Suzanne Williams-Charles: In 2018 we decided it was important to make a statement around diversity and inclusion. We are representing a broad section of organisations and I learned very early through the discussions that companies didn’t want to be told exactly how they must do this because they saw it as another piece of their competitive advantage—how the culture of their organisation could attract talent.

It is very important to the recruitment process, the way that you are able to structure a framework to support diversify in the organisation.

In 2020 we created a committee on DEI. Bill has recently taken over as the chair of that committee, which focuses on sharing best practices and trying to figure out how to move the market forward.

Kirsten Beasley: Although we’ve seen a big increase in the number of companies that have a DEI policy and we may be seeing a few more black men and women in executive management—certainly our panels are more diverse than ever before and we’re creating better, more diverse pipelines—our inclusion practices are sub-par.

Inclusion is so difficult to do, and I don’t think we’re executing on it well. Additionally, in order to move forward we have to be prepared to reflect on the parts of our industry where diversity might be more of a challenge.

Frankly, DEI dynamics in insurance and reinsurance (in Bermuda) may not be the same—and this is often not even acknowledged, let alone discussed. How do you shift cultures and people’s hearts and minds when they don’t think they have a problem?

Hayley Johnston: I agree. Between us, we’ve all identified a lot of issues in areas that need improvement, but what is the solution? I don’t know that there’s actually a generic response or generic answer. We’ve probably got better at identifying and talking about the issues, but not necessarily having all of the solutions.

Beasley: The evidence of bad inclusion work is staring us in the face. I can find a young black Bermudian for an entry level/early career position but if I want someone with 15+ years’ experience, it is so difficult because we didn’t cultivate enough of that talent. And that’s the industry’s fault.

The chickens are coming home to roost, because we have a created a culture and environment that doesn’t foster enough diverse talent—that is a cycle we have to break. How do we break it? Conversations, transparency, support networks and just day-to-day, relentless work.

Deshay Caines: It has to come from the top. If we are not getting buy-in from senior management, having these conversations in our organisations makes absolutely no sense. It comes down to hiring and promotions. It can’t be up to just one person to make that decision. We’re not moving the needle in our organisations, our industry, and people are getting tired of committees and talking.

People of colour, specifically black people, feel that: “I don’t want to sit on another DEI panel as the only black person because people are fatigued.” Maybe senior management needs to continue to hear it. DEI needs to be ingrained so much that we want to change the culture of our organisation.

Is it difficult? Yes, but we want/need the pace to be faster. Several people are disenfranchised from their organisations. They’re disenfranchised from the industry because that talent wasn’t cultivated. After all, they weren’t developed properly, and those jaded employees are now starting to affect the younger/newer talent coming in.

We have to bridge the gap between the people whose trust has been broken with our organisations and the newer talent who are ready to move things forward—in addition to figuring out how we can meet both sides in the middle.

Being strategic on how we’re hiring and promoting and then making sure we are investing in the people in our organisation is vital.

Randolph Simons: It has to be engrained in the culture. In the process, are we holding people accountable for this stuff? Fine, you have a CEO, but the CEO has an executive team that needs to be accountable with this. We’re not holding each other accountable in that space or building the processes that allow for that type of hiring practice and removing the biases.

Patrick Tannock: There are so many tangible things that can be done from a best practices perspective.

While I acknowledge that DEI is not just about identity group representation, the under-representation of people of colour in middle management and the executive suite is unacceptable in 2022.

From my perspective, as an industry we are too quick in attributing the current state of affairs to unconscious bias which I struggle with on the premise that there has been so much work done on increasing awareness of not just the ‘what’ but also the ‘why’ and sharing best practices as to ‘how’ to move the needle.

Too often in our industry I believe we are giving people a pass for certain behaviour and defaulting to the ‘unconscious bias’ school of thought as to why, when women and people of colour are considered for a role, the industry demands higher standards. They have to be the full package and have a proven track record of successful execution whereas other candidates are hired based on their ‘potential’.

Early in my role as CEO I participated in hiring interviews to observe what was actually going on and how they were being conducted and to determine how, what, and why recommendations were being made. After doing this a few times, my colleagues understood the behaviour that I expected and demanded from the top.

At AXA XL there is a policy to ensure that the slate of candidates interviewed are diverse and representative of the Bermuda market. At AXA XL Insurance in Bermuda it is even more deliberate as for each vacant position the hiring manager must interview a person of colour and 50 percent of the candidates must be women. If the hiring manager elects not to hire them, the hiring manager must present a sound business rationale to the CEO. Accountability is vital.

Culture is constantly evolving and how it evolves is a function of many different things, but sometimes it’s the sheer force of wanting to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, so we can move the needle.

