What defines our potential? Postcode vs genetic code
Whilst 2020 will be remembered as the year of Covid, it’s also the year (by no coincidence) that has brought fresh attention and conversation to systemic injustices experienced by millions of people within marginalised groups. Of course the most monumental of these movements is that of Black Lives Matter, but socioeconomic injustice has also been brought to mass attention like never before.... think
the A level grading algorithm
the 14% increase in deaths in the North vs the South of England in the first wave of the virus
the free school meals debacle
Should your postcode determine how successful you’ll be? Or worse.... whether you will live or die?
In this blog post I’m going to share some thinking on the algorithm that so nearly disproportionately disadvantaged hundreds of thousands of young adults from lower socioeconomic postcodes.
To really understand the impact of this, it’s important to understand this:
“Talent is equally distributed but opportunity is not” Leila Janah
A multitude of variables contribute towards a persons exam success; physical and environmental factors such as parental support, extra tuition, health and nutrition, as well as factors that have a genetic influence such as working memory, personality and cognition.
Therefore is student A equivalent to student B in terms of employability?
Student A is an individual from an affluent background who has average working memory and cognition, but receives excellent nutrition, world class tuition and exceptional parental support. Student A achieves an A in Maths.
Student B is from a lower socioeconomic background, who also demonstrates average levels of working memory and cognition, but has had little to no parental support, has a diet deficient in essential nutrients and has no extra tuition to support their learning. student B also achieves an A in Maths.
Most will agree that whilst identical in grade and cognitive capability, student B has had to overcome more to achieve the same. As an isolated example student B may in fact demonstrate more traits and behaviours conducive to success in the workplace such as resilience, tenacity and independence when compared to student A. Imagine what student B might achieve with proper nutrition and support?
You might then ask the question...how predictive are grades of a students future potential and performance within the workplace? The answer is not very. Evidence suggests that grades predict as little as 5% of a persons performance within the workplace. Why then, do we place so much emphasis on them?
If grades aren’t very predictive of overall performance in the workplace, why should we kick up a fuss about the algorithm that was designed to grade our students during the pandemic? Well, unfortunately most workplaces place disproportionate value on this indicator of performance, discounting other more predictive factors, with grades often used as a hard cutoff for crude filtering for graduate intakes.
The algorithm meant that Students from disadvantaged backgrounds were more likely to be downgraded. More than 1 in 10 of the most deprived students who would have achieved a C grade or above based on their teachers' predictions were downgraded, compared with 1 in 12 of the most privileged students.
Therefore, student B in the example above, was more likely to be downgraded to a grade B, simply by being in a lower socioeconomic area.
Thankfully after growing pressure from students, teachers and the general public, Ofqual and the government reversed the decision to use the algorithm to determine grades, but it serves as an ever increasing reminder that we need to educate employers on what factors accurately predict performance in the workplace.
With this in mind, we’ve written some top tips for employers who want to tap into the very best talent:
Practical Tips for organisations:
When filtering candidates, don’t just look at what people have achieved, but consider what they have overcome. Look beyond grades.
Think carefully about your selection criteria, does it really help you to predict performance? If you can’t prove that it does, don’t measure it.
The pandemic has made remote working open to the masses, capitalise on this by hiring those from outside of your usual geographical remit. If you’re an organisation based in the South East, make hires in the North, Wales, Scotland. Tap into talent previously unavailable to you due to proximity, there’s no longer a real need to relocate these people if you can make remote working work. However, be sure that if employing those from disadvantaged backgrounds that you can support them with the necessary equipment and support required to do the job.