The How and Why of D&I with Travelers' Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer
June 7, 2023 | Webinar
How can organizations foster a diverse and inclusive culture – and why does it matter? Studies from experts show that companies that are diverse and inclusive are better able to respond to challenges, win top talent, and meet the needs of different customer bases. So, how do companies build D&I into policies and hiring practices? Travelers' Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, Dr. Lauren Young, joined the Travelers Institute to share some of her experience leading Travelers enterprise-wide D&I program.
Presented by the Travelers Institute, the Master's in Financial Technology (FinTech) Program at the University of Connecticut School of Business, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association and the MetroHartford Alliance.
Summary
What did we learn? Here are the top takeaways from The How and Why of D&I with Travelers’ Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer.
44:30 D&I is organizational change. “I tell my team that we are not D&I people. We are organizational change people with a focus on D&I,” Dr. Young said. She emphasized that this change takes time before we see results, so it’s important to work together throughout an organization and to create smaller checkpoints along the way to track change.
03:49 Unconscious biases exist for everyone. “At the foundational level, the reason diversity and inclusion are essential to business is because we all have unconscious biases,” Dr. Young explained. “And that’s OK because we’re all human, and having unconscious biases are natural and normal. But we want to make sure we don’t let our unconscious biases impact our ability to make decisions every day.” She noted that the widespread nature of unconscious biases creates a need to educate about D&I at every level of the organization.
18:52 Culture comes from consistent action. “The big misconception about culture is that it’s built from making these grand gestures or that you can put some talk about belonging in a glossy brochure, and that’s what culture means,” Dr. Young said. “But really creating a culture of inclusion, that’s done by ensuring every single touch point that a customer or an employee or a community member has with your organization is one where they feel heard, they feel respected and they feel valued.” She noted that the small actions toward progress repeated daily create the most lasting change.
33:22 Prioritize a sense of belonging. Creating a professional environment that’s supportive of everyone requires consistent commitment. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but you have to start today. At Travelers, we’ve been actively working on things for more than 15 years. The Travelers Diversity Networks were started in 2010,” Dr. Young said. She added that since 2019, allies have also been encouraged to join these networks to continue D&I efforts and their impact throughout the organization.
44:55 Make a plan first. When beginning a mission to create change, it’s important to be prepared from the start. “The easiest thing to do is to be honest about where you are today, build a strategy with diverse voices and commit to making progress. The worst thing an organization can do is to just start going in and making changes without determining where they are in their D&I journey today,” Dr. Young emphasized. She recommended looking at current analytics and data to see who is or is not benefiting from current policies, and then creating milestone goals to meet each year.
45:57 Inclusive recruiting begins with partnerships. When it comes to recruiting diverse talent, partnering with industry D&I organizations is a great place to begin, especially for insurance businesses. “You can build a pipeline with organizations such as the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation, the National African American Insurance Association, the Asian American Insurance Network and the International Association of Black Actuaries,” she said.
52:48 Free training resources are available. Dr. Young and her team recommend free training modules from LeanIn.org and McKinsey. “We brought in the 50 Ways to Fight Bias content into Travelers at the end of 2021,” she said. “We made some customizations to it and started offering the training to leadership groups, and it’s been a big success.”
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Text, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series.
The next screen shows a laptop on a desk with Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series on the screen, flanked by a small potted plant and a red mug with the white Travelers umbrella logo. Jessica Kearney’s video feed appears in the upper right corner of the screen. She is seated in an office and speaks to camera.
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JESSICA KEARNEY: Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. Welcome to Wednesdays with Woodward, a webinar series where we convene leading experts for conversations at the intersection of insurance, business and, of course, public policy. We're so glad you're here today. I'm Jessica Kearney, Assistant Vice President here at the Travelers Institute, and I'm filling in today for our host, Joan Woodward.
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New slide. Text, About Travelers Institute (registered trademark) Webinars. The Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) educational webinar series is presented by the Travelers Institute, the public policy division of Travelers. This program is offered for informational and educational purposes only. You should consult with your financial, legal, insurance or other advisors about any practices suggested by this program. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers.
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Before we get started, as always, just a few housekeeping items. First, I'd like to share our disclaimer about today's program.
