People Like Us: What it Takes to Make it in Modern Britain

In this episode I talk to barrister and author Hashi Mohamed about his book ‘People Like Us: What it Takes to Make it in Modern Britain’. We also cover other fascinating topics including privilege, social mobility and the cost of code-switching in the workplace.

If you're enjoying this episode and looking to boost equity, inclusion, and diversity in your organisation, my team and I are here to help. Our team specialises in crafting data-driven strategies, developing inclusive leaders, designing fair recruitment processes, and enhancing disability confidence. With a blend of professional expertise and lived experience, we're ready to support you on your journey. Reach out to us through our website. 

If you want to build a more inclusive workplace that you can be proud of please visit our website to learn more.

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to The Inclusive Growth Show with Toby Mildon, future-proofing your business by creating a diverse workplace.

Toby Mildon: Hey there, thank you ever so much for tuning into this episode of The Inclusive Growth podcast. I am really excited to be introducing you today's guest, a guy called Hashi Mohammed, who I met at an event that one of my clients organized, that we were both co-panelists. So, Hashi is a barrister. He is a broadcaster and an Author. He was born in Nairobi, in Kenya, and then he moved to the UK when he was nine years old. His first book is called, People Like Us: What it takes to Make it in Modern Britain. And in his book, he uses his own personal experiences as a blueprint to unpack the realities of living as a refugee in Britain, and the unwritten rules of British society. It's a book worth getting. It was also book of the week, so you can catch up with that on BBC Radio 4 as well. So, Hashi thanks ever so much for joining me today. Before we get into the interview itself, could you just introduce yourself a little bit more, so that the person listening to us right now gets to know you.

Hashi Mohammed: Yes, I am Hashi Mohammed And in addition to everything you've said, I'm a planning lawyer practicing in London, working on various aspects to do with trying to build houses, infrastructure projects, and trying to improve our townscape, cities and villages across the country.

Hashi Mohammed: I also write regularly for major newspapers and media outlets, and I've also published, of course, not only just the book that you've mentioned now, but also a recent book called, A Home of One's Own: Why the Housing Crisis Matters. So that's me, and I'm very, very much happy to be here discussing Inclusive Growth and other aspects today.

Toby Mildon: Thanks, Hashi it is lovely to see you. So, let's dive straight into the interview. You arrived in the UK when you were nine. Could you just share with us your personal experience and how privilege has impacted your upbringing.

Hashi Mohammed: Yeah, thank you very much for that very thoughtful question, Toby. I came to the UK as a nine year old boy who had just lost his father because my father had died in a car crash, and we came without my mom, and we came in that early wave of Somalis who came as refugees, and so in a way, there wasn't much privilege in the way that we started out. We came to Britain without any English, without any understanding of the culture, without any understanding of how things work. And so, it was an incredibly difficult starting point. But I suppose one way of looking at it would have been to say there was zero privilege at that point, but another way of looking at it was at least we got out safe and at least we were healthy, we were still alive, and there was still an opportunity to try and re-make our lives. So, in that sense, I guess I could say I was privileged, but not in the way that we might understand privilege as a whole.

Toby Mildon: So, how do you define socio-economic status, how is this compounded by ethnicity.

Hashi Mohammed: Yeah, I think for me, socio-economic status can be a range of things, but predominantly it's really about how it relates to social mobility. And what I mean by that is social mobility in relative terms, it's about how well do you do in comparison to your parents, how well have you traveled compared to where your parents might have been. Your parents might have done menial jobs or working class jobs, or jobs that are not professional, and then you go on to become a professional, a barrister, a doctor, or one of the other professional classes. And so, in that sense, your socio-economic status changes, it doesn't necessarily mean your class changes, but your income changes, how society perceives you changes and so on. But if we look at that in terms of ethnicity, you are less likely to be in the top professions, if you are of a particular race or background, because your socio-economic status to start with, if you're growing up on free school meals, if you're growing up on benefits, if you're growing up in a relatively deprived place, the likelihood of that being compounded by your race or your class is massive, and I think that's part of the conversations that we need to have about what it means to make it in modern Britain.

