DEI: Building an Inclusive Workplace Experience

In this annual survey of U.S. business leaders, we will explore employers' DEI priorities, practices and obstacles and report on the unfolding trends in comparison to the results from the 2021 and 2022 surveys. More specifically, the research will be designed to identify the outcomes organizations are driving toward and how employers are benchmarking success as they work to build more inclusive work environments.

Transcription:

Patricia L. Harman (00:07):

Wow. Thank you so much, Saya. Just so many great insights and just helping us to see that we all can live a life of, yes, it's kind of a hard act to follow, but we will try. So one of the many divisions within Arizent is a research division which allows our various news organizations to share information that isn't otherwise available to our industries. Some of the studies are unique to a specific line of business. We're actually going to have several insurance focused studies that we'll be conducting in 2024 and some span all of the industries that our reporters cover, which gives us an insider's look at the issues that affect all businesses. So today we are sharing insights from our recent DEI study, and joining me is my colleague Kerry Gross, who is the director of research intelligence at Arizent. And I would share a little bit more about Kerry and her research, but I don't want to steal all of her thunder because there's really a lot of we're going to be able to share. So Kerry, I'm going to let you go ahead and lead off.

Kerry Gross (01:20):

Thanks everyone. I'm so excited to be here and share this piece of research with all of you. There's going to be a lot of data potentially on each of these slides. I welcome all of you to take pictures if there's information you want to have later. And Patti, and I'll also be available to talk about all of it afterwards as well. So I'm excited. Let's just jump in.

Patricia L. Harman (01:42):

Yep, let's go ahead.

Kerry Gross (01:44):

So this piece of research is something that we did at Arizent among all of our industries. And you'll see here on this slide the industries who are included in the piece of research and also that we talked to 669 employees. And so this is a big piece of research, really understanding what's happening in businesses across the United States, but in particular businesses that look a lot like the insurance industry. You'll see here that 12% are from insurance, but when we look at all of the demographics of who respondents are and where they come from, we see that the insurance respondents really reflect the broader pool that's happening. And who is this broader pool we see here? I'm sure everyone in the audience will see a group here that represents themselves. We see that 62% are at companies with more than 250 employees. 38% have less than 250 employees.

(02:33)

I'm sure that includes at least one of you in the audience. And similarly, we have a big range of title level in this survey. And so the goal of this piece of research and what we feel really excited about how well it does, is to reflect the experiences of people within companies. It was billed as a de and I piece of research, but the really most important thing that we were trying to understand is business outcomes. How are companies doing when it comes to things that makes their companies more productive? And that's what this piece of research is going to show us is what are ways that particularly inclusion can drive better business outcomes? And the hope is that folks will walk away from this conversation with a few more thoughts to bring back to their leadership or if you are leaders, bring into your own leadership to foster better business practices through the lens of inclusion. And in that lens, just one more piece of reflection about the survey of where these folks come from is this comes from all demographic groups. We have demographics in terms of race and ethnicity in the bottom and then the left side of this slide, but also age group, whether people have children or not at home, whether they identify as LGBTQ plus. And these aren't the only things that make up differences that make up diversity.

Patricia L. Harman (03:55):

There are a lot of different factors that come into place. It goes beyond your race and your ethnicity and your sex, all of those different types of things. And that's what we're trying to make you understand. And I'm so excited about some of the research that we're going to be sharing with you because all of us as leaders want to create an inclusive strong workplace. And so that's the information and those are the tools we're going to try and give you today.

Kerry Gross (04:22):

And that's a great segue into this first question which we asked to folks, which was to understand to ask individuals within companies how many different demographic characteristics are represented first in their own teams that people work with. And you'll notice here in the question that when we asked about demographic characteristics, we gave lots of different possible categories. We're not just talking about people of color, we're not just talking about women, we're not just talking about queer folk. We're talking about all of the differences that make you bring a unique experience to the office. And we see here that 65% of people work on teams with at least four different demographic groups represented. But when we bring this out bigger and we look at executive leadership, we see a really big difference. We see that 37% of folks work at companies that have an executive leadership team that has four or more demographic groups. And Patti, we've talked a lot about this and I'd love your thoughts.

