We are committed to learning, as we continue to invest and grow our social involvement through a diverse range of developments and initiatives. Developing a culture where everyone can flourish regardless of their background, is at the heart of what we, as a business, are working to achieve.
Our values reflect the behaviours we expect from our people which nurtures an environment where each colleague is respected and supported to play their full part in our success.
ED&I is fundamental to the way we do business. We are committed to creating a more inclusive culture so everyone can be themselves and thrive at work.
We believe that all colleagues have a right to be heard and valued regardless of nationality, race, ethnicity, religion/faith, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, socio-economic background, sex or age.
We know that diversity of thought and perspective is key to greater innovation and overcoming business challenges, which help us to deliver more successfully for our clients and realise our ambitions.
Our steps towards building a more inclusive culture
Respecting each other is one of our core values, we believe everyone should be treated fairly, and we encourage and value individuality.
We are committed to helping every colleague to bring their whole self to work and after listening to feedback from our people, we have made plans to::
- Offer all colleagues flexibility around UK Bank Holidays. With many holidays centred around Christian festivals, we want to empower people to swap with important dates in their own calendar. We also want to help all colleagues to understand more about what religious festivals mean to the people taking part in them.
- Ensure all our policies are totally accessible and easy-to-understand. We are redesigning our guides, tools and policies in modern, simple, accessible language. Starting with our policies for the various ways that families grow and change – including maternity, paternity and shared leave. As part of this we will fill important policy gaps around caring for others, surrogacy, IVF and loss – ensuring that we not only meet but exceed statutory requirements.
- Do much more to celebrate ethnic diversity via our annual calendar of events. Through a series of workshops we plan to learn more from colleagues about their experiences of working for us, and where we can do more to support them.
- Continue to make sure that the range and quality of support we provide meets the needs of our people. Current resources available for colleagues include support from Mental Health First Aiders, Time to Talk sessions and an Employee Assistance Programme
Employee Networks
We empower our people across the organisation to follow their Diversity & Inclusion passions and choose how they wish to support related movements.
Our society is stronger when we have open dialogue, celebrate our common interests and our interesting differences. Our business, our teams and every colleague has a part to play in making the positive change we all want to see.
We’ve established an Inclusion Advisory Panel with senior sponsorship and created a multi-cultural employee network to support our inclusion journey.
We have an LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group, Open & Out, whose mission is to drive an inclusive culture for our LGBTQ+ colleagues and allies, Open & Out will support our commitment to developing a workplace that encourages and embraces diversity – a workplace in which our people feel safe to bring their authentic self to work. Our Open & Out Charter outlines our commitment in this area and can be found here
People and Talent
Our continued focus is to strengthen our culture and talent. We have a compelling employee proposition where everyone can thrive; where we attract and retain talent; and support the growth in capability needed to meet our strategic objectives.
We have committed to diverse longlists for every senior vacancy and refreshed our Talent & Succession planning approach to enable much greater visibility of talent across the organisation. We will use this to facilitate a new network for allies and under-represented groups, for example through reverse mentoring and fireside chats, alongside targeted development plans for a wide range of talented people in our business.
Supporting minority businesses
In August 2021, we invested in a brand new US Managing General Agency (MGA), InQlusiv, to help an exciting new company provide insurance for minority communities in urban centres across the US.
The minority investment supports an innovative start-up that will provide a Business Owners Policy, plus a business interruption policy for Small to Medium sized Enterprises focused on LGBTQ, female and minority/ethnic owned businesses across the US, as they seek to rebuild local economies and recover from the impact of the pandemic.
Flexible working
Prior to the pandemic, we introduced a flexible working programme which aimed to give everyone more choice about how, when and where they work. This early development meant that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic all our employees were able to work effectively and safely from home or elsewhere.
Following this success, we’ve now fully adopted a hybrid working model which empowers our people with the flexibility to blend where they work, with an emphasis on outputs rather than a fixed location, whether that be office or home. Our policies reflect this change, allowing flexible working from the first day of joining the business for new starters.
Global Festival Partner for Dive In 2022
At MS Amlin, we believe that Active Allyship is key to how we achieve a truly diverse and inclusive industry and society. That’s why in 2022, we were proud to sponsor the Dive In Festival for the forth year running. The event raised awareness and educated those who are in positions of power on how to be an active ally for all. www.diveinfestival.com
Gender equality
At MS Amlin we are committed to creating a more inclusive culture and, over the last three years, we have focused on building a greater understanding of the current make-up of our population so that we can create specific and relevant inclusion initiatives.
Our UK Gender Pay Gap report for 2021 is available here.
Recent developments include:
- Gender Action Plan: following a workshop with colleagues across the company to understand their experiences of life in MS Amlin, we created an action plan designed to support women in the business.
- Leadership Accountability: we have started to deliver Conscious Inclusion training for senior managers, this continues and we are now adapting this training for all line managers, to help them engage their teams.
- Hybrid working: it is well reported that women felt the impact of home-working and pandemic restrictions more than men, and we have recognised this in our hybrid working approach.
- Inclusion Survey: we engaged with a partner to deliver our first inclusion survey – dedicated to understanding how inclusive our culture is, and how effectively we communicate our vision and plans to increase diversity and inclusion.
Social mobility initiative of the year award
MS Amlin received the Social Mobility Initiative of the year award, at the European Diversity Awards in 2019.
We won the accolade for our annual Jumpstart programme which is designed to encourage social mobility in financial services by making young people from disadvantaged backgrounds aware of financial, professional and related services as a realistic and attainable career path, while developing their employability skills.
She Can Be
In 2021, we partnered with The Lord Mayor's Appeal and its She Can Be initiative, which endeavours to empower young women to make informed decisions about their careers.
We hosted a series of online interactive sessions and talks to enlighten the next generation of young women and share how the insurance industry can offer exciting and varied career opportunities. The all-day event included fun and engaging workshops, problem solving sessions and a ‘day in the life of’ panel discussions.
Find out more about She Can Be https://www.thelordmayorsappeal.org/initiatives/a-skilled-city/