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New slide. Text, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. The How and Why of D&I with Travelers Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark) Travelers, Diversity Networks, MetroHartford Alliance, UCONN School of Business MS in Financial Technology, American Property Casualty Insurance Association (service mark). Text, Insuring America, apci.org.
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And second, I'd like to send our enormous thanks to our program partners who join us week in and week out to bring these important conversations to you.
Today's session, I'm pleased to thank the MetroHartford Alliance, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the Master’s in Financial Technology Program at the University of Connecticut School of Business, and Travelers' very own Diversity Networks, which we're going to hear a lot more about later in today's conversation. We truly appreciate your support.
Now, on to our program. Today, we're going to talk all about diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. What makes an organization truly diverse and inclusive and why does that matter? We're going to lay it all out. We're going to really frame up the discussion today.
Travelers Chairman and CEO Alan Schnitzer has called diversity and inclusion a business imperative. And we're going to dig into that. And today, we are so fortunate to be joined by Travelers' very own Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, Dr. Lauren Young, who's going to share her insights, and importantly, take your questions.
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A new slide, titled "Speakers," shows photos of the two speakers. Text, Jessica Kearney, Assistant Vice President, Travelers Institute, Travelers. Lauren Young, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Travelers.
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Here at Travelers, Dr. Young is responsible for the day-to-day management and leadership of our Enterprise Diversity & Inclusion. So we're going to learn all about that. She has more than 15 years of experience in senior positions, guiding leaders through very complex organizational change and creating cultural transformations.
Dr. Young has numerous accolades that I could mention here, but I want to make sure that I hit a few. She's earned her master's degree in organizational psychology and a doctorate of education in organizational change and leadership from the University of Southern California. She was recognized by Diversity MBA as one of the Top 100 Under 50 Executive & Emerging Leaders in diversity, inclusion and equity, and was named by Insurance Business America's Hot 100 lists in 2021.
She currently serves as a faculty member at the University of Southern California's psychology department and as a certified human resource management professional. Lauren, thank you so much for joining us on our program today. We're looking forward to hearing your opening comments. I'll come back on afterwards for a little moderated discussion, and then we'll get to the audience questions. So please take it away.
LAUREN YOUNG:
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Dr. Lauren Young's video feed replaces Jessica's. New slide. Text, Enterprise Diversity and Inclusion Overview. An illustration shows a row of people of different ages, ethnicities and abilities, turned to each other as if speaking together, and some holding phones or laptops. Text, Embrace our diversity and foster an inclusive culture.
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Thank you so much for having me, Jessica, and I really appreciate the time to share some insight into an area where so many people have passion and interest to continue making progress. So diversity and inclusion within our organizations has evolved over the past few decades. And when I speak to groups like I'm doing today, I like to pose a question to the crowd. Yes.
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New slide. Text, Why is Diversity and Inclusion Essential for Business?
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Why do you believe diversity and inclusion is essential for business? So usually, when I hear people respond, they say, we want to reflect our diverse customer base. We want to hire top talent and retain diverse talent, as well as increase employee satisfaction and be able to compete in a growing global economy.
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New slide. Text, Enterprise Diversity and Inclusion. Why is Diversity and Inclusion Essential for Business? Cultural competency highlights: Building cultural competency can help businesses: hire top talent, retain top talent, improve customer satisfaction, improve employee satisfaction, increase returns and profitability, increase innovation for products/services, compete in a global economy. At the foundational level: unconscious bias still exists.
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And I would say absolutely, all of these goals are desired in a business, and they center around being culturally competent as a leader, culturally competent as a team member, and they can really help people become supportive and open to learning about individuals who've had different experiences, which is great.
But at the foundational level, the reason diversity and inclusion is essential to business is because we all have unconscious biases. And that's OK, because we're all human, and having unconscious biases are natural and normal. But what we want to make sure is we don't let our unconscious biases impact our ability to make decisions every day.
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New slide. Text, Embrace our diversity and foster an inclusive culture. Enterprise Diversity & Inclusion directs strategic business initiatives including: Raising awareness about the value of a diverse workforce; Partnering with business units to drive diversity strategies and goals, develop business unit-specifics tactics, report outcomes and celebrate successes; Promoting key internal and external diversity programs and determining accountability for recruiting, training, developing and retaining diverse talent; Raising the importance of community outreach and the inclusion of diverse suppliers in our procurement process; and Sharing information and analytics about the clear relationship between diversity and business performance.
