At the Rising 2024 conference hosted by Analytics India Magazine, Chubb’s Chief Digital
Officer Sean Ringsted and Head of AI Platforms Rai Rajani Vinodkumar shared fascinating
insights from the company’s latest Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) survey. The session titled
“Empowering Through Inclusion” unveiled some stark realities and areas for improvement when
it comes to D&I initiatives at workplaces.
The comprehensive survey had a strong participation of 25% males and 75% females across
different departments, company sizes, age groups, and types of businesses ranging from small to
large enterprises.
Women’s Representation Increasing but Slowly
One positive takeaway was the consistent growth in women’s representation year-over-year from
29% in 2023 to 30% in 2024. However, the increase is marginal considering the survey found a
positive correlation between organizations having specific D&I initiatives for women and better
representation numbers. A steep 69% of organizations in the BFSI sector had leadership
programs aimed at empowering women.
Workforce Still Not Highly Diverse
Despite the efforts, when asked about how diverse their workforce is, a worrying 51% of
respondents found their organizations only moderately diverse, while an alarming 9% felt their
workplaces were not diverse at all. This highlights an immense need for companies to prioritize
making their culture more inclusive and celebrating diversity of perspectives.
Key Diversity Challenges
The survey data unveiled some major challenges that organizations face on the D&I front:
- 60% of respondents cited a lack of mechanisms to identify and mitigate unconscious biases that
impact career growth and advancement - 28% felt there were limited efforts towards achieving true diversity in hiring processes and
practices - In a shocking statistic, 38% of respondents, with 27% being men and 10% women, were
completely unaware of any D&I initiatives or programs at their company
The above findings reflect glaring gaps in both effective implementation and awareness around
D&I programs across companies surveyed.
Gender Pay Gaps
Significant gender pay disparities persist within IT and ITeS providers, where men consistently
earn significantly higher salaries than women. Despite women experiencing salary increases
from 2023 to 2024, the gap remains wide, highlighting entrenched inequities within these
sectors. In contrast, consulting and analytics firms demonstrate moderate gender pay gaps, albeit
narrower than those in IT and ITeS providers. While men still earn higher salaries than women in
these sectors, efforts to address gender pay disparities appear to be underway. Across all
company types, both men and women experience salary growth from 2023 to 2024, reflecting
overall industry expansion and heightened demand for tech professionals. However, the
persistent gender pay gap underscores the necessity of targeted interventions to ensure that
women’s salaries grow at a comparable rate, ultimately advancing gender pay equity.
Rai Rajani Vinodkumar shared some personal insights on overcoming challenges and the
qualities that kept them motivated:
“The things that kept me going, kept me motivated, are striking a balance between soft skills and
technical skills. Secondly, having the right mentors. I always prefer to work with an employer or
organization which not only talks about inclusivity but embraces it every day. One quality that is
important is how you balance what you can let go versus what you want to pursue, but don’t get
attached to every small and big thing.”
Commitment to Progress
During the session, Chubb’s Chief Digital Officer Sean Ringsted acknowledged that while the
company has made some progress, they are constantly striving to do better. “We recognize this is
a journey and in no way have we done it. There is so much more that we can do,” he stated.
Highlighting the immense benefits of workforce diversity, Ringsted added, “The problem-
solving we’re doing today requires diverse thinking and perspectives. We work better when we
have that diverse input around the table.”
Rai Rajani Vinodkumar echoed similar thoughts, emphasizing the need to go beyond just
achieving numerical targets. “It’s not about meeting a quota, but how do we make everybody
skilled and ready so that we get to the representation we want.”
Driving Inclusive Change
Some key D&I initiatives spotlighted by the speakers included:
- Hosting networking events and participating in external diversity forums like NASSCOM and
BEN - Establishing formal governance structures like councils/committees for strategic D&I oversight
- Running mentorship programs and fireside chats with successful female leaders
- Training initiatives to identify unconscious bias in recruiters’ hiring decisions
- Enabling better workplace integration and support for returning mothers
- Driving management accountability by measuring and tracking D&I metrics
The informative session encapsulated both the opportunities and obstacles companies face in
building a truly inclusive environment. As the speakers summarized, promoting diversity is an
ongoing journey that needs consistent efforts from all levels, raising employee awareness, and
committed leadership to drive positive change.
With the survey data shining a light on the current D&I landscape, it is now up to organizations
to double down on their initiatives, learn from challenges, and create workplaces that embrace
and celebrate diverse talent.
To conclude, by embracing diversity, organizations can harness a wide range of insights and
approaches, leading to more creative solutions and sustainable growth in an ever-evolving
business landscape.
“You need to be able to come at problems from different angles. And you need different
perspectives at the table. Each perspective has value and a place. We work better in
multidisciplinary teams, in smaller teams. We work better when we have diverse input around
the table. You can think about that through gender, race, background – but we’re much better
problem solvers if we’re diverse.” – Sean Ringstead mentioned.
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