Lloyd’s is committed to creating an inclusive and diverse culture that attracts, develops and retains the very best talent, so that together we can deliver our purpose of sharing risk to create a braver world. Last year we published our first market-wide Culture Dashboard, which benchmarked our starting point and created a marker for our collective progress towards a more inclusive environment, where everyone can achieve their full potential.
Today we publish our 2021 Culture Dashboard, informed by data gathered from our annual Market Policies and Practices return.
Culture
We are reassured to see that there has been a large increase in the proportion of Risk Committees (24% increase) and Boards (31% increase) where culture is a standing agenda item, and we will continue to ensure that culture remains a priority on the leadership agenda.
Gender
We are pleased that we have maintained progress on achieving gender balance across the market, yet recognise there is still a long way to go. In particular, there has been an increase at Board and Executive level, but we need to increase the level of representation amongst direct reports of Executive Committees. From a Corporation perspective, we have reached gender parity at an overall leadership level. Across the market, our 35% aspiration has already been met by 28% of firms, but we must work to increase this across the board.
Ethnicity
We have developed a long-term plan to support and develop ethnic minority talent. We have set our ambition that a third of all new hires across the market and Corporation should come from ethnic minority backgrounds. This should be targeted at all levels of our organisations including our leadership, and not just focused on early careers. The current level of representation of ethnic minority people is 8% in the market and 22% in the Corporation.
Improving the representation of ethnic minority people at all levels is a priority for us, yet we need the right data to measure our progress. To further improve the data set, we will be mandating the collection of ethnicity data in 2021. Over the past 12 months we have already seen progress in this area, with the ethnicity disclosure rate increasing by 11 percentage points to 60%, and 74% of firms now able to provide ethnicity data compared to 43% in 2020. We must be strong in our resolve to address this issue in a meaningful way.
Corporation
The Corporation aims to lead by example and is acutely focused on creating an inclusive environment in which everybody across the Lloyd’s market can thrive.
As aforementioned, we have already reached gender parity at an overall leadership level and our pay gap continues to reduce. Our long-term ethnicity plan builds on the foundations of our 2020 commitments and will continue to demonstrate a path for the market to follow.
There are four main components:
- Data and targets: as announced today, we have set our ambition that a third of all new hires should come from ethnic minority backgrounds. We have also invested in our data capability to analyse trends for attraction, recruitment, progression and performance to understand where we can do more for each of our functions. We will also publish our ethnicity pay gap annually.
- Talent and attraction: enhance inclusive hiring practices for all roles and increase the diversity of available interviewers for interview panels. To increase ethnically diverse shortlists for experienced hires, we will work with external recruiters and build more external partnerships. For early careers, we will work with the London Market Group to raise the profile of opportunities in the insurance industry.
- Talent management: identify participants for Accelerate, our leadership development programme for ethnic minority colleagues within the Corporation and market. We will also establish sponsorship and mentoring opportunities for ethnically diverse employees.
- External Promotion, Advocacy & Engagement: we have recruited an archivist to increase our understanding of Lloyd’s historical artefacts and will embed our commitment to ethnic diversity in our narratives about Lloyd’s. On an ongoing basis, we will share stories that illustrate and celebrate ethnic diversity within the Corporation and the market.