Toby Mildon: Like you say the different parenting styles from middle class and working class create social inequality amongst children. In your book, you talk about concerted cultivation, what is the impact of these different parenting styles on individual's careers? 

Hashi Mohammed: Yeah, I think what I talk about in terms of the idea of concerted cultivation is that if you are from a working class background, as compared to somebody who might be from a middle class or upper middle class background, and for example, your parents are professionals as opposed to your parents not being professional workers, it means that as a child a lot of things are passed down to you, whether it's a mindset, whether it's a way of doing things, whether it's how you speak and how you might cultivate relationships and how you might relate to other people, that makes a massive difference to your trajectory. So for me, when I talk about the social inequalities, we can't just sort of understand that via, just the education system. Social inequalities must be understood from all angles, including how cultural cultivation, connections, social and cultural capital can make a massive difference in how far you go and how well you do and what that looks like.

Toby Mildon: In your book, you talk a lot about privilege, and I just wanna read out a really great quote from your book. "We live in a society where the single greatest indicator of what your job will be is the job of your parents, where power and privilege are concentrated among the 7% of the population who were privately educated, where if your name sounds Black or Asian, you'll need to send out twice as many job applications as your White neighbors". That's really a profound statement. Now according to a survey of 5000 people conducted in 2018 by the social mobility barometer, over half of us think that Central government should be doing more on social mobility, and 36% think that employers should be doing more. Now, what are some of the biggest challenges organizations face when trying to address class and privilege within the workplace? 

Hashi Mohammed: I think some of the biggest challenges that organizations might face relate to how they understand the society in which they're meeting, we cannot expect an organization to overnight transform how they recruit, who they recruit, from where they recruit, and how all of that relates to one another, because ultimately, any organization, any professional organization, still has to function in a world that is profoundly unequal, they still have to function in an environment that's profoundly kind of skewed in favor of some people in society than the other. And so, we always have to be very careful about just simply expecting that they will be able to resolve the issues of society overnight, and I think that's part of the big challenges that I think organizations struggle with when they are trying to address the issues of class and privilege.

Toby Mildon: So, how do you think organizations should go about creating a more equitable work place for people from different socio-economic backgrounds? 

Hashi Mohammed: I think there are various ways they can do that, I think they need to be alert to, as I said, the inequalities and the issues that exist in society, they need to re-adjust their work practices, their recruitment practices, their HR policies, to be able to understand that not to make special pleading or not to make necessarily a kind of recruitment rigorous process less rigorous for certain people simply because they belong to a particular class or race or gender, but they need to adjust it in a way that understands that all these people are not turning up at your boardrooms and at interview equal. So, I think that's important. I think addressing any unconscious bias is quite important, understanding that we are profoundly prejudiced society, not just in terms of any particularly sort of conscious bias, but unconscious bias in the sense that we all are prejudiced. I am prejudiced, you are prejudiced, people listening to this are prejudiced in some ways, whatever that might be. But the real level of consciousness that allows people to get to a different level to understanding society best, is those who understand that and then deal with that address that and not hide from it and pretend it doesn't exist. And then of course, you've got to have mentoring systems internally and externally that help people learn about how best to improve their own circumstances, how to help their colleagues understand things better.

Hashi Mohammed: So there are so many different things to do, but the most important one I would add to all of that is, organisations need to understand this is a marathon, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. It will take time, there will be false starts, it will be two steps forward, three steps back. But we'll get there. You just gotta keep going.

Toby Mildon: I'm glad you mentioned prejudice, 'cause when I was working at the BBC, and I did unconscious bias training for the first time, I found out that I was mildly biased against disabled people, which was quite shocking for me because I was born with my disability, I've hang out with loads of disabled people. Yet I've got this bias, and when I spoke to a psychologist about it, she explained to me that it was because of the society that I've grown up in.

