“Allianz is committed to ensuring an inclusive environment for all employees regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression,” explained Edyta Torpy, diversity & inclusion manager at Allianz Australia. With this in mind, the company is embarking on a month-long initiative to celebrate diversity and promote inclusion in the workplace.
Torpy explained to Insurance Business the importance of the month, and what takes place during it.
“This is the fourth year Allianz has held Diversity and Inclusion Month - it is a symbol of our ongoing commitment to ensuring that no matter who you are or what role you perform at Allianz, you are respected, heard and valued for your contribution,” she said. “The theme for this year is ‘All in for Inclusion’, recognising it takes everyone across the organisation to make a difference and create an inclusive place for people to work.”
Allianz is running a busy program of events during the month to mark the occasion, from organised lunches to talk and share stories between team members to a drag queen hosted trivia night.
“Each year, we try and provide people with something different,” explained Torpy. This year proved to be very much that with the ‘Drag Trivia Night’ attended by over 200 people, with an audience including representatives from the Inter-Insurance Pride network, such as IAG, QBE, Marsh, Zurich, Clyde & Co, HCF and TAL.
Hosted by Sydney Drag Royalty, Carmen Geddit, and Lori Callahan, Allianz chief risk officer and executive sponsor of the Pride Employee Network, it was an opportunity for Allianz to further educate employees about the LGBTI community and demonstrate how serious it is about LGBTI inclusion. A mental health week and International Woman’s Day activities are also being held.
“We are focused on embedding diversity and inclusion into everything we do - from the way we attract our graduates and new starters through how we on-board, develop, promote, recognise, remunerate and exit our people,” explained Torpy. “This takes a systematic approach to reviewing the policies and processes at each point of the employee’s lifecycle and mitigating for any biases that favour one group of people over another.”
The need to promote inclusion, diversity and wellbeing, for Allianz, has benefits on many fronts.
“To encourage a culture that supports strong diversity and inclusion principles, we work closely with our senior leaders to help them make decisions that positively impact our people on a daily basis,” said Torpy. “We believe in creating an inclusive work environment for our diverse people - supporting diversity is not only a nice thing to do for our people, it is a business imperative.”