Patricia L. Harman (05:20):

So one of the things I mentioned in my remarks earlier this morning, I was talking about how women in the insurance industry, they comprise 60% of the workforce, but only about 12 to 19% of the top leadership positions. And I think a lot of that is with the research that we see here.

Kerry Gross (05:38):

And we'll see throughout why we wanted to lead with this is how important it is to have diversity in executive leadership and how that can impact specific business outcomes. And that's what we're trying to relate here. And the six core business outcomes that we think are really important are these six, six here. We've grouped them into three different groups. First, belonging, I feel valued and I belong at the organization. And leadership creates an environment that's welcoming to all employees and that sense of belonging. Let's just start there, Patti, why do we know that's important in a business sense?

Patricia L. Harman (06:15):

Because it matters in terms of creating a safe space where you're allowed to share your ideas and where they are valued. And think of all of the things, all of us, as we worked our way up through our careers over the years, one of the most important things was that ability to belong and to be heard and to be respected.

Kerry Gross (06:36):

And that aligns exactly with the keynote that we just heard, right? Spaces that you are able to bring that is important. And we see that between 65 and 75% of employees do experience this. Some of you might experience this in your companies already, but we'll see as we go through what types of companies are more likely to experience this and why.

Patricia L. Harman (06:59):

The other thing to keep in mind as we're talking about belonging is just building a space for openness and where we're not threatened by new ideas. Because that is one of the beautiful things about having a really diverse workforce. And I can tell you from personal experience, some of the teams that I have led, the more diverse they were, the more creative they were and the more amazing outcomes that we had at the end of whatever that particular project was. And one of the other things to understand is that listening doesn't always mean that you're going to change, but it does mean that you're willing to listen and understand and maybe even consider that, oh, there could be another way to do this or maybe there's another way to approach it. And all of that comes to creating that feeling of belonging and that safe space.

Kerry Gross (07:47):

And it connects too to the middle piece around voice and input that my input is regularly requested on a meaningful item and feeling comfortable disagreeing in a meeting. And those two things can't be had in isolation. If you're asked for your input on meaningful items, but you don't feel comfortable disagreeing is your input actually being asked for. And so the connection of these two things in the middle of making a space for, as Patti was saying, listening doesn't mean acting on, I can listen to great ideas from Patti and show her that I hear them and still make a business decision that doesn't align with what Patti's seeing. And as long as I explain that back to Patti, and then we both felt heard and understood, and Patti understands why I'm making decisions and understands that she's also going to get heard and when things are in aligned, decisions will get made in that direction. Right?

Patricia L. Harman (08:40):

Yep. Very true.

Kerry Gross (08:41):

And that all aligns with the third piece here around principles of honesty, integrity, being demonstrated at all levels of the company. I think that is pretty intuitive to folks when your company is well known for delivering on what they say they're going to deliver, that trust and integrity builds such equity in the market. But I think the other piece here that we think is deeply important to strong business cultures is curiosity being encouraged. And I don't think that is as intuitive leap, but it connects back to the piece of welcoming and being open to hearing things. Right?

Patricia L. Harman (09:14):

Very true. So it doesn't always have to be this is the way we've always done it.

Kerry Gross (09:20):

Exactly. And we'll see throughout as we go how these are correlated with a couple of other really important pieces of signals of business culture, inclusion and diversity. But before we get there, I also, these are statements that folks agree with or disagree with, and there's a sentiment bias that comes with that. But we also wanted to add in an evidence-based tool to measure how healthy a workplace is. And this is a slide that would horrify me if I knew I was going to show it to you, but I wanted it to be here so people could take a picture. These are 20 statements that all ladder up together to describe what workplace toxicity is. And workplace toxicity has been proven to be not just a thing that is subjective that folks feel it is, but it also impacts folks' physical health within their workplace. And so companies which are able to sit in a healthy place, a healthy workplace environment, are much more able to get good productivity from their employees at kind of the basic level. But they're also better places to work. And so for folks who are leaders or folks who are trying to understand their own company culture, we think these 20 statements are a great way to understand the company. And I know you have some

Patricia L. Harman (10:39):

Thoughts that, yeah, well, and what I want to say is that just as we need to know what makes a really strong viable workplace, we need to understand what are some of the factors that can make it a toxic work environment? What should we as leaders be watching out for? Is it just what we say, how we act, all of those different things. And so if we understand what to be aware of and what to be watching for, then we can also take the actions to mitigate those factors or to address them and to just be watching within our teams when we start to see some of these things arise.