Hashi Mohammed: Of course.

Toby Mildon: A society that is ableist, a society that's been designed by largely By non-disabled people, of course, through social conditioning, the films that I've watched, the role models in society high up in business and politics and things like that, I've adopted these biases.

Hashi Mohammed: And that's a normal human thing to do. It happens to all of us, but it takes a different level of consciousness, like I said, and a profound understanding of who you are to come to terms with the notion that you understand that.

Toby Mildon: So what do you believe individuals could do to advocate for more equitable workplaces and challenge class and privilege within their own organization? 

Hashi Mohammed: Yeah, I think this is quite important. Individuals like myself, I can't speak for anyone else, but individuals like myself, for example, if I've made it so-called, made it in the professions and now I'm sitting at the table whereby I am supposedly a barrister in the professional context. And working in a particularly, well sought after elitist profession, I should be able to stand up and say, "I've made it, but here are all the challenges that I faced and here are the ways in which we can overcome that". It's not enough for me to just simply sit there and say, "I've made it, everyone else can make it, if only they're just willing to work hard enough", that's just not how society works. So, I think the most important thing that individuals can do to advocate for a more equitable workplace is to speak the truth, to address the issues in the most inclusive way, you don't wanna alienate people, but challenge, raise the issues and speak your truth in terms of how you've come to your place without it being a simplistic answer of just saying, "I've made it, so can you, it's all fine".

Toby Mildon: Absolutely. I'd love to go on and talk to you now about pay disparities.

Hashi Mohammed: Yes Please.

Toby Mildon: It's well understood that social class is often correlated with earnings and career progression, so the more money that you come from the better positioned you're likely to be. So, according to the UK Social Mobility Commission, those from working class backgrounds are still paid 2,242 pounds less than a more privileged colleague and women and ethnic minority people and those working in finance, medicine and IT are especially hurt by this disparity. In the UK, the civil service, only 18% of senior staff come from low socio-economic backgrounds, and the Gulf has widened since the 1960s, but even getting on the radar isn't enough because of persistent biases and the lack of support structures. In job sectors as diverse as law and theater, the few working class people who do get their foot in the door are often isolated. So, one crucial way to address this class gap is to understand how socio-economically diverse a company's workforce is, so why don't companies do it? 

Hashi Mohammed: Well I think it's because I really like to always think positively about why certain organizations don't do certain things. Right? I'm always very positive to be able to say, actually, if somebody is not addressing an issue, it isn't necessarily because of a nefarious or calculated negative reason, I tend to think it's three parts really, I tend to think that organizations don't do it because they don't know how. And that's why I think the work that you do Toby, to try and raise awareness to do the training for organizations is so important. So, I think sometimes they just don't know how to do it.

Hashi Mohammed: Secondly, I think a lot of organizations could be cynical, they're looking for quick wins, they just wanna sort of say, "We've hired a few Black people, we've hired a few disabled people, we've hired a couple of women. It's all fine now. What's the problem? There's nothing to see here. Keep it moving kind of thing". And I think that's the laziness that also holds back a lot of these organizations. And then thirdly, I think there's also an element of really not having the kind of wisdom to know that this will take a long time, that you need outside help, that you should be focused on certain ways, even despite your internal organizations, different priorities, but perhaps the most important aspect of all of this put together is the simple point that once you get to a stage where you are seriously addressing this issue of pay disparity of diversity issues, of becoming a more inclusive society.

Hashi Mohammed: The proof is in the pudding, there's plenty of research that's been done by McKinsey and The Bridge Group and others that show if you are a much more diverse workforce, that you are a much more sort of inclusive workforce, you will do better, you will make more money, you will attract better talent, you will be a pioneer and you will go on to do amazing things. And I think that is the critical part for me. And so, organizations need to understand that having a more socio-economically diverse workforce is in your best interest, and you will go further.