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And we'll talk about how we look at D&I at Travelers across all of our business units and functions. And we do this in a very strategic way, and these are just a few examples about how we engage and consult throughout the organization each year. I do feel it's important to share the "how" behind the "why" we direct teams and their approach to D&I, and also how we work to tie these efforts together to experiences that are tangible for everyone. And this approach is inclusive of our employees, as well as our suppliers and distributors and the community. So we want to make a holistic impact across the board in relation to D&I.
So today, I'd like to focus on the talent side-- I know we have a lot of questions around the talent piece-- and talk about some of the programs and efforts that we put in place to promote D&I across the organization. We're
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New slide. Text, Embrace our diversity and foster an inclusive culture. Strategy.
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going to start by looking at the strategy we anchor our D&I efforts to.
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New slide. Text, Enterprise Diversity and Inclusion. Current ED&I Strategy. A horizontal line is divided into three sections. The first section is labeled, Track and hold leaders accountable. It has an icon of an arrow pointing to the center of a target.
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I'm going to showcase three segments to our current D&I strategy, the first being that we track and hold our leaders accountable. And this requires establishing opportunities to build proximity between diverse groups and our leaders to drive greater awareness and embed inclusivity in our decision-making processes. The outcome here is to maintain shared accountability for diversity, equity and inclusion with our leaders across the organization.
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An icon of a globe appears in the second segment. Text, Drive cultural change to promote inclusion.
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Second, we drive cultural change to promote inclusion. And this is highlighted by the amazing work that our employee resource groups, or as we call them, Diversity Networks, conduct each day. Also, the collaboration we've had over the years with our working councils that are comprised of senior leaders throughout the business. These groups are at the center of the strategy to embed diversity and inclusion into the way that we work together and measure its impact.
The outcome here is to generate measures and metrics of success to really demonstrate the progress that we've made as an organization. So for example, if we want to make sure that our Diversity Networks have a platform to share how they've made an impact on Travelers through their programming and events, we want to be able to do that through this strategy. Also, we want to build capacity to share additional measures of progress as we're able-- and this is going to be a long-term element of the strategy, but we continue to work on that every day.
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An icon showing a row of four people with their arms straight up in the air appears in the third segment. Text, Educate and engage at all levels within the organization.
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And finally, we educate and we engage at all levels within our organization. So the continued popularity of our Diversity Speaks series, which I will share a little bit more about in a couple of minutes, and the capacity we've created just to have courageous conversations in the workplace, that demonstrates our commitment to continue building cultural competence over time, and just our willingness to keep these important discussions going.
And ultimately, we know this can create the outcome of greater transparency between each other. We know that everyone's on a journey to understand how we can best support one another. And we also know that no one is perfect. But the more we can be transparent about we don't always get it right every time, the more open we can be with each other and create opportunities for learning and growth that's really just going to benefit everyone.
So we work to make this strategy tangible by providing opportunities for everyone to continue to explore and uncover their unconscious biases through some really thoughtful programming and outlets for networking.
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New slide. Text, Embrace our diversity and foster an inclusive culture. Diversity Networks.
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And so we'll talk about these three things on the next couple of slides, the first being our Diversity Networks, which we are super proud of.
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A new slide, titled Diversity Networks, shows a photo of a group of dozens of people posing together on a staircase. Text, Our Diversity Networks (DNs) are led by employees at various levels who are committed to fostering an environment of inclusion and improving engagement and retention for all employees. DNs are open to all Travelers regular status and temporary employees (interns).
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At Travelers, we have eight Diversity Networks to help build the power of diversity and inclusion and bring it to life within the company. These are employee-run, but they are sponsored through my D&I function. And we have leaders at the international, the national and the local level volunteer their time and their talents toward fostering an environment that is inclusive of all.
And we're really committed to reinforcing a sense of belonging, and ultimately, contribute to the retention of our talent. So in this image, you can see my team and I surrounded by over 90 international Diversity Network leaders from our annual Leadership Summit just this past April. So it was a great time.
