Lloyd’s of London has given an update on its diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives, saying it is on track to reach its end-year target.
Its newest survey showed that while some progress has been made for women and ethnic minority representation, data on inclusiveness efforts for other groups is lagging.
“The proportion of women in leadership roles has increased by two percentage points (percentage point) since last year to 32%,” said Lloyd’s CEO John Neal in a press call on Thursday (March 23).
“Promisingly, 35% of firms met or exceeded our 35% of women in leadership target, meaning our market-wide target of 35% by the end of this year is within reach.”
Lloyd’s also made progress with its representation of ethnic minorities. Colleagues with an ethnic minority background increased two percentage points, to 11% across firms, while those in leadership roles grew four percentage points to 9%.
The world’s largest insurance market has committed to its “one in three” hiring ambition, meaning one of three hires across the market should come from ethnic minority backgrounds.
In 2020, Lloyd’s set the goal of 35% of female representation in leadership roles by December 2023, alongside a number of ethnicity commitments to boost its diversity and inclusiveness.
The plan was in response to accusations that the 334-year-old market was a “meat market” and followed an infamous Bloomberg Businessweek report. A survey found that nearly 500 participants had either suffered or witnessed sexual harassment over a 12 month period.
In its fourth and most recent annual survey of DE&I efforts, the insurance marketplace found that 88% of boards had culture as a set agenda, a 13-percentage point increase from last year. Nearly half (47%) had set D&I targets for their own organizations.
The survey, called Market Policies and Practices, is aimed at understanding the workplace composition, policies and practices of firms that operate at Lloyd’s. It accounts for a workforce of 48,260, up from 37,660 last year.
“Our fourth market policies and practices return demonstrates continued strong progress towards building a diverse and inclusive culture,” said Neal.
“Culture is now a gateway principle in our market oversight framework. We will continue to provide robust oversight of market participants, including their individual plans to improve culture.”
Women now make up closer to half (43%) of Lloyd’s total workforce, and 42% of new hires were women in 2022, the survey reported. The proportion of women in leadership roles improved across all three levels (boards, executive committees, and direct reports of executive committees).
However, women still only made up 22% of its boards, 25.5% of its executive committees, and 34% of direct reports. The average pay gap across market firms stands at 35%, an incremental improvement of two percentage points from the year before.
When it comes to ethnic minority representation, white colleagues made up 57% of the workforce within Lloyd’s, while 8% preferred not to disclose their ethnicity. There was no ethnicity data on almost a quarter (24%) of the workforce.
Leaders with ethnic minority backgrounds made up 7% of boards, 9% of executive committees, and 9% of direct reports, improving between three to four percentage points from last year.
Though 17% of new hires were ethnic minorities – still far from Lloyd’s ambition of one in three – the attrition rate for ethnic colleagues was also higher at 18% (versus 15% among other groups).
Finally, Lloyd’s has not reported significant movement in its data on people with disabilities (PWDs) and other sexual orientations.
Two percent of employees have a long-term illness, health problem or disability, compared to 19% of working-age adults in the UK with a disability. 89% of Lloyd’s workforce had no disability or no data was available from firms, while 10% declined to disclose any disabilities.
Though more firms are collecting data on sexual orientation (53%, up 13 percentage points from last year), only two percent of employees said they identified as lesbian, bisexual, or gay (LGB+).
Neal acknowledged that there is still some way to go for Lloyd’s in its DE&I journey but vowed to continue momentum towards a more inclusive marketplace.
“Culture change, of course, is hard, and there's still much more work to do. Yet the market’s collective persistent process and focus on improving representation in key groups is driving welcome and encouraging progress,” he said.
“The challenge now is to both maintain and increase that momentum and effort so that we can drive targeted action to improve the pipeline of diverse talent in our market.”
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