The Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) has voluntarily disclosed the ethnicity pay gap across its 243 employees, reporting a 1% mean ethnicity pay gap for hourly pay in 2018.
The professional body published the information on 30 January 2019, as part of a new report aiming to encourage dialogue around diversity and inclusion.
The CII's median ethnicity pay gap is 16% in favour of black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) employees. Just under a quarter (23%) of the organisation's workforce is of ethnic origins, compared to 77% white staff members.
Tali Shlomo (pictured), people engagement director at the CII, said: "We are proud of the figures in our ethnicity pay gap, but numbers alone don't tell the whole story. The ethos behind our decision to disclose this data lies an impassioned belief that transparency is the key to changing the dialogue around diversity and inclusion in our sector."
Around a quarter (24%) of the CII's Bame employees are in the organisation's lowest pay quartile. This compares to 21% in the third pay quartile, 22% in the second and 27% in the highest.
For employees who identify themselves as white, 76% are in the lowest pay quartile, 79% are in the third, 78% are in the second and 73% are in the highest pay quartile.
Approximately three-fifths (61%) of the CII's workforce is female; the female staff comprises 76% white and 24% Bame employees. Of the 39% of employees who are male, 77% identify as being white, compared to 23% who define themselves as Bame.
Three-quarters (75%) of female Bame employees are in the CII's lowest pay quartile, as are 25% of male Bame employees. This compares to 50% of both male and female Bame employees in the third quartile, 75% female and 25% male Bame staff in the second, and 43% female and 57% male Bame employees in the organisation's highest pay quartile.
These findings are based on a 70% response rate of employees who voluntarily disclosed their ethnicity using the government's existing categories: white, mixed or multiple ethnic groups, Asian or Asian British, black, African, Caribbean, black British, and any other ethnic group.
The CII's report also offers recommendations for employers on how to reduce the ethnicity pay gap. This includes collating ethnicity pay data, setting ambitious pay and progression targets and monitoring performance against these, encouraging employees to provide their ethnicity data, introducing mandatory diversity and inclusion training and nominating a senior employee to be a diversity and inclusion ambassador for the business.
The CII further suggests that diversity and inclusion should be recognised as a key organisational priority, that senior employees should take advantage of reverse mentoring opportunities with employees from different backgrounds, that recruitment and selection policies should be reviewed to ensure diversity is considered and that employers must ensure they are using suppliers that also promote diversity and inclusion.
The report also proposes that organisations connect with the independent Insurance Cultural Awareness Network, which supports multicultural inclusion across the insurance profession.
Shlomo added: "The opportunities and rewards for employers [that] embrace diversity and inclusion are huge, and the insurance profession has an opportunity to take a positive lead by preparing early and addressing diversity issues meaningfully, whether such requirements become statutory or not.
"Our sector has made progress in recent years, but there is much work still to be done. If we do not recognise unconscious bias and find better ways to make decisions, we will miss opportunities to use people's talents to the full, which means we will be letting down both our colleagues and our clients."