Toby Mildon: I totally agree with you, and that's why I wrote my book, Inclusive Growth, because I wanted to reframe diversity and inclusion for organizations that if they get it right, it will help that organization grow and thrive, and ultimately make an impact in the world.

Hashi Mohammed: Absolutely.

Toby Mildon: The three things that you raised really resonated with me, a lot of organizations that I talk to just don't know how to go about this, they don't know where to begin, there is a lot of cynicism, and I think that translates to some people feel like organizations or senior leaders in a business are just trying to tick a box, it feels very tick-boxy.

Hashi Mohammed: The tick box exercise, I think is the bit that really is quite galling because, it's cynical. It's really cynical.

Toby Mildon: I think. Yeah, the other element is actually fear. There's quite a lot of fear. People don't wanna say the wrong thing, they don't wanna cause offense. They don't wanna look daft. And as a senior leader, they're not necessarily showing vulnerability by potentially looking a bit stupid by saying the wrong thing.

Hashi Mohammed: Yeah, I can see that.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, let's go on and talk about measuring the class gap within organizations. So, KPMG and PWC, they are striving to diversify the class background of their UK employees. PWC uses the age 14 metric and has a class pay gap greater than its gender pay gap or ethnicity pay gap although the disability pay gap is greater still. KPMG considers an employee to be working class if their parents had a routine of manual job. Is not a perfect measure, jobs do change. Another way to assess class is by asking people about their parents level of education, which is more stable and easier to remember. So, in what ways do you think that organizations could measure their class gaps and boost representation? 

Hashi Mohammed: I think there are various ways you could do that, I think what you want to do is you want to be able to give people the opportunity to be able to be proud of the background they've come from and what they bring to an organization. But what you don't want them to do is you do want them to come across as if like they're sort of the token working class kid, or the token Black guy, or the token woman. And so, for me, how you do it is just as important as what you end up doing. Sometimes you could do it anonymously, some people want to be upfront and tell their story, in which case respond to that. And then sometimes people can be asked about their parent's level of education, but they might be proud of sharing that with you, but some of them might not be so proud and might be quite squeamish about sharing that. So, the key here is meeting your workforce and meeting the individuals that work within your organization at their level, at what they want to do and what they want to say and how they want to say it. And I think once you're aware of that and alert to that, it can come together in a really profound way. So, I think it's about measuring what you want, speaking to your colleagues, finding out what they are comfortable with, and then pursuing that on that basis.

Toby Mildon: I agree. Me and my team do a lot of surveys with our clients, diversity and inclusion surveys, and we capture lots of diversity demographic data, and we do ask questions around social mobility. Currently, at the time of recording this episode, we mostly follow the guidance that was created by the UK government in consultation with industry, so we do ask about parents' occupation, we do ask about level of education, we ask whether people were entitled to free school meals as well. But, what we've learned is that it's really important that you let people know why you're collecting this data, why it's important, and how in the UK, we've got some of the worst levels of social mobility despite being one of the richest nations in the world. And so, we have to let people know that we are addressing that societal inequality, and that's why we're answering or asking this question.

Hashi Mohammed: Absolutely, and that's so important. How you then use that data, what it helps to inform things, how you then learn from that, how you then build on that, all of those are really, really critical.

Speaker 4: If your company has a great diversity and inclusion strategy, if your organization has an amazing work culture where productivity is peaking, if the best talent in your industry are working for you, if all your employees are happy and feel included, then feel free to skip this message for about 30 seconds and continue listening to the podcast interview with Toby. But if you feel that your company is lacking in any one of these areas, your employer reputation is taking a hit. Toby Mildon is one of the UK's leading diversity and inclusion experts who has helped top companies like Deloitte, the BBC, Sony Pictures and Centrica, as well as a numerous scale of businesses who want an outstanding inclusive culture. To go further in your diversity and inclusion journey, log on to Toby's webinar at www.mildon.co.uk/free-webinar to accelerate your company's diversity and inclusion strategy in 40 minutes. Thanks for listening. And now back to the podcast interview with Toby.