We have walked the walk to deliberately build a diverse workforce. We have women, LGBTQ+ people, white men, black men, just about everybody, and with our ever-evolving culture we aspire to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to be successful in their respective roles.

Taking risk is what we do and notwithstanding the importance of harnessing as much data as we can to predict outcomes/scenarios, we must embrace and get comfortable dealing with ambiguity and continue to make the case for diverse thinkers who can deal creatively with variation and rapid change.

We need diverse thought if we are going to solve the problems and challenges especially in areas such as intangible assets, intellectual property, and reputational capital in this era of just-in-time capital or capital on demand. These are new territories, new frontiers, and we are going to have find ways to attract the talent.

Bill Wharton: If you want someone who can navigate all that, hire a black single mother, because she will have been pivoting her entire life.

Caines: Leadership and middle management must be uncomfortable with not having representation on their team. If a person of colour, a woman, or any minority group whatsoever is leaving your team, you should be asking why they’re leaving and what we can do to retain you. CEOs should be uncomfortable with their diverse talent leaving their organisations.

Beasley: I think development plans are an underutilised and underestimated tool. I want to make sure that every young person, but especially our young black Bermudians, can see themselves as a crucial part of the team. I want them to know that we have a plan for them, in support of their goals.

Development plans were not used when I was coming up in the industry. They are different from an annual objective approach—development plans offer a richer, deeper insight and path forward, a collaborative plan between the company and the employee.

It is especially important to use development plans for employees who may not have had much exposure and access to networking opportunities. I’m hoping that will be a game-changer.

Simons: People leave companies for many reasons. As big as we are, we’re always going to lose people to our smaller competition because of money.

Williams-Charles: Deshay talked about being uncomfortable. That word just stuck with me because you were talking about statistics. We’ve all heard about how much more successful, how much more profitable your business can be when you diversify your workforce. So why are we not moving the dial?

Because if somebody gave you another idea that was going to make you more money, you would embrace it. So why do we still not move the dial from a DEI perspective?

A lot of times it is to do with change being uncomfortable. People are comfortable with people who are like them, whether it be sexual orientation, colour, or whatever.

We have to start being comfortable with being uncomfortable. You have to feel that you could have an honest discussion without people taking it personally.

Caines: Everyone feels uncomfortable in certain situations. Growing up as a black woman, I was taught we need to have diversity in our friends and diversity in extracurricular activities. Walking into a room, I can immediately identify that I am either the only black person in the room, the only black woman, or the only woman. That immediately comes to mind for me.

For other people, it is not the same. Sometimes it is as simple as explaining this. It’s changing the thought process and bringing nuances others face to the forefront.

Nicholas West: From a hiring perspective, you touched on unconscious bias. We’ve done a lot of training as an organisation to try and address this and raise awareness. When we interview, we have multiple people participate and when we collate our feedback we try to focus on any negative comments regarding “fit” and to really dig in as to what that means to ensure we are asking the right questions.

One of our leaders recently said something that stuck with me: “If everybody in the room is agreeing, you’re in the wrong room”. If we are recruiting we stress to our recruitment partners the importance of diverse candidate pools and we work with our recruiting teams to ensure diverse candidates are presented at every opportunity.

Tannock: Notwithstanding the fact that DEI is not only about identity group representation a key objective for me is to get to a point where everyone is comfortable with everyone not looking the same and thinking the same, on the premise that it is providing real value and elevating the decision-making process and that it enhances problem-solving, cultural awareness and innovation. The list goes on and on.

We need to look at DEI as an advantage and collectively as an industry we need to walk the walk. Those of us in leadership positions, and especially CEOs, have to be committed to materially moving the needle.

I believe that progress has been made but it’s not at the pace that is necessary to attract the kind and numbers of diverse talent that is essential if we are to remain relevant where we can add real value to provide solutions to new cutting-edge challenges.

Beasley: Back to the discomfort piece: if I’m not uncomfortable, I am not doing something right. I view discomfort not just as a tool for DEI, but as a business tool. Discomfort is a business tool. The zone of uncomfortable discussion is the very heart of what diversity means in practice.

Yes, diversity is demographics, but more importantly, diversity harnesses the power of people’s differing experience and opinions and all those intangibles.

Those differing opinions and experiences can be super-uncomfortable to work through with each other in a professional setting, but it’s from there that business innovation, growth and progression are born.

Tannock: If there is a DEI role at an organisation, the CEO must be 100 percent overtly behind it or it becomes window-dressing. If the DEI job is supported at the board level, I’m not suggesting the job will be easy, but the person in that role will have an enhanced chance of real success in terms of moving the needle in a material way.