Kerry Gross (11:13):

Exactly. And one other point that I want to make sure that folks know about workplace toxicity is workplace experiences are highly individual. And so a workplace could be toxic for one person different from me. The things that I reflect on that don't make me feel supported might make Patti feel supported and letting people bring their individuality into an organization. But from a technical standpoint, what we did with these 20 statements, we ask people to rate on a five point scale how frequently they experience it. And then that gets added into a score and folks get grouped into one of four categories and describing their workplace experience. And what we see is that overall in our whole sample, 32% of folks are working in a fully healthy workplace experience. And that to me feels sad, just that a third of people are feeling really happy in their workplace from a felt experience place and a health space.

(12:13)

And 53% are in that borderline healthy, unhealthy, and then the last 15% are in an unhealthy workplace. And that's why to me, it's really important to see what are the things that are correlated with this? What are the hallmarks of a company that have more health, that have more experiences for employees where they get to be their full selves? And that's where this question around inclusion comes in. And we asked folks, do you believe that your company has a genuine commitment to inclusion? And there's an element of belief here from folks, and there's that element of the company's actions, but we do see that 75% think that their company has a genuine commitment to inclusion. And the bulk of those folks, about half of them say that they definitely do. And when we line this up with workplace toxicity here, there's a huge difference.

Patricia L. Harman (13:04):

Huge difference.

Kerry Gross (13:04):

There's a huge difference. Across the bottom, we see that the category, the farthest left, those who stay their company, yes, definitely has a genuine commitment to inclusion more than half work in a healthy work experience versus folks who say it can only say probably maybe or no. And we see that the health of a workplace decreasing as folks feel that their company is less likely to be inclusive. And Patti, I'd love your thoughts on this data.

Patricia L. Harman (13:33):

So one of the things is that there are definitely higher degrees of belonging with companies that have that greater commitment. Just like you said, it also improves the relationships, both the relationships within our teams and even with others within the company because none of us works isolated in one spot. So the fact that all of this can kind of permeate out throughout an entire company makes just a huge difference. And that's why this type of information is so valuable.

Kerry Gross (13:58):

And thinking about what was important to us in terms of this piece of research, we know that there's lots of noise around diversity with a capital D, right? I'm sure everyone in the audience has seen news stories, has heard folks have deeply negative reactions to the idea. We get that in this survey itself. We get people responding. And the lens that we wanted to turn back to people was like, okay, if capital D diversity is too politically hard within your organization, it's an uphill battle. The thing that we find is most important is inclusion, is inclusiveness and turning the focus to what are the practices that we can do that make spaces more inclusive for everybody? And that comes back to the business practices we talked about at the top, which we'll get to and see how that's correlated with an inclusive business practice. But there's one other thing that we find is highly correlated with workplace toxicity, and that's going back to up at the top where we talked about number of demographic groups in leadership, and we find that organizations that have higher numbers of different demographic groups in leadership, and that's anything that's ages, that's generations, that's gender, that's race, that's life experience.

(15:11)

When we see greater groups of diversity in executive leadership, we see higher levels of health within that company. And I'd love your thoughts. I know you've experienced this. I'd love your thoughts.

Patricia L. Harman (15:23):

I have because it just really, I mentioned before that I have led a number of different groups and the importance of making everyone feel respected and heard and included, it is a game changer. And in a little bit, I'll share some statistics just so that you have an understanding of why this is so important and why we're excited to be sharing this information with you. Because like I said before, it is up to us as the leaders to create these environments. And so we want to make sure that what we're doing is being reflected in other areas of the company too.

Kerry Gross (15:58):

Exactly. And that's a great segue into the business cases that we started with the hallmarks of good business and how it's correlated with these items. Here we have on the left-hand side, these are the statements around belonging. On the left-hand side, this is the, I feel valued and I belong at this organization. What we see, what this chart is showing is that folks who say their company definitely has a genuine commitment to inclusion, feel valued and that they belong at their organization. And we don't have a causal model here. We don't say one comes before the other, but they're highly correlated. And we see that being valued and belonged is kind of the definition of inclusion. But we also see that on the right hand side of, I feel valued and I belong at this organization, that companies that have a greater diversity in their executive leadership are companies that make their employees feel more like they're valued and belonged.

