Insurance Post

Diversity: Why does diversity matter?

diversity

Diversity in your business should not be an exercise in ticking boxes. Research shows a diverse workforce is a good business strategy – one that can impact and strengthen the bottom line.

Companies want to know who they are working with and, as a result, values have become the bedrock of any business relationship.

So it’s no surprise that supplier diversity has become a key requirement at the start of many corporate relationships. Potential customers want to know your organisation is diverse from an employee standpoint.

However, many organisations submitting information against these requirements may feel that this is something of a tick-box exercise. As with information relating to corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability, it would be possible for the cynic to argue these questions are asked merely to pay lip-service to political correctness.

However, the reality is very different. The fact of the matter is diversity is a business strategy – and for many organisations it helps drive profit. It impacts the bottom line. The good news is the financial argument will always make it much easier for the board and senior management to embrace diversity. In fact, all the research indicates that diversity makes businesses stronger and more successful.

The emphasis on diversity is becoming more important in terms of compliance, but it should not be seen as some sort of kindness akin to philanthropy or as a moral responsibility. While the diversity practices of businesses may promote the cause of human rights and help to eliminate discrimination, that’s the icing on the cake. The truth is that it’s just good business sense.

There’s a growing body of evidence that suggests diverse organisations are more successful. This is partly due to better decision making. For example, when a diverse group of people tackle a challenge, they do so with a far greater variety of ideas and experience, which can greatly help the decision-making process.

This means a company’s diversity credentials may not just be evidence that it welcomes a variety of viewpoints, but also that it is far less likely to be drawn into homogenous groupthink. It says: ‘This business can innovate.’

Common sense argument
Thinking about it, the argument is common sense. As we have probably all experienced through managing businesses and teams within businesses, what drives the success of a partnership is people.

Most new business relationships begin with the promise and delivery of the right product at the right price at the right place. However, over the long term, it is the people involved from all sides that will sustain the relationship and make the partnership successful. At Enterprise, our approach to diversity is to reflect the communities we serve through our local branches. This has required many new business initiatives and leadership in order to create a business that appeals to everyone in the community, irrespective of identity or background.

There is no question that achieving diversity is challenging. Across the globe, for example, businesses are still grappling with the issues of parenthood. Many of them are still trying to develop cultures and structures that are flexible enough to adjust to the needs of caring for families. Furthermore, we know that far too many women are lost to the workplace because the traditional structure of the working day does not embrace the rhythm of family life. We are all making progress, but we need to do more.

We genuinely believe diversity will become – if it isn’t already – a significant selection criterion for business suppliers moving forward. It may even one day be mandated by legislation. So it is not a factor to be dealt with lightly.

As a business, Enterprise has invested time and resource into initiatives that promote diversity, as well as investing in the information capture systems in order to understand where we need to improve so we can demonstrate our achievements to date. For example, we have a major project underway to investigate both our diversity in terms of socio-economics and our ability to provide the opportunity for social mobility among the people who work with us.

Interesting data
This is resulting in some interesting data. For example, we now know that only 42% of our senior managers have parents who attended a university – a figure far lower than companies in other sectors. This sort of information is invaluable, because understanding social mobility is yet another way for businesses to show how diversity has had a positive effect on our bottom line.

The opportunity to sponsor the diversity category in the 2015 British Insurance Awards is very much a part of this investment. We want to be part of recognising and celebrating achievement in diversity because we know it is so important to business survival.

As a company, we are fortunate to have been recognised with one or two awards in this area over the years. We currently hold the Disability Benchmark and have been named by Opportunity Now as one of the top ten organisations in the UK for both BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) progression and progression of women. And our UK HR director, Leigh Lafever-Ayer, is a finalist in the Opportunity Now Excellence in Practice Awards 2015 for Directing Diverse Talent.

However, while we would encourage every company in the insurance market to enter the Diversity category in the British Insurance Awards, and we wish everyone the best of luck with their entry, it is certainly not the reason why businesses should look to adopt a more diverse recruitment and employee development strategy.

Diversity is not a tick in the box. It is not a ‘nice to have’. It is not an afterthought to the ‘serious business’ of pricing and propositions in a tender.

Fundamentally, diversity is good business practice and makes business sense. It has been proven to lead to higher profitability and better business performance. And it can help a business win new clients by demonstrating it takes this issue seriously, that it can make better decisions – and that it has a stronger bottom line as a result.

Stuart Sandell,
Head of UK insurance division, Enterprise Rent-A-Car

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