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Black Lives Matter: Taking Action on Diversity and Inclusion

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As protesters across the United States call out systemic racism and police violence against Black people, and Pride Month honoring the LGBTQ+ community begins, diversity and inclusion issues are—and should be—drawing headlines and dominating conversations around the world.

RIMS CEO Mary Roth and 2020 President Laura Langone released a statement Friday saying:

“To the Black members of our community, we cannot fully appreciate how pained you must be by not only this most recent act—but by all acts that reflect bigotry and hatred in our nations’ communities. What we can do is accept the responsibility to ensure that RIMS community reflects something different. Let us be clear: RIMS does not tolerate any form of racism or discrimination in our global community. And we will always look for ways to improve.”

The editors of Risk Management and the Risk Management Monitor echo this message and stand with our Black colleagues, RIMS members and the Black community at large.

As we all look to support, advocate, learn and do better, we have compiled a list of resources to help, including industry advocacy groups for Black risk and insurance professionals, as well as resources for strengthening your organization’s policies, procedures and diversity and inclusion programs. You can also review selections from our previous coverage of diversity and inclusion below:

Industry Advocacy Groups and Research

National African American Insurance Association (NAAIA)

International Association of Black Actuaries

REPORT: The Journey of African American Insurance Professionals, from Marsh and NAAIA

For public sector risk professionals:

The Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE)

National Forum for Black Public Administrators

From ICMA, the association for professional city and county managers: WEBINAR: Sharpening the Focus on Social Equity to Make Strategic Budget Decisions

ARTICLE: Silence Is Complicity: Can White America Demonstrate that Black Lives Matter?

Diversity and Inclusion Resources

Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks, Standards for Organizations Around the World, from the Centre for Global Inclusion

The Diversity & Inclusion Revolution, Eight Powerful Truths, from Deloitte

Corporate Equality Index, from the Human Rights Campaign

Previous Risk Management Coverage on Bias, Diversity and Inclusion

Beyond Pride: Building Strong Diversity and Inclusion Programs

Pale, Stale & Male: Does Board Diversity Matter?

The Benefits of Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives

Getting Serious About ESG Risks

Why Cultivating and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce Is Important

Activists Against Insurers

Working to Close the Gender Pay Gap

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U.S. government regulators at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) are requiring all private companies with over 100 workers to provide information including their workers’ genders, race and ethnicity as it relates to compensation. The EEOC uses this information, in part, to measure any pay gaps between employees that could be based on these characteristics. The EEOC instituted the requirement in 2016, and it covers about 70,000 employers and 54 million workers.

The Trump administration halted the rule’s implementation in 2017, but advocacy groups sued the EEOC, and in April, a federal district judge ordered its reinstatement. The rule requires that employers submit information about employees’ median pay and hours in various positions within the company, from sales staff to executives, both full-time and part-time.

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The policy is intended to make companies confront the actual data about their gender and racial pay gaps, which they may be reticent to do. Former EEOC commissioner Jenny Yang said, “Right now, there’s a strong incentive to not look under the hood, because if you find problems, many feel they’re under an obligation to immediately fix it, so they’d rather not.”

Not all companies are so unwilling to address the issue. For example, Nordstrom announced that it had achieved full pay equity, but that it was still working to ensure an equal share of men and women in leadership and top-paying jobs.

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Intel also announced “full representation” in its workforce—that the makeup of their workers mirrors the available talent pool—and pay equity for male and female employees.

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At the same time, U.S. pension funds and investors are similarly applying pressure to companies over their pay gaps. The pension funds for the states of Connecticut, Minnesota and Oregon are reportedly pushing for companies to disclose information about the promotion and compensation gaps within their ranks, as are private investment firms. These investors see companies’ insufficient gender equality as a risk that affects their bottom line. Tobias Read, treasurer of Oregon, told the Financial Times, “Gender equality, if we are not paying attention to that as a risk, we are not living up to our fiduciary responsibilities.”

Investment firm Arjuna Capital has filed multiple shareholder proposals to the various companies it invests in, asking for them to disclose median pay information related to gender and race. In response, Citigroup disclosed that its female employees make 29% less than their male colleagues, and pledged to continue working to increase representation of women and minorities within the company. Famously, the firm State Street Global Advisors put a bronze statue of a small girl near the Wall Street bull to raise awareness of index funds of companies that have gender-diverse leadership. Reportedly, as a result of the publicity, hundreds of companies worldwide moved to add at least one woman to their boards.

Investors making decisions based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors has been a growing trend, as Risk Management reported in the May article “Getting Serious About ESG Risks.” As that article stated, investors have used their clout to make companies focus on issues like climate change, and start considering not only the affect that environmental changes have on the business, but also the effect the company’s operations have on the environment. These considerations are changing risk managers’ evaluations and calculations of their companies’ risk profiles, and slowly changing companies’ gender diversity.

