Insurer on why its DEI strategy is proudly employee-led

Any company can claim to have a diverse workforce, but a true diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policy goes above and beyond what a company’s management can claim.

In a survey of insurance company employees for Insurance Business’s 5-Star Diversity, Equity and Inclusion awards, 45% of respondents indicated that they believe they are from a diverse and/or underrepresented group. With a significant number of insurance employees hailing from various social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, insurers need to understand that everybody – across their entire organization – is on the same page and moves at the same speed when it comes to DEI.

Changing an organization is always a difficult process, and the same could be said of DEI policies; upper management cannot just hold one or two diversity seminars and call it a day.

This is why an employee-led approach to DEI might be the trick to achieving true diversity. Certainly that is the main approach used by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), one of this year’s winners of IBC’s 5-Star Diversity, Equity and Inclusion awards.

ICBC is proud of the employee resource groups (ERG) that help connect people across its organization. The company’s ERGs celebrate ethnicity, Indigenous peoples, and the LGBTQ2+ community. And ICBC does not stop at those groups, as there are employee-led groups for women, persons with disabilities, and even caregivers within the company. In fact, ICBC’s Women in Leadership (WIL) ERG works to create experiences that connect like-minded individuals to support women in finding and developing their leadership presence.

One main challenge of any DEI policy is having proper representation on a company’s executive lineup. ICBC solves this by having each of its ERGs sponsored by a member of its executive leadership team, ensuring that each group has a voice on the C-suite.