Patricia L. Harman (16:49):

And it builds on the trust issue too, because if you're not making them feel that way, they won't trust you as a leader. And they also won't trust themselves to share information or to be honest with you. And so that's a really important piece of it.

Kerry Gross (17:03):

And I'd love to talk about from a leadership perspective. In your experience, what are the sorts of things that leaders do well to create a sense of belonging for all? What are kind of the actions that folks take or don't take to show this?

Patricia L. Harman (17:20):

Well, I think the biggest part is listening is huge. And it's not just listening to learn. It's listening to understand why are they telling you this? Why is this information valuable? Making sure that you can explain and keep up with, or I'm sorry, relate to what they're trying to do. And also just being genuine. And I know we hear that a lot of times, and it goes back to what Saya was saying about being okay with being your authentic self. And that's how we need to be as leaders. We can't all be perfect, and we are all dealing with all of the things that Saya listed every day. Maybe not to, there might be certain areas that you experience more on a certain day or whatever, but I think that is a huge part in terms of building trust within your teams and making them feel that they can come to you, that they can share information with you, all of that sort of thing.

Kerry Gross (18:17):

And I think related to that, acknowledging when you've made a mistake, acknowledging when you haven't listened or didn't listen, or if someone brings you something that you dismiss and then it comes to fruition, right? It's sitting back down with them being like, you were right. I'm sorry. Very true. And it doesn't have to be anything more than that, but the listen and then the action that backs it, because

Patricia L. Harman (18:38):

We're all infallible, so it just, or all fallible, right? I'm sorry, see? But we all make mistakes. And owning up to that is while it's very difficult, it's also very important to do as a leader.

Kerry Gross (18:54):

And that really aligns with the next part of the business case that we were talking about the front around voice and input. And we see there's a significant difference here in folks who feel that their company is inclusive and saying that their company asks them for their input on meaningful items and in level of comfort in disagreeing with meetings versus those folks who say that their company isn't inclusive more than a third say that they don't feel comfortable disagreeing in meetings. And think about what you're missing. If someone's not comfortable disagreeing with a business decision you're making from a business case perspective, you're missing out on really valuable information.

Patricia L. Harman (19:32):

Yes, giving your teams the freedom to disagree is as important as even asking for their input. They need to know that they can say to you, and I remember when I was early in my career, I had one boss and he was ferocious. Everyone just literally cowered. And I was the only one on the staff at that point in time who when he would say something, I would say, I'm not so sure you want to do that, or I'm not so sure that that's the best way to do it. And it's not that we can't disagree. A lot of times I think it might be how we approach it, how we say it, but we have to give our teams the freedom to disagree with us. And one of the things that this does is that it really supports and improves product creation, and it also will help you to improve your talent retention. Companies that have this open dialogue back and forth between their team members, they find that team members are willing to stay with an organization up to five times longer than in organizations that don't. And in this day and age, when that talent retention piece is so important for us, that can be a major differentiator for your particular team or your company.

Kerry Gross (20:48):

Definitely. And I think understanding too, how long it takes to build that space that people feel safe to talk, and how quickly that goes away. And knowing as a leader, I know how valuable it is that the folks who report to me trust me enough to disagree with me. And that's not something that I take for granted. And knowing that as a leader helps you help them talk to you. And that doesn't mean you always have to be available to listen, right? Setting up times and parameters so that you're predictable, that the person who's coming to you knows how to get your ear when they need to get your ear when it matters most.

Patricia L. Harman (21:29):

Very true.

Kerry Gross (21:31):

And that finally segues into the last set of business drivers that we had here around curiosity, being engaged and cultivated and honesty and integrity. And this, to me was the most dramatic because these aren't definitionally attached to inclusion or diversity in leadership. The other things all kind of sit together and build a culture that's very similar, but curiosity at its face has nothing to do with inclusion. But to see them highly correlated shows that there's something around curiosity and the openness that happens there and the inclusivity and better business practices that come together too. And I'd love your thoughts.