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New slide. Text, Enterprise Diversity and Inclusion, Diversity Networks. The Diversity Networks logo appears on the left, with a red umbrella and a red line underneath with a short tail that looks like the bottom of a speech bubble. To the right are other logos with the same red umbrella, but the line is red on the left side and then different colors on the right. Logos: Asian and Allies Diversity Network, Black and African American and Allies Diversity Network, Disability and Allies Diversity Network, Hispanic/Latinos and Allies Diversity Network, Military/Veterans and Allies Diversity Network, Pride and Allies Diversity Network, Women and Allies Diversity Network, Young Professionals and Allies Diversity Network.
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And here's how we represent our DNs. We had new logos created last year to represent each of the organizations, and the design should reflect the bottom of a conversation bubble. So hopefully, you can see that. Think about a comic book. We're keeping those conversations going on a regular basis in regards to D&I with our Diversity Networks.
I have heard from some that the logos may also remind them of an EKG readout, which does make me smile. But I do like to say, that works for me too, because the DNs are at the heart of our business.
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New slide. Text, Embrace our diversity and foster an inclusive culture. Diversity Speaks.
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So the next option that we offer to help employees uncover their unconscious biases are the Diversity Speaks series. And Travelers has hosted about 100 live and virtual sessions with these external speakers and thought leaders to explore so many different dimensions of diversity and also allow these individuals to share their stories.
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New slide. Text, 2023 Diversity Speaks Program Pillars. Allyship: Continue to amplify the importance of allyship to unlock the power of an inclusive culture. Cultural Competence: Elevate awareness of one's own and other cultural views and biases to increase cross-cultural competency. Employee Experience and Intersectionality: Celebrate affinity, culture and intersectionality as a way of reinforcing the commitment to the "Power of Us." Inclusive Leadership: Increase understanding of how reactions to differences can impact business results, relationships, culture and retention. Together, we help make diversity and inclusion synonymous with the Travelers brand.
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So these are the four tenets of our speaker series, and the requirements for the programming are external speakers present. So they have to tell a compelling story that encourages at least one of the following items listed here. And they are allyship, cultural competence, celebrating the employee experience and intersectionality, and encouraging inclusive leadership.
So it's June, so we're celebrating Pride Month currently, and our Diversity Speaks session this month is designed to support our LGBTQ+ community and also to get to the core of what's necessary to support each other in our work environment. Additionally, we build discussion guides to go in tandem with each of these sessions. So if employees miss the live event or they want to revisit their discussions with their teams because it was such an impactful event for them, they can watch the replay and then leverage the group of questions to foster dialogue and continue the conversation.
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New slide. Text, Embrace our diversity and foster an inclusive culture. Education and Awareness.
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And then finally, we do have a broader series of trainings that encourage greater awareness and education on the topics of unconscious bias, allyship and more. And you can see them listed here on the next slide.
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New slide. Text, Enterprise Diversity and Inclusion, Education and Awareness. Pathways in MySkills: Understanding Unconscious Bias, Enabling Inclusive Conversations, Understanding and Managing Microaggressions, Allyship in Action, Dialogues on Race hub, Diversity Speaks discussion guides. Signature Programs: Conscious Inclusion unconscious bias training for all new hires, 50 Ways to Fight Bias training program. Cultural Competence and Allyship: Ally Pursuit: Pride and allies, Black, African American and Allies, Women and Allies.
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That's perfect.
So internally, we have a learning dashboard that we call My Skills. And this is where we host a great deal of self-paced trainings. Anyone can add the pathways that we have listed here on the left to their learning plan-- their internal learning plan-- at any time. And you will also see our Diversity Speaks discussion guides that I just mentioned are stored here as well. So this is a great way for people just to increase their understanding in any of these areas.
In the middle, we talk about our signature programs. And as new hires are onboarded, they are expected to complete our program called Conscious Inclusion within their first six months at Travelers. This is our signature unconscious bias program for all employees, no matter what your level is within the organization.
And it's really outstanding training. It is led by a group of fantastic internal facilitators throughout the business. And they dedicate their time and energy to ensuring everyone has an understanding of how Travelers regards diversity and inclusion. And we're looking to expand this training this year to go deeper on topics that are introduced in this course.
50 Ways to Fight Bias is actually relatively new, and we've trained over 2,000 people across the organization just in 2022 in this course who have voluntarily raised their hand and said they want to know more about what they can do to fight bias throughout any organization or any group that they're in. And this includes our executives, who are very excited to be a part of this.
