While we have just celebrated International Women’s Day I was intriguing the insurance industry talent management set up. Its quite astonishing to see the percentage of women’s in the industry hence a pertinent question arises. Why is it like this and what will be the fundamental step the insurance industry leadership take to encourage women leadership in the industry. Well we will try to fetch the answers in this article and see how far you could relate and whether this purview help the leadership to inculcate females into the system.
The recent studies homogeneous team and and team led by inclusively show that diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams when led inclusively and organization deliver better financial results when they have women on their corporate boards and in the C-suite. Then is it not justified to ask, why is it taking so long for women to get into such leadership?
To drive innovation and become successful it is pivotal to add women’s escalation while we see the statistic insurance industry has been always operating in sacculated model hence never browed or inculcated changes, reason being cultural strong hold system. However the pandemic has forced the industry to look at the system in a broader spectrum in its conclusive form thereby introducing digital wagon, technology enable system and innovation. Now this are their front liners but still the gap exist as the positioning hold droved by mans, hence it obvious designation such as CEO, COO, CIO, CTO such C-Suites are with most of the man. In fact they should coach, mentor and train women’s for such leadership and hence such thing equally be considered as creating upliftment of dice.
In terms of my own research and reading various article i found Erst & Young article are more close to my opinion which has three important actionable plan for creating women leadership in Insurance are as follows:
- Disrupt & Upheaval College & Market Recruitment Process
- Sponsor & Mentor Woman in terms of career so that they progress and Improve retention
- Creating barrier Killer Model which enable women executives to grow
Disrupt & Upheaval College & Market Recruitment Process:
If we look at the Gen Z graduates they are surrounded by diversity, and they expect to enter workplaces that embody those same values. For the insurance industry they need to change their dimension and look at the purview with 360 degree dragon fly view to attract new employees who have the creativity, technology and customer skills as one of their assets which is needed to build the insurance workplace of the future, insurance companies must demonstrate their commitment to diversity, as a manifested formal recruitment process, as well as leveraging personal relationships.
In fact it is in insurers best interest to recruit more women with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics. While actuaries have always needed the mathematics and the statistics, just about every aspect of insurance is being transformed by digital technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and other computing-intensive business processes. It is also important that insurers recruit liberal arts majors for areas like underwriting. These graduates possess the necessary skills for sales, relationship management and creation of business solutions. The ability to reason and philosophize will be even more critical in the digital age, as more repetitive tasks shift to AI.
In the current scenario, insurance companies must drive accountability for D&I initiatives by removing unconscious biases from the recruitment process, recruiting balanced teams and hiring women from diverse backgrounds, skill sets and experiences. A way to enact this is to ensure that there are diverse slates of both interviewers and interviewees, as well as holding leadership teams accountable for their team’s D&I profiles. This may include the need to widen the field when looking at recruiting from the marketplace so as to have a more representative pool of candidates reflective of insurance company D&I goals. Going to the same recruiting sources for diverse candidates just isn’t good enough anymore.
Sponsor & Mentor Woman in terms of career so that they progress and Improve retention
As we may know mentoring and coaching is one of the most vital area in corporate segment hence applying this analytics will furthermore build a strong leadership foundation. Mentors provide advice and counselling throughout one’s career, while sponsors are on-the-job allies who state the case for one’s promotion or participation on a high-profile project. Women in the insurance field need both mentors and sponsors and both roles need to be embraced by men and women.
Employees may be able to find mentors and sponsors through their own networking efforts, and organizations should also foster connections through team-building workshops and other methods that emphasize the importance of sponsoring across differences. It is vital to hold executives accountable for their strong commitment to D&I by measuring results, such as the retention levels and career achievements for women and other underrepresented groups within their spheres of influence. Only through metrics-based accountability will D&I achieve a sustainable impact.
Creating barrier Killer Model which enable women executives to grow
While progress has been made, women are still severely underrepresented in insurance leadership roles. Although women represent more than half of the insurance workforce, they hold fewer than one-fifth of board seats and only about one-tenth of insider officer positions and top officer positions such as CEO, COO and CFO. Based on this evidence, we can see that the pipeline for women executive talent is being artificially blocked.
In response, insurance companies need to work for greater diversity in succession planning and to prepare women for these kinds of roles. To ensure that women can rise on their merits and in accordance with the requirements of the job, succession planning has three key areas for improvement:
- Preference: Counteract the bias for search teams to promote people who look just like them.
- Tradition: Break the pattern of hiring leaders with the same background and profile as previous leaders.
- Requirements: Promote and appoint leaders based on the specific skill sets of what the leadership role requires for the success of the company.
D&I is critical for driving innovation and a competitive advantage for insurers in today’s transformative age. By welcoming a wider range of skills and viewpoints, D&I represent an essential component of the evolving business model in insurance.
As part of their broader D&I initiatives, insurance companies must take steps to improve gender parity. Starting from the top, business leaders throughout the insurance organization should be held accountable for recruiting and hiring women, sponsoring and mentoring women, retaining and promoting women and clearing away obstacles to leadership roles.