Patricia L. Harman (22:11):

That's very true. So there was a study done by the World Economic Forum, and they found that companies with above average diversity scores drive 45% of their average revenue from innovation. So think about the difference in that in terms of your teams and if you're really striving to be innovative, and we're here at a digital insurance conference, so innovation is really important to all of us. So understanding that that is a significant driver can be the differentiator between you and your competitor, unless they're in this room, then you both have this information. But as compared to companies, which didn't, they only drove their innovation by about 26%. So that is a very significant difference if you're trying to really be on the cutting edge and stay ahead of what's going on. Again, having diverse teams and listening to them and creating that safe space, as we've said, all of those things make it just a huge difference.

Kerry Gross (23:13):

It's not the act of just hiring someone who's different from you doesn't make this culture happen. And that's kind of the bigger picture is diversity inclusion are practices, the people and the characteristics who are within a company matter, but so does the broader practices that you can bring into a space and becoming, building a company that does foster these can bring a wider range of ideas and thoughts from places that you maybe didn't ever expect them from. Because there are also, I think it's important to talk about the characteristics that people bring that aren't visible. The differences that I may be bringing to a meeting that you can't see on me just by looking at me. You don't know that I've biked across the country that I've had that life experience, but what that brings to a conversation might be different or all of the other status characteristics that I'm not going to stand up on a stage and tell you about that you might not know that actually drive differences in understanding. And those are the unseen things that curiosity brings out.

Patricia L. Harman (24:16):

Well, and a lot of times when you're trying to work out different challenges within a team or within a project, and it's that person who comes from that outside of the box experience or has an experience that you're not familiar with, that can be the key to solving the whole problem. And that's why it excites me so much to work on teams where there's a lot of diversity, because so many different ideas and different ways to apply a product or a solution or something, it opens up a whole world of possibilities. I know some people who have a tendency, and I describe them as they live inside this little box, and they can't see outside of the box. They only see what's inside of the box. That's all they know. That's all they're familiar with. But once you have the freedom to go outside the box and experience other things, it is a game changer. Just like Saya said, it lets us look at life through a totally different lens.

Kerry Gross (25:13):

Exactly. And I think that's a great place for us to talk about the wrap up here and the top highlights that we have. And for me, thinking about the processes within a team for bringing in discussion, for bringing in curiosity, for building a structure that's predictable and understandable, but also open, right? Yes, very true. And I'd love your thoughts.

Patricia L. Harman (25:35):

Well, I think we want to leave you with a couple of things, and that is that healthy workplaces, they value inclusion. They provide a place to safely express new ideas and provide a sense of belonging for everybody that's on the team. And most importantly, they create that important connection. And that's one of the things that we've been trying to drive home to you today, is the importance of all of these different factors. They come together and they help to create a really strong, healthy, vibrant way to manage your teams and to grow. And that's what's so exciting about having all of you in this room today, because you're going to be able to take this and go back to your workspaces. And remember how S was, oh no, maybe it was, oh, it was in the, if you were in I session this morning, one of the examples that Robin gave was that if you took a pillow and you sliced it open and you spread all of the feathers all across Chicago, there would be no way to bring them back in. And that's how I see the ideas and the information from this session is that we can take this, and through all of you, you can take it back to your workplaces and think of all of the people that you'll be able to share this with and just how this will begin to grow and build and gradually begin to change this exciting industry that we call insurance.

Kerry Gross (26:58):

Exactly.

Patricia L. Harman (26:59):

So we have a minute or two maybe for questions. If anybody has any questions.

Kerry Gross (27:04):

Questions, I think we have a mic in the back. If anyone has a question, feel free to raise your hand and Heather can come find you. I see her in the back corner. No, I just see you in the back corner.

Patricia L. Harman (27:20):

Yeah, we can't see. Well, because of the lights.

Kerry Gross (27:23):

If you have a question, feel free to stand up. If not, Patti and I are available after the session to answer any questions. And I hope folks have taken pictures of anything that they want to take with them.

Patricia L. Harman (27:34):

Well, if we don't have, did we have any questions? Okay.

Audience Member 1 (27:42):

I was going to say, we can send this slides out.

Kerry Gross (27:43):

Yes. We'll send the slides out. So everyone you didn't, if you took pictures, that's great, but we'll make sure you also have them.

Patricia L. Harman (27:48):

So on that note, we're going to take a short break and grab some coffee, meet some friends, make sure to introduce yourself to a couple of folks, and we'll see you back here at 10 25. Thank you very much.