This class is also facilitated by internal leaders across business units to share scenarios and really allow employees to practice in real time so they're prepared, if they witness a situation, where they can intervene and disrupt bias. So we love that. We have added this program to our list of educational services.
And then finally, we have three interactive programs under a category we call Ally Pursuit. We are all on a journey to understanding and building our knowledge of inclusion, and many of us have a desire to support others who have had different experiences than us. And Ally Pursuit is exactly that. It is an interactive journey map that you can click through and complete the uploaded missions in pursuit of becoming a better ally.
It's a lot of fun, actually. And you can do this over time. So there's no pressure you feel to complete everything in one sitting. And I truly find this to be a great way to learn, because you can test out what you've learned, come back, and then move on to the other missions once you've become comfortable with the other recommended activities that you've gone through.
So just to close, since this is new and it's not included in the education piece of the slides, I wanted to share with you briefly one of the new enhancements that we've added just through having more conversations with our employees in an area that's important for all of us. And that's our health.
So our benefits team, in collaboration with Enterprise Diversity & Inclusion and our Diversity Networks, have worked together to expand our services with one of our health care vendors. We already offered employees the ability to be matched with top-ranked doctors in their area and also receive guidance on how to obtain second opinions from leading specialists through our health care plan.
But now, Travelers employees also have access to health care communities for two specific demographics led by Black care teams and LGBTQ+ care teams to provide inclusive advocacy and care coordination while ensuring community members feel safe, they feel supported, and they're able to really get the care that they need.
So this is a huge addition to our medical plans, and could be a game-changer for two traditionally underserved communities to secure medical providers that really represent their demographics. So we're excited about that. And so are our employees. So I'll pause there, Jessica, and turn it back to you.
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JESSICA KEARNEY: Lauren, thank you so much. That was insightful and helpful. We're already getting a lot of good audience questions in. I loved what you said around all of us being on a journey, and no one's perfect. And I think that gives us all a little bit more room to get into the conversation and feel more comfortable in the conversation. So thank you for all of that.
We're going to dig in. We're going to probe a little bit more on a number of the things that you presented and get your expertise and insights. Before we do that, I do want to open it up, as is our tradition, to our audience for a polling question, which we're going to have on screen now if you could bring that up.
We would like to know, what is your organization's biggest challenge when it comes to diversity and inclusion efforts? And we've got, clearly, three options here on screen: recruitment, retention and creating that culture of inclusion. And I'm just looking at the live results coming in. It's looking like recruitment is just slightly ahead of the other two. So let's go ahead and share those results with the audience.
So 44% of folks said recruitment was their No. 1 challenge. 24% said retention. And then another third, 32%, said creating a culture of inclusion. So Lauren, I'd love just to get your reaction to those live results.
LAUREN YOUNG: Yeah, absolutely, Jessica. Not surprising to see these results. So we can walk through each of these choices one by one and the challenges that I've seen with each when talking to individuals, different companies, within our industry as a whole.
Thinking about recruitment, since that was the top vote. Every company wants to have the best talent they can find in-role, because we just invest so much in our talent. Our people are our best asset and also, usually, our greatest expense for any company. You think about onboarding, training, developing, and then assessing that talent for future roles. It just takes up so much time for our managers and our HR partners and our leaders. So we want to make sure we get it right.
We mentor, we advise these individuals. We bring them in and make them part of our culture. So we do want to make the best hires possible. But I still see so many saying they struggle to find specifically underrepresented talent. And I find that it's really about asking ourselves where we've built our long-standing relationships. And are we being intentional about building proximity to getting to know more underrepresented talent in our industry and also outside of the insurance industry?
So if your organization is having difficulty finding these individuals for roles, especially for leadership roles, I would ask you, who are you getting to know on a regular basis and which professional organizations are you investing time and resources into? And finally, what are you doing to ensure that you've reinforced your bond and connection with these groups? So those are the three questions I will pose there.
For retention, I think was the second one, that's the next stage after recruitment. We can get the folks in the door, but what are we doing to ensure that they're going to stay with us? And economists may debate whether or not we're approaching a recession or already in one, but one thing is for certain-- the challenge of retaining underrepresented talent is evergreen, especially in leadership.
So therefore, we're always going to be in high demand. So ensuring that your organization is clear in building career paths for high-potential talent, that you're being intentional about developing skills, that you're being open about discussing potential of talent, and of course, being honest when delivering feedback. I would say those are all keys to ensuring that you can retain underrepresented talent.
