’,” explains MacDonald.
Another example of this approach is Standard Life’s recognition as a “Living Wage” employer in the UK from the Living Wage Foundation. In implementing its UK Living Wage policy, the business is aiming to support those at the lower end of the earnings spectrum and has also gone beyond the basic requirements for formal accreditation, by including all interns in its approach.
Government data shows that in real terms, average weekly earnings in the UK have fallen by 8% since 2008 - by 2013 they had backtracked to 2002 levels in real terms (Source: ONS Patterns of Pay report). The UK Living Wage aims to counteract the impact that a rise in the cost of living has on lower earners in a way that the Minimum Wage does not. The Minimum Wage in the UK (which kicks in at 21 years) is currently £6.31 an hour in the UK, but the UK Living Wage, which is set independently and calculated in accordance to the basic cost of living in the UK, is considerably higher at £7.65, rising to £8.80 in London.
Standard Life first introduced the UK Living Wage in April 2012. Since then, it has worked to ensure that all people providing contracted services on its premises, such as catering, cleaning and security, are paid at least the UK Living wage.
Standard Life has also extended its UK Living Wage policy to include all school leavers and graduates on its intern programmes.
In addition to its policy on the UK Living Wage, Standard Life has committed to not employing anyone on a zero-hours contract too and has already agreed with one of its key providers that they will also embrace this commitment.
Standard Life also works with SkillForce, a smaller funding project that falls within the business’s employability remit. “It’s about closing attainment gaps,” says MacDonald. “It helps provide employment opportunities for military veterans as well as helps schools to raise attainment levels in English and Maths with pupils who are disengaged with the educational process.”
Standard Life also takes part in Career Academies which involves senior managers mentoring students in the transition to the workplace from school. Currently there are 13 senior managers mentoring in Edinburgh.
While a lot of activity is focused around the company’s Edinburgh HQ, where it has the opportunity to scale ideas, Standard Life is also active in other parts of the UK.
“There are fewer opportunities available for school leavers because of the nature of the roles we have in our London offices,” says MacDonald. “So what we’ve done there is to work with the Prince’s Trust and to fund a subsidy programme to match young people with work experience or jobs in SMEs. Smaller organizations find it more difficult to take a gamble on taking on a young person, so our funding helps take away some of the dilemma. The Prince’s Trust does the matching. It’s very innovative and has resulted in some organizations taking on some people even without the subsidy.”
Recently Standard Life was recognised as one of 12 Social Mobility Business Compact ‘Champions’ in the UK, lauding the work it’s been doing through programmes such as the Edinburgh Guarantee and the Standard Life Investments work programme as well as its support for Modern Apprentices and its partnerships with organizations such as the Prince’s Trust.
“We’ve helped raise the issue of social mobility as a concept,” adds MacDonald. “The foundation of our business is to save to invest. We don’t have a sustainable business if there is a persistent underclass. Helping people towards work, helps towards a more prosperous society which is core to our own sustainability.”