This is according to Will Akerman, managing director at underrepresented talent specialist MyKindaFuture, who was speaking at a launch event yesterday at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre for its new strategy, ‘Project Elevate’. The strategy has been devised to help businesses achieve their diversity & inclusion goals, access pools of overlooked talent and improve attrition rates to boost their bottom line.

Akerman told the audience that while hirers may have thought they could get away with recruiting and promoting people, who followed the same career or education path, in today’s world where people no longer have a ceiling on their career expectations, this was no longer the case.

“That used to work just fine in previous generations when people knew their place in their society and had a ceiling of their own expectations of what they thought they could achieve, but that has completely changed and isn’t working anymore.

“In society – especially with young people – we no longer have an expected role; there isn’t an automatic place for us in society and we no longer live in the same geographic region. Even in MyKindaFuture we’re only 42 people strong but we’ve got people as far flung as Glasgow, Blackpool, Devon, Australia and South Africa, so people are mobile – not only in their expectations and their ceilings, but also geographically people are happy to move.

“Our parents and grandparents knew where they fitted into society. They stayed in their job and they stayed with their partner. They’ve had a family, and mothers very often stayed at home. Now the majority of people will have more than one personal relationship. They’ll have many jobs and will probably have more than one career. We don’t feel constrained. We don’t feel that ceiling and the biggest ambition is to live our best lives to be the best versions of ourselves.”

The firm also used the event to launch the latest version of its online platform, connectr, which aims to help employers attract, engage, upskill and mentor diverse talent. 

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