Time to shift from diversity thinking towards inclusive action

A decade on from the launch of Lloyd’s famous diversity and inclusion festival, Dive In, it is clear insurers today understand the importance of achieving a more diverse workforce.

The growth of the festival – from a three-day conference in the City to hosting more than 130 hybrid events in more than 45 countries this year – demonstrates the sector’s leadership recognise insurance can’t be ‘stale, pale and male’ if it wants to attract top talent and meet the needs of the UK’s diverse population in the 21st century.

However, while top teams at insurers feature more female faces than they did a decade ago and attempts to attract and retain ethnically diverse talent have been stepped up, the gender pay gap still exists and accusations of an ethnicity penalty continue.

There has been progress, but as demonstrated by Insurance Post’s 2024 Census plus pay gap analysis insurance remains far from being a fully inclusive profession.

Speaking exclusively to Post after he kicked off this year’s Dive In festival, Sir Trevor Phillips, former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, shared how everyone working in diversity and inclusion, plus individuals who advocate for it, need to change their thinking.

The former chairperson of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said: “We’ve been dominated for quite a long time by what I consider to be Monday morning, Sunday morning, thinking.

“You may not be religious, but those of you who grew up in the church will know that Sunday morning is time for someone to tell you how to be a better person. There’s nothing wrong with that.

“There’s nothing wrong with the moral case – the problem is it’s not by itself sustainable. What also matters is what happens on Monday morning in the office when the boss says: ‘I don’t like these quarterly figures. Let’s do something about it.’

“If your diversity and inclusion agenda is not part of what happens on Monday morning then it is not sustainable. We all need to think about how we make the case that diversity and inclusion matters as much on Monday morning as it does on Sunday morning.”

Monday morning

To shift diversity and inclusion from talking, measuring data and setting laudable targets to shaping action every day at insurers, Sir Trevor shared three things the sector should do right now to become more inclusive:

1) Spot what works

A long hard look at what has worked to increase diversity and inclusion and what has failed to have an impact is required.

“Some [initiatives] work and some don’t work and some work some of the time and some work none of the time,” Sir Trevor said.

If you don’t have a strategy for diversity and inclusion, you don’t have a strategy for business.

“I would say, for example, that sponsorship has proven itself. There is data, particularly in the United States, which shows that if you have a proper sponsorship programme – particularly for women – that women’s advancement goes much faster.

“When I say sponsorship, I do not need mentoring. The difference between mentoring and sponsorship for me is sponsorship is what has traditionally happened. People get advancement because they belong to a team and people have faith in them.

“Mentoring is what happens when somebody talks to you. In short, sponsorship is what happens when you’re not in the room and somebody who is there speaks up for you.”

2) Fresh solutions

Keeping up with new insights and solutions was identified as key to making sure glass ceilings continue to be smashed and individuals with protected characteristics find the top a welcoming place.

“There’s a tendency sometimes to imagine that if we say the same thing enough times and loudly enough, everybody will be convinced and it will solve the problem,” Sir Trevor said before pointing to work the company he chairs, Green Park, did with a business that attracted but failed to retain black executives.

Green Park found black male executives would reach a certain level within the overseas organisation and then they would leave for other, often smaller businesses, where advancement was based on their qualities rather than their “type”.

Rather than try to change the view of the whole organisation, Sir Trevor said a programme of sending promising black executives to different postings, usually aboard, was established.

“Within a couple of years, things began to change perceptively. Why? Because these guys were no longer the black guys who caused trouble. They were the guys who solved the problem in Shanghai or opened something new Johannesburg.

“We need to look out for the problems and the novel solution.“

3) Everything changes

As artificial intelligence and automation brings major changes to the way everyone works, Sir Trevor observed we need to notice how technology will impact some groups differently from others.

“I was the president of John Lewis for a while and got to know a bit about retail. Sooner or later, we knew we would be in a cashier-less business,” Sir Trevor said.

“The impact of that change is not symmetrical. Almost exclusively it was women on the cash desk. We are coming into a world where things won’t change in the same way for everyone, and this is why diversity has to be part of the sustainability picture for every business.

“It’s no longer certain questions about being nice to women or not being offensive to people of colour or lesbian or gay people. It is: ‘How does your business prosper in a new world where many feel they are in uncharted waters?

“Every business is thinking about this. In their risk register, in their conversations, in their thinking, has to be: ‘How is this change going to affect different kinds of people?’ If you don’t understand that, we don’t really understand how we’re going to go forward.”

While the scale of Dive In today is impressive, the fact so many in the market still fail to engage with this decade-old event indicates the road ahead when it comes to insurance becoming more diverse and inclusive is far from smooth.

Sir Trevor warned me  andsenior reporter Damisola Sulaiman (pictured): “If you don’t have a strategy for diversity and inclusion, you don’t have a strategy for business.”

The proof of that theory from Sir Trevor will be in whether all the big names who engaged in Dive In will be winning the war for talent in 2034 while those companies conspicuous by their absence at the festival will have fallen by the wayside.