Toby Mildon: For the final bit of our interview, I would love to talk to you about code-switching, it's something that I've done myself as a disabled person, and as a gay man myself. In your book, you explore language and the idea that people from disadvantaged backgrounds learn to code-switch as we're often judged, not only on what we say, but how we say it. Let's go back to basics. What is code-switching? 

Hashi Mohammed: Code-switching is simply changing how you communicate based on the environment in which you are particularly communicating at that very moment. So, it might be, for example, if you are around a lot of young people, you might switch to sort of slightly more slang, slightly more street, slightly more informal language. If you are in a workplace environment that is highly professional, in which people are expecting you to communicate in relatively formal language without dropping your vowels and without necessarily sort of picking particularly complicated words, but also using quite precise words, that is the switch that you need to make in the code of language that you are using. Now, this cannot be sort of artificial or indeed contrived or based on an approach that's highly what I might call either artificial or fake. So, code-switching is just simply a way of adjusting your language based on the environment in which you find yourself and based on what you're trying to achieve.

Toby Mildon: Could you share with us a few more examples of what code-switching might look like in a kind of office environment, the corporate environment? So, for example, one that stood out for me was women changing their tone or cracking lewd jokes to be part of the boys' club. And that's something that resonated with me because I'm working with a client at the moment within the engineering sector, so it's a very male-orientated organization, not many women work in the business, and when we did the survey, there was actually a comment that came out about this kind of behavior going on in a team that actually had a few female women working in it than the kind of other teams, but can you share with me a few more examples? 

Hashi Mohammed: In an environment, for example, we're at, at the Bar or the Barrister world, one of the sort of languages might be, I don't know. There are various ways of looking at code-switching, it can be, one, about the grammar, the language, the syntax, the behavior of what we might call the dominant culture. But another way of looking at it might be a group of men who get together and wanna talk about football and Rugby, and so immediately that would exclude people who are not interested in those sports, but also women and others, and so that ability to...

Hashi Mohammed: We are there to discuss a legal issue, for example, and that legal issue is something that everyone can speak to, male, female, wherever class you're from, because that's what has brought us together, but then what excludes people is another level of commonality that isn't specific or general to everyone. And so, if you're sitting there and it turns out that the people who you're talking to happen to also be not only people who you're working with on a particular project or your colleagues, but they also happen to be really good sort of supporters and lovers of football. The moment they start discussing that, you will start excluding people around that area, and that's where often we talk about the boys' club, the kind of the football world that then excludes certain people, and I think that's an example I think that I can think of immediately.

Toby Mildon: That's good. It really does resonate with me, and I've had examples like that from clients that I've worked with. What is the cost of code-switching on individuals on organizations, on teams? 

Hashi Mohammed: Yeah, I think I'm quite torn on this, because I have also come across young ladies who often talk about having to change their hairstyles, Black girls who might have to change their hair styles to be able to fit in a particular corporate environment and so on.

Hashi Mohammed: What is the cost? Well, I'm quite torn on what is the cost in the sense that I often think to myself, "Well, this is what the dominant culture looks like... " On the one hand, in my heart, I'm thinking to myself, "This is what the dominant culture looks like, I'm not part of the dominant culture, I need to adjust to get on, I need to adjust without thinking that the dominant culture needs to adjust itself for me". So, that's instinctively how I've approached it. But equally, I can understand the other side of the argument, which is an incredibly powerful side of the argument, which says, "Well, hang on, it's not fair that somebody should have to change their hairstyle, the way that they speak, the way that they communicate, the way that they behave, the fact that they have to show some interest in the football from the previous weekend". And all of these things, that's just not fair, because that person should be able to just rely on the competence of the job that they are there to do without necessarily having to take an interest in something they don't have an interest in simply to fit in.