And then finally, I think the last one was creating a culture of inclusion. And that really starts with simple behaviors that we can repeat every day. The big misconception about culture is that it's built from making these grand gestures, or you can put some talk about belonging on a glossy brochure and that's what culture means.
But really creating a culture of inclusion, that's done by ensuring every single touchpoint that a customer or an employee or a community member has with your organization is one where they feel heard, they feel respected, and they feel valued. And we try for that, but we know this can be very difficult to achieve 100% of the time.
But you have amazing subject matter experts-- I know we have them here at Travelers-- leading our functions for customer experience and employee experience, diversity and inclusion, well-being, and just so many more. So if you don't have a strategy to check in regularly and assess feedback on how diverse groups are interpreting your culture, you could be putting your company at risk when it comes to retention and recruitment of that talent.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's great, Lauren. And I think getting at some very practical advice. And I know I'm seeing questions come in already, and I'll just encourage everyone who's on the line with us today, please drop any questions you have for Lauren in our Q&A feature at the bottom of the screen. We're going to try and get to as many as we can. And this is just a phenomenal opportunity to get advice from you, Lauren, in the role that you hold here at Travelers, and really get into some practical, tangible takeaways that hopefully folks can take back and start to think about within their own organizations.
So with that, let's jump right into the moderated discussion. And I know, clearly, this was all throughout-- and baked in all throughout your opening comments. But just as a step-back and a zoom-out, what does diversity and inclusion mean today? So we've just been through a wild and unprecedented last few years, given a global pandemic and everything that's happened-- economic uncertainty. What does diversity and inclusion mean today in the context of where we sit?
LAUREN YOUNG: Yeah. Diversity and inclusion, as far as its external focus, it's evolved so much over the past 20 years. Much about diversity and inclusion or what we knew about diversity and inclusion in the workplace, it really started off as compliance. So I'm thinking back to when it was all about reviewing affirmative action and other EEOC requirements based on your location, and making sure your job posting requirements followed guidelines set up by OFCCP if you're a government contractor. So that's where it kind of started.
But over time, there's been a shift to do more than just the compliance work and be more inclusive of all groups in the workplace by creating an environment that allows people to be their authentic selves. So the introduction of employee resource groups, and business roundtables, and affinity groups, and more, those have really served as safe spaces for people to connect with others who share specific demographics and just feel that closer connection to their organization through those groups and relationships.
I would say, today, the presence of these groups still matters, because connectedness is so important for us no matter what company we work for. I'm thinking back to the onset of COVID and the protesting of violence against the Black community, the Asian community, the LGBTQ+ community in 2020. We really strengthened our bonds within these groups and added conversations about psychological safety and belonging to the DEI discussion.
Also, today, D&I covers so many different dimensions. So it's not just about one's physical descriptors. We want to learn more about, how do you think about problems and process information? What are your values and how are you connecting to society? How do you relate to others? How do you rejuvenate and find peace after working all day? All of these elements really impact group dynamics and the way that we work together.
So within D&I, our work has also shifted to build the cultural competence of knowing that people have different ways that they manage these things and really help leaders best support their teams, and ultimately, help the business continue to thrive through the ideas and the efforts our people deliver.
JESSICA KEARNEY: It's interesting. We had an executive from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on a few weeks ago talking about worker health, and just really underscored the level at which managers and the atmosphere in the workplace affects your personal well-being.
And he was actually a former family physician and said, I was a family doctor for 10 years, and I feel like the impact that I had over my patients versus the impact that managers have with their teams, he said, it just doesn't compare. There's so much time spent at work. And really getting that culture and that inclusion right is very, very important, clearly.
Terrific. So you talked a little bit about the evolution and laid that out very nicely. I'd love for you to maybe just underscore-- I think we all feel this, and I think, have some clues as to what the answer is going to be. But can you underscore for us what are the risks to a business of having a homogeneous workforce?
LAUREN YOUNG: Yes. So if everyone-- very easily, I can say that if everyone thinks the same, then you're going to be destined to come up with the same approaches and responses to challenges. And we've been through a lot of challenges in the past couple of years. And that's fine if you make a single product or you offer a singular service that no one has an alternative for. But we know that's incredibly rare.
