Catalyst Issue 10 | Page 20

At Santander , we don ’ t separate out emerging talent , learning and development or resourcing into separate teams . Instead , they all form part of a broader capability team , which examines the bank ’ s overall capability needs . This gives us a more holistic approach . Recruitment isn ’ t viewed as being separate from development ; rather , they are both potential solutions to wider business needs .
Within this model sits our emerging talent proposition , which covers everything from engagement with schools and work experience to apprenticeships and graduate intakes . What we are trying to do is to build a pipeline . We start by engaging with schools , offering a range of sessions which help students to understand the wider world of work .
This might then link into work experience , which takes place over a day , a week or four weeks , depending on the ages and interests of the students . Here , we aim to spark interest in Santander as an organisation , as well as encouraging young people to consider their own skill sets and abilities .
Work experience is one of our key drivers of social mobility . We work with a partner to identify cold spots in the UK – areas with a higher proportion of free school meals or lower incomes – that we actively target . The idea is to give young people whose parents don ’ t work in the corporate world the opportunity to learn about banking and finance . It ’ s about providing some inspiration .
We also use traineeships as a way of helping younger people who are not in work to gain workplace skills . It gives them an opportunity to gain an apprenticeship at the end of the traineeship . Through this scheme , we have helped more than 100 people and have created a pipeline into our call centre apprenticeships .
We ’ re trialling a different approach with our graduate programmes this year . We are working really closely with universities that have a higher proportion of students from more diverse backgrounds and creating a different pipeline that filters through to our recruitment .
We also work with partners such as AMS in order to evolve constantly and make our application processes fairer . One aspect is to make elements of this digital , with online assessments and gamification . We also have a blind-assessment process , which is automated at the beginning and removes an applicant ’ s university and details of their background . It helps to reduce unconscious human bias , while the gamification element allows applicants to demonstrate skills in a different way .
Previously , mathematical tests might have disadvantaged certain demographics . Gamification allows us to look at applicants ’ behaviours and attitude to risk in a more subtle way . How did you play the game ? How many times did you restart ? How often did you get the best score ? Why did you choose to go in a particular direction on the game ? Some of the traits revealed might be ones we want to see in certain roles .
Even when an applicant gets through to an assessment centre , we consider unconscious bias . The hiring managers in the process won ’ t necessarily be the ones the candidate will work with in the future . We also ensure that there are always two hiring managers working together at every stage of the process to try and minimise any bias .
Social mobility is a key aspect for Santander as an organisation . We recognise the value of having a more inclusive organisation , and I believe that social mobility helps you to tap into other diversity and inclusion agendas . If you think about ethnicity , gender , disability – social mobility wraps around all these issues . It won ’ t fix the problems , but it will help .
In addition , our customer base is everybody in the UK , so our employees need to represent that . We need our organisation to reflect who we are as a country and our customers . We need the diversity of thought and experience that people from different backgrounds bring to an organisation .
We began tracking social mobility statistics for emerging talent more than five years ago . Since then , our gender split is much improved and we ’ re nearly at a 50-50 split . We also bring a larger percentage of people from different ethnicities and social backgrounds into the organisation than we did previously . There ’ s more to be done , but things are moving in the right direction and this has been recognised through our ranking in the Social Mobility Foundation Index for several years now .

Catalyst Client Viewpoint

P

How Santander uses early stage engagement

to help social mobility

How is Santander using gamification and digital engagement to improve representation in its recruitment processes ? Iain Gallagher , Senior Manager , Emerging Talent , at Santander UK , explains .

At Santander , we don ’ t separate out emerging talent , learning and development or resourcing into separate teams . Instead , they all form part of a broader capability team , which examines the bank ’ s overall capability needs . This gives us a more holistic approach . Recruitment isn ’ t viewed as being separate from development ; rather , they are both potential solutions to wider business needs .
Within this model sits our emerging talent proposition , which covers everything from engagement with schools and work experience to apprenticeships and graduate intakes . What we are trying to do is to build a pipeline . We start by engaging with schools , offering a range of sessions which help students to understand the wider world of work .
This might then link into work experience , which takes place over a day , a week or four weeks , depending on the ages and interests of the students . Here , we aim to spark interest in Santander as an organisation , as well as encouraging young people to consider their own skill sets and abilities .
Work experience is one of our key drivers of social mobility . We work with a partner to identify cold spots in the UK – areas with a higher proportion of free school meals or lower incomes – that we actively target . The idea is to give young people whose parents don ’ t work in the corporate world the opportunity to learn about banking and finance . It ’ s about providing some inspiration .
We also use traineeships as a way of helping younger people who are not in work to gain workplace skills . It gives them an opportunity to gain an apprenticeship at the end of the traineeship . Through this scheme , we have helped more than 100 people and have created a pipeline into our call centre apprenticeships .

Gamification allows us to look at applicants ’ behaviours and attitude to risk in a more subtle way

Digital approach to diversity

We ’ re trialling a different approach with our graduate programmes this year . We are working really closely with universities that have a higher proportion of students from more diverse backgrounds and creating a different pipeline that filters through to our recruitment .
We also work with partners such as AMS in order to evolve constantly and make our application processes fairer . One aspect is to make elements of this digital , with online assessments and gamification . We also have a blind-assessment process , which is automated at the beginning and removes an applicant ’ s university and details of their background . It helps to reduce unconscious human bias , while the gamification element allows applicants to demonstrate skills in a different way .
Previously , mathematical tests might have disadvantaged certain demographics . Gamification allows us to look at applicants ’ behaviours and attitude to risk in a more subtle way . How did you play the game ? How many times did you restart ? How often did you get the best score ? Why did you choose to go in a particular direction on the game ? Some of the traits revealed might be ones we want to see in certain roles .
Even when an applicant gets through to an assessment centre , we consider unconscious bias . The hiring managers in the process won ’ t necessarily be the ones the candidate will work with in the future . We also ensure that there are always two hiring managers working together at every stage of the process to try and minimise any bias .

We need the diversity of thought and experience that people from different backgrounds bring to an organisation

Represent your customers

Social mobility is a key aspect for Santander as an organisation . We recognise the value of having a more inclusive organisation , and I believe that social mobility helps you to tap into other diversity and inclusion agendas . If you think about ethnicity , gender , disability – social mobility wraps around all these issues . It won ’ t fix the problems , but it will help .
In addition , our customer base is everybody in the UK , so our employees need to represent that . We need our organisation to reflect who we are as a country and our customers . We need the diversity of thought and experience that people from different backgrounds bring to an organisation .
We began tracking social mobility statistics for emerging talent more than five years ago . Since then , our gender split is much improved and we ’ re nearly at a 50-50 split . We also bring a larger percentage of people from different ethnicities and social backgrounds into the organisation than we did previously . There ’ s more to be done , but things are moving in the right direction and this has been recognised through our ranking in the Social Mobility Foundation Index for several years now .

The view from AMS : Dawn Pitchford , Client Operations Director Early Careers & Campus , AMS

Our AMS Emerging Talent partnership with Santander started back in 2015 . Since then , we have been able to work collaboratively to achieve a clear strategic direction across the wider early careers landscape , delivering and supporting many programmes ranging from graduates and internships to apprenticeships and work placements .

As a combined team , we have been able to provide innovative and progressive candidate offerings with a key focus on driving social mobility . Santander ’ s desire to open opportunities to all , and bravery in trying new methodologies , has allowed us to be fully digital , virtual and accessible to our applicants . We continue to evolve and grow the proposition every season and look forward to further building our emerging talent partnership .