Hashi Mohammed: And so, I can see the two sides, and so what is the cost? Well, the cost could may well be one, that means that people are not being themselves, that people are struggling to fully adjust or fully be who they are, and so on and so forth. So, that's the bit that I struggle with, and that might be leading to a cost that we're fully not up to speed with or understand, and that may be a way of saying that.

Toby Mildon: I think one of the costs that I've come across is that people become disengaged, they are not able to do their best work, and they might even leave an organization. So, I remember a conversation about... I was working with a FinTech organization, and I was working with a guy and he told me he considered himself to come from a working class background, and he found it very difficult going into the office where a lot of his colleagues were talking about going on skiing holidays, and he had never been skiing in his life, and he just felt excluded by that, and also talk about intersectionality as well, we were... He was also a gay man, and he was talking about how conversations in the office were about what people did at the weekend with their kids, and he was a young guy, he didn't have a family of his own, and he also found that quite difficult and also I think in his same sex relationship, he wasn't really planning on having kids anyway. But he found that it was like the intersectionality of skiing, holidays and what you did at the weekend with your kids was really quite exclusionary for him.

Hashi Mohammed: Yeah, I mean, I can definitely see that. I can definitely see that, but what I might say in terms of just as a gentle potential pushback, maybe not a pushback, maybe it's obvious, but I often, for example, remember I used to hear people saying, "Oh, I'm going skiing, I'm gonna do this, that, and the other". But I used to always... My immediate reaction used to be not one of, "Oh my God, I feel excluded and I need to learn how to ski". I just genuinely thought, My God, I can't think of anything worse of being in an incredibly cold place and falling in snow as a very, very tall person, the bigger they come, the harder we fall, and the potential of having to basically spend a whole week going down these slopes and being knackered and then just getting drunk, every night I cannot think of anything worse. So, my immediate reaction is like, I pity you guys, but equally it's different in my environment as a barrister, so much of it is about self-employment and so much of it is about how well I do in the courtroom that gets you your clients, but in the...

Hashi Mohammed: For example, the FinTech world, or in the finance world, or the particular other professions, actually, a lot of what happens in these skiing holidays can lead to a great deal of bonding, that could also lead to you becoming promoted. It goes on to leading to you to do well in that particular job because you happen to have a very late night conversation over whiskey with somebody that then leads you to you to being to promoted. So I can see how exclusionary it can be, but what I would always say to people is, be confident enough to just be like, if you don't like it say so, don't be afraid of saying so, because I do, I've always done...

Toby Mildon: I do have a funny skiing story actually. So, when I worked for Accenture, we were working on a big client project and The senior manager wanted to take the whole project team away on a skiing holiday, and I was like, "But I'm in a wheelchair. How on earth Can I go skiing?" To their credit, they were really inclusive 'cause they were like, come along, we will make it work, and I was like, "You know what, I can't ski, 'cause I'm in a wheelchair, I'm gonna go anyway, 'cause I will probably enjoy the Alp ski very much.

Hashi Mohammed: Exactly.

Toby Mildon: And then anyway we got Switzerland, and then one of my colleagues, he was a really good skier and was going off on the black run, I think it's the black runs the advanced runs. He came back and he said, I've just come across these ski school for disabled people.

Hashi Mohammed: Oh wow.

Toby Mildon: I said, "Really? Does such a thing exist? And he was like, "Yeah. It's up on the mountain". They've got these basically like toboggans that you sit in, but it's like a seat on skis basically. And he was like, "Do you wanna go skiing?" And I was like, "Yeah". I honestly did not know that disabled skiing was a thing.

Hashi Mohammed: It's definitely a thing. Do you know Frank Gardner? 

Toby Mildon: I do, yeah.

