Does class matter these days

[Lord Edgington]

Interesting debate on R5 live
Evidently KPMG want at least a third of its workforce to be from a working class background
Does background matter in any way shape or form in employment these days ?

 

[pnesaint]

No, except in the aristocracy, landed gentry sense of the word. Just look at the number of MPs from 'working class' backgrounds.

 

[Lord Edgington]

No, except in the aristocracy, landed gentry sense of the word. Just look at the number of MPs from 'working class' backgrounds.

Interesting that KPMG have gone public with this?
Could it be down to job retention, loyalty, salary structure
There isn’t really a clue as to why

 

[raefil]

Class is permanent

 

[Lord Edgington]

Class is permanent

Or an edgyism
You can buy fashion
But you cannot buy style !
I started the thread (don’t start many) as I find it very interesting, I seem to recall reading somewhere that people from more working class backgrounds can be more reliable and loyal to the company - or maybe I imagined that up

 

[pnesaint]

How well you get on in life is down to two things - your own personality and what 'connections' you have.

There are any number of 'barrow boys' who have done well simply because of their 'can-do' approach to life and are now financially well-off. Similarly there are many 'trades' that pay better than professional jobs these days.

It also helps if you know someone who knows someone that can give you the proverbial leg-up in life either to get started or to get a promotion.

 

[jakehake]

KPMG defined working class as anyone with parents who held “routine and manual” jobs, such as plumbers, electricians, butchers and van drivers.

Yet plumbers and electricians now probably possess a greater set of qualifications and skills (and probably earn way more) than the middle class. A very arbitrary measure they've chosen that doesn't help give it any clarity

 

[Lord Edgington]

Yet plumbers and electricians now probably possess a greater set of qualifications and skills (and probably earn way more) than the middle class. A very arbitrary measure they've chosen that doesn't help give it any clarity

Funny isn’t it
Back in the day an engineering apprenticeship was five years
A degree in Latvian culture is three years
You can read a lot into that
Who is the “cleverest” of the two ?
On paper it’s the graduate who might find difficulty in finding their way home, let alone fixing a leaky tap
Yet all of the working class mob at school went through one door and the clever mob went through another
I’m a bit out of touch these days but I get the feeling KPMG have tried the graduate middle class strategy and it’s failed them ?

 

[jakehake]

Funny isn’t it
Back in the day an engineering apprenticeship was five years
A degree in Latvian culture is three years
You can read a lot into that
Who is the “cleverest” of the two ?
On paper it’s the graduate who might find difficulty in finding their way home, let alone fixing a leaky tap
Yet all of the working class mob at school went through one door and the clever mob went through another
I’m a bit out of touch these days but I get the feeling KPMG have tried the graduate middle class strategy and it’s failed them ?

Probably the same with all the consultancy type firms like Capita, Accenture and so on. Spent years mopping up a subset of graduates into their schemes who then all think and sound the same and provide no real spread of ideas.

That said it's part of a wider change in the scheme of things from what I can see. I'm a "Grad Scheme" starter a couple of decades ago yet what I joined with slowly dropped below the requirements. Then the same scheme has slowly died over time and they have changed it instead to picking up people before they go to Uni, presumably trying to offer the opportunity to avoid a student debt whilst acting like the knight in shining armour when in reality they are just trying to get the cream of the A level crop first. Also getting A level and apprenticeship type roles seems a shift in recruitment too, catch them as soon as possible basically.

But at the same time, much like the original KPMG story, if you pick up people at 16/18/21 and then funnel them all through the same training and ideology stuff, you just end up with even more corporate clones. Which seemingly isn't what they are actually trying to achieve

 

[Mer5eywhite]

Define working class. Arbitrary and thus stupid idea.

 

[Lord Edgington]

Probably the same with all the consultancy type firms like Capita, Accenture and so on. Spent years mopping up a subset of graduates into their schemes who then all think and sound the same and provide no real spread of ideas.

That said it's part of a wider change in the scheme of things from what I can see. I'm a "Grad Scheme" starter a couple of decades ago yet what I joined with slowly dropped below the requirements. Then the same scheme has slowly died over time and they have changed it instead to picking up people before they go to Uni, presumably trying to offer the opportunity to avoid a student debt whilst acting like the knight in shining armour when in reality they are just trying to get the cream of the A level crop first. Also getting A level and apprenticeship type roles seems a shift in recruitment too, catch them as soon as possible basically.

But at the same time, much like the original KPMG story, if you pick up people at 16/18/21 and then funnel them all through the same training and ideology stuff, you just end up with even more corporate clones. Which seemingly isn't what they are actually trying to achieve

You’ve lost me
When did god invent the eighteenth month 🤷‍♂️😀

 

[Portishead]

Define working class. Arbitrary and thus stupid idea.

I think KPMG are bright enough to define their own boundary to faciltate meeting the target. If you closed down public schools and Oxbridge overnight, you could dispense with any need for a spurious target.

 

[Joanpne]

I think this is a really interesting topic and one I’ve given a lot of thought to. I am absolutely a serious working class snob. I am immensely proud of being a Council kid, having nowt and working all my life. I struggle to look upwards because I see no deserved respect to someone that has been handed everything on a plate. I don’t get, nor will I ever understand how someone can spend £500 on a night out or £1000 on a pair of shoes whilst another person freezes to death on the streets in winter or, a mother has to go to a food bank to feed her kids and then retire to bed by 6pm just to stay warm. I will be honest I don’t look up to wealth or fame I look down on them. They will always be the lowest rank greedy class to me.

 

[outreacher]

Class is permanent

Your right for once Raef, I ooze with it,

 

[Lord Edgington]

Your right for once Raef, I ooze with it,

You don’t know the meaning of the word

 

[Nobber]

How well you get on in life is down to two things - your own personality and what 'connections' you have.

There are any number of 'barrow boys' who have done well simply because of their 'can-do' approach to life and are now financially well-off. Similarly there are many 'trades' that pay better than professional jobs these days.

It also helps if you know someone who knows someone that can give you the proverbial leg-up in life either to get started or to get a promotion.

And luck/bad luck

 

[Nobber]

I think this is a really interesting topic and one I’ve given a lot of thought to. I am absolutely a serious working class snob. I am immensely proud of being a Council kid, having nowt and working all my life. I struggle to look upwards because I see no deserved respect to someone that has been handed everything on a plate. I don’t get, nor will I ever understand how someone can spend £500 on a night out or £1000 on a pair of shoes whilst another person freezes to death on the streets in winter or, a mother has to go to a food bank to feed her kids and then retire to bed by 6pm just to stay warm. I will be honest I don’t look up to wealth or fame I look down on them. They will always be the lowest rank greedy class to me.

I could’ve written that x

 

[jakehake]

I could’ve written that x

You’ve got wooden floors and a flat screen TV though you massive (s)nob

 

[LostinSpace]

How well you get on in life is down to two things - your own personality and what 'connections' you have.

There are any number of 'barrow boys' who have done well simply because of their 'can-do' approach to life and are now financially well-off. Similarly there are many 'trades' that pay better than professional jobs these days.

It also helps if you know someone who knows someone that can give you the proverbial leg-up in life either to get started or to get a promotion.

Unless you want to be a politician.
The golden rule:
It’s not what you know,
It’s not who you know,
It’s what you know about who you know! 😂

 

[Nobber]

You’ve got wooden floors and a flat screen TV though you massive (s)nob

Through hard bloody work, not just myself but also my wife.

we had nowt, struggled like hell. But we are working class and proud. Nothing wrong with working hard and getting nice things, much better than being handed it all and looking down your nose at others with less fortune.