We were absolutely delighted when we found out that we made the shortlist for the ‘Small Business of the Year’ category at the UK Social Mobility Awards 2020, earlier this year. So, you can only imagine our reaction when we found out that we won our category last week!

The mission of the UK Social Mobility Awards is to promote the issue of social mobility and best practice, highlighting and celebrating those organisations and businesses who have made significant achievements in embedding social mobility as a core business strategy.

If you’ve been following along our journey for a while, you’ll know how important promoting social mobility is to us and how passionate the whole team feels about it.

We’ve only just recently launched our 40 Minute Mentor roundtable episode on social mobility, in which our fantastic panel discuss the numerous barriers people from underprivileged backgrounds must overcome as they attempt to build a career, why a degree isn’t the be all and end all, and what each and everyone of us can do to promote social mobility across our sectors and industries.

But our work isn’t done yet and we’re now more committed than ever before to do our bit to help advance social mobility, including:

• Working with our clients to ensure they’re recruiting from a truly diverse pool of talent and ensuring those from underrepresented communities are given greater access to opportunities
• Continue to mentor and encourage others to mentor those from disadvantaged backgrounds through amazing charities, like Making the Leap
• Record more 40 Minute Mentor podcast episodes championing mission driven firms and individuals who are advancing social mobility and the D&I agenda

We are over the moon to have won the ‘Small Business of the Year’ category, especially considering the calibre of fellow nominees in the category, including CyberWhite, TG Consulting Ltd, Easy Internet Services, Vercida Limited and Kids in Charge Ltd.

To find out more about the UK Social Mobility Awards, see a list of all finalists and winners, as well as find out how you can get involved in next year’s awards – take a look at their website at https://www.somo.uk/

And if you’d like to open the discussion further and share some of your own ideas on what we need to do to further social mobility, please feel free to get in touch at ku.oc.cmbj@ofni