A lack of gender equality in pay or representation can not only lead to reputational damage for a company, but companies that do not have diverse workforces at all levels can miss out on the innovation that diversity and inclusion can bring. And this does not just mean bodies in the room—it means actually listening to different voices from different groups of people.

Inclusion Does Not Stop Workplace Bias, Deloitte Survey Shows

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In Deloitte’s 2019 State of Inclusion Survey, 86% of respondents said they felt comfortable being themselves all or most of the time at work, including 85% of women, 87% of Hispanic respondents, 86% of African American respondents, 87% of Asian respondents, 80% of respondents with a disability and 87% of LGBT respondents. But other questions in the company’s survey show a more troubling, less inclusive and productive office environment, and may indicate that simply implementing inclusion initiatives is not enough to prevent workplace bias.

While more than three-fourths of those surveyed also said that they believed their company “fostered an inclusive workplace,” many reported experiencing or witnessing bias (defined as “an unfair prejudice or judgment in favor or against a person or group based on preconceived notions”) in the workplace. In fact, 64% said that they “had experienced bias in their workplaces during the last year” and “also felt they had witnessed bias at work” in the same time frame. A sizable number of respondents—including 56% of LGBT respondents, 54% of respondents with disabilities and 53% of those with military status—also said they had experienced bias at least once a month.

Listening to those who say they have witnessed or experienced bias is especially important. When asked to more specifically categorize the bias they experienced and/or witnessed in the past year, 83% said that the bias in those incidents was indirect and subtle (also called “microaggression”), and therefore less easily identified and addressed. Also, the study found that those employees who belonged to certain communities were more likely to report witnessing bias against those communities than those outside them. For example, 48% of Hispanic respondents, 60% of Asian respondents, and 63% of African American respondents reported witnessing bias based on race or ethnicity, as opposed to only 34% of White, non-Hispanic respondents. Additionally, 40% of LGBT respondents reported witnessing bias based on sexuality, compared to only 23% of straight respondents.

While inclusion initiatives have not eliminated bias, Deloitte stresses that these programs are important and should remain. As Risk Management previously reported in the article “The Benefits of Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives,” not only can fostering diversity and inclusion be beneficial for workers of all backgrounds, it can also encourage employees to share ideas for innovations that can help the company, keep employees from leaving, and insulate the company from accusations of discrimination and reputational damage.

But building a more diverse workforce is only the first step, and does not guarantee that diverse voices are heard or that bias will not occur. Clearly, encouraging inclusion is not enough and more can be done to curtail workplace bias. And employees seeing or experiencing bias at work has serious ramifications for businesses. According to the survey, bias may impact productivity—68% of respondents experiencing or witnessing bias stated that bias negatively affected their productivity, and 70% say bias “has negatively impacted how engaged they feel at work.”

Deloitte says that modeling inclusion and anti-bias behavior in the workplace is essential, stressing the concept of “allyship,” which includes, “supporting others even if your personal identity is not impacted by a specific challenge or is not called upon in a specific situation.” This would include employees or managers listening to their colleagues when they express concerns about bias and addressing incidents of bias when they occur, even if that bias is not apparent to them or directly affecting them or their identity specifically.

According to the survey, 73% of respondents reported feeling comfortable talking about workplace bias, but “when faced with bias, nearly one in three said they ignored bias that they witnessed or experienced.” If businesses foster workplaces where people feel comfortable listening to and engaging honestly with colleagues of different backgrounds, create opportunities for diversity on teams and projects, and most importantly, address bias whenever it occurs, they can move towards a healthier, more productive work environment.

Beyond Pride: Building Strong Diversity and Inclusion Programs

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Today, June 28, marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, demonstrations widely considered the most formative event to formally start the fight for LGBTQ rights in New York City and the United States as a whole. As June comes to a close and the city begins celebrating World Pride this weekend, enterprises should be thinking about how to extend the spirit of Pride month and embrace the importance of diversity and inclusion. Long after companies have retired their rainbow logos, they still face increasing need to build and maintain meaningful policies and programs in practice.

Whether looking to start a formal diversity and inclusion initiative, review existing policies, or audit the efficacy of D&I programs, here are some key resources companies can use to build better workplaces for LGBTQ employees and the workforce at large:

RIMS has also been increasingly focused on diversity and inclusion initiatives for both members and the organization itself with Risk Management Magazine content, webinars and conference networking events. Special thanks to Joshua Lamangan, senior membership manager at RIMS, for sharing many of the resources above from his work leading the RIMS Diversity and Inclusion Task Force and Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council.