Zurich UK, a signatory of The Race at Work Charter, has bolstered its commitment to tackling inequality in pay and removing career progression barriers for ethnic minority employees by launching a programme designed to do just that.
“We think it is critical that we build a truly diverse business that reflects our customers and communities,” stated Zurich UK human resources head Steve Collinson, “and we are taking a structured approach by putting a concrete framework and action plan in place to move the dial.”
With the help of the Behavioural Insights Team, Zurich UK will examine the causes of its ethnicity pay gap as well as how it hires and promotes ethnic minority colleagues. The goal is to come up with an action plan to be unveiled autumn of this year.
Commenting on the development, Zurich UK chief executive Tulsi Naidu said: “We have led the way with various campaigns to create a more inclusive work environment taking a number of progressive measures within our business and leading on initiatives such as the Inclusive Behaviours in Insurance pledge signed by over 130 major players in the industry.
“We are listening to our employees from diverse and ethnic minority backgrounds, and their experiences will help inform any action we take.”
The programme launch comes following the release of Zurich UK’s latest pay figures for its ethnic minority employees. For 2020, the insurer noted a 9.8% gap for mean average hourly pay and a bonus pay gap of 24.5%.
“Our data shows that we have more work to do to appoint more diverse candidates to our business and to better support them in their careers,” conceded Naidu. “We are committed to doing everything we can to understand how we can progress meaningful change, which is why we fully support the mandatory reporting of this data in the same way as we do for gender.
“Organisations now need practical guidance and a clear framework on how best to do this to tackle race inequality in the workplace – and we look forward to support from the government and EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission) to help us deliver.”