Hashi Mohammed: He was the BBC correspondent.

Toby Mildon: I used to work with him at BBC, yeah.

Hashi Mohammed: So, Frank Gardner has been showing some images of him going... 'Cause he used to love skiing before he became disabled. And so, he used those kind of toboggans. I've seen images and videos on his Twitter of him doing it. It looks amazing.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, so I left it and I haven't been skiing since. Although, I live in Manchester, and my physio has told me that there's an indoor skiing center in Manchester, and they've got the same equipment, so I'm gonna go... I'm not a fan of the cold either, actually, I hate the cold. So, I think it's quite a good solution to go to an indoor ski center in Manchester.

Hashi Mohammed: I agree. I agree, but I think the point is just don't feel excluded if you don't like it, I don't like... I don't like rugby, I find it pointless.

Toby Mildon: Oh, it's boring.

Hashi Mohammed: I respect people who do, but I'm much take me to the football. Take me to watch football games or what other sports. I like cricket, but rugby, I'm just like, "No, no, no, thank you". Just go with what you feel you enjoy rather than what you think will get you further, because some people wanna be like it. Organize your own events, do things that people might not necessarily be up to. I love going to the theater, I love doing certain activities, if you don't like what they're organizing, you organize something yourself and invite people. Something they've never done before. Be brave.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, somebody I spoke to the other day, actually, says he works in an organization where there's a big drinking culture and they go down the pub and he really doesn't like that, and he started organizing chess evenings and strategy game evenings, and then inviting his colleagues along.

Hashi Mohammed: Brilliant...

Toby Mildon: And I thought, yeah, brilliant.

Hashi Mohammed: Brilliant. What a great idea.

Toby Mildon: The penultimate question that I ask everybody when they come on this podcast is, what does inclusive growth mean to you? 

Hashi Mohammed: Inclusive growth means to me, the opportunity and the environment that allows for as many people to succeed as possible without judgment, without fear, and without excluding others. Every organization has the potential to grow exponentially, if only it's prepared to take real risks and push people to do well, and aim high. That's what inclusive growth means to me.

Toby Mildon: Brilliant I love it. So, Hashi your book, People Like Us: What it takes to Make it in Modern Britain. Where can the person listening to us right now get a copy of your book if they wanna read it?

Hashi Mohammed: Yes, there are multiple places you can get the book, it's available in all your good book stores, Waterstones your local area book store, please try those before you go on to try places like Amazon, it's available on Audible, read by me. And so, you can listen to 11 and half hours of that. Its extract is also available on the BBC sounds app because it was Book of the Week on Radio 4. And so, you can listen to a truncated version of it as well, but I would highly recommend it, so please do give it a read. Let me know what you think. Follow me on Twitter comment on it, on LinkedIn, etcetera.

Toby Mildon: Brilliant well Hashi thank you ever so much for joining me today. It's been a really, really interesting and insightful conversation, we've covered a lot in this episode, we've talked about privilege, we've talked about pay disparities, we've talked about measuring class gaps, and we've also talked about the cost of code-switching and addressing that within the workplace. So Hashi, thank you ever so much for giving up your time to chat with us today, I know you are very busy with your legal work, so I really do appreciate your time and involvement.

Hashi Mohammed: No, thank you very much for having me Toby, I really appreciate it, and I love the podcast and I look forward to hearing this episode. Thank you.

Toby Mildon: You're very welcome, and thank you for tuning into this episode of The Inclusive Growth Podcast today with Hashi and myself. Hopefully, you found today's conversation really interesting and really insightful, and hopefully some practical hints and tips that you can take back to your own organization to address social mobility within your business and to have an impact on society at large. So, thank you for tuning in today, and I look very much forward to seeing you on the next episode of The Inclusive Growth Podcast, which should be coming up. Until then take care.

Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to The Inclusive Growth Show. For further information and resources from Toby and his team, head on over to our website at mildon.co.uk.