Employers’ Masterclass: Accents in the Workplace

Accent is not directly relevant to work outputs. Simple, right? To get hired, or to get ahead in your organisation, you would think that what you say – rather than how you say it – would be the most important factor.

In Speaking Up: Accents and social mobility, published last year by the Sutton Trust, researchers looked at accent bias throughout the life course, highlighting how experiences differed by socio-economic background, which could have implications for social mobility.

They found that ‘public attitudes to different accents have remained largely unchanged over time – with the standard Received Pronunciation (RP – sometimes known as ‘Queen’s English’ or ‘BBC English’) ranking highly as opposed to accents associated with industrial cities of England and ethnic minority accents.’

With little so-called visible indicators of socio-economic background, accent has become one of the primary signals of socio-economic status in the UK – creating a hierarchy of accent prestige where RP is the dominant accent for those in positions of authority across the media, politics, the civil service, courtrooms, and the corporate sector.

Our own published research in May 2021, Navigating the labyrinth, explored socio-economic background and career progression within the Civil Service. It found that “the right accent and a ‘studied neutrality’ seem to win through at every stage of [those who progress in] their career.”

Accent bias can have many repercussions in the workplace. It may affect hiring decisions or even promotion opportunities. The research shows that it has a devastating impact on the individuals too – producing accent anxiety or worries about their accent affecting their ability to succeed in the future.

In our April masterclass we explored how you can raise awareness of the issue of accent bias in your own organisation and what steps you can take to ensure that the focus is on the knowledge and skills of the employee or candidate, and not their accent.

We were joined by Professor Devyani Sharma from Queen Mary University London who co-authored the Sutton Trust research highlighted above and shared her findings of accent bias, and the implications for social mobility.

We were also joined by Antoinette Willcocks from FleishmanHillard who discussed how they have highlighted the issue of accent bias in their organisations and what steps they have taken to drive change.