We work in the financial services and insurance industry, and to some customers-- not everybody, but to some customers, we can be seen as a commodity. You don't like your renewal rate; you can go to another provider and find a better price. If you don't have a great relationship with your agent or broker, it's not difficult to find another one.
But that's not what we want. We really want to showcase our uniqueness and give our customers and employees a reason to stay with us. And there's no better way to remain unique and keep our competitive advantage than ensuring that we keep adding new and different voices to the fold. What are we missing that we can't see that we're missing based on who we have around us right now?
So I'm just thinking back. Have you ever really drafted an important paper or a memo, an email that you're planning to send out, and you read it over a thousand times-- you just want to make sure it's absolutely perfect-- and then you send it out and you notice there's a typo or there is an error.
And it's too late. It's already out there. You're too close to it. You've seen it too many times to detect that anything isn't right or something needs to be changed. And that's why it's always great to get a different perspective before you make decisions. So just think about that. The pain and agony we go through to make sure everything looks great, but we miss out on things because we didn't get a second pair of eyes to help us with that.
JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah. That's great. That's great. You talked a lot about Travelers and the initiatives and efforts that we have going on within our enterprise. I know I mentioned at the top that our CEO calls diversity and inclusion a business imperative. Can you discuss a little bit more how that translates into the day to day? What does that look like on a day-to-day basis within our business?
LAUREN YOUNG: For sure. So I'm thinking about some of the challenges that we faced as well, going back to 2020 again. There were so many leaders, including Alan, who were brave enough to host listening sessions within the company to just get an understanding of how people were feeling and their personal experiences with similar situations in our society.
So talking about day to day, how does that impact us? Where do we need to be as an organization right now? What are we missing out on? So these conversations really gave us an opportunity to think and pause on what we're doing for D&I, or do we need to be doing more? Can we add additional things to support the group?
And I think that paved the way for the creation of our Workforce Solutions team to continue those regular listening opportunities across the company. So we did that in 2020, and now, on a day-to-day basis, we'll have different things that come up in society. I'm thinking about the Dobbs decision that was overturned last year, as well as when Mahsa Amini was killed overseas, and protests erupted again over human rights in both cases.
So we already have the structure in place to continue hosting those listening sessions and allowing employees to speak from personal experiences and be heard by their colleagues across the organization. So we've started to have quite a few executives start to join these sessions, and even share their stories, some which were shockingly similar to what we hear in the news, which really brought the impact of these discussions to the forefront and made the need for us to continue supporting each other very real.
So on a day-to-day basis, making D&I a business imperative really comes from the conversations that we have with each other and preparing in advance for things that may come down that we don't know are coming our way, but we have the infrastructure built to support each other.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's great. And you talked earlier about grand gestures. And that this is really going beyond grand gestures, and I think that's a really good example of a step that's taken to really keep your pulse on what's on employees' minds today. Was there anything surprising that you learned from those sessions or any outcome, practical or otherwise, after going through all of that just with our employees at Travelers?
LAUREN YOUNG: Mainly that you just don't know. On the surface, you might see someone and you may believe them to be a certain way or to have had certain experiences. But to have each other be able to go out and tell stories about what they've experienced in life, how they got to where they are today, and how that shapes their world view, and the way they lead, and the way they bring folks together, and the way they build teams.
It almost will bring you to tears. It almost makes you very emotional to say, how did you go from here to there, and how did I not know that about you? I feel like-- we talk on a regular basis. But there's just so much that goes into who we all are as individuals. And I just think the more that we can chat with each other and learn more about each other, the better we're able to lead teams and just move the business forward.
So I would say that was the most shocking, just things that I didn't know about people and just the things that they faced in life to be where they are today.
JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah. That's terrific, and I think a great example or blueprint that others could use within their own organizations. So clearly, we've talked about our Diversity Networks, and we had the slide up with all the different groups. Can you talk a little bit more-- we're getting some questions in about what are those objectives for each Diversity Network, and what does that look like on a day to day, and the structure of some of those.
And also-- and you mentioned this in the opening, about the "and allies" part, and just kind of reiterating the decision to put that in and why that's been so important.
LAUREN YOUNG: Yeah, for sure. So our Diversity Networks, they've been around for quite a while. We did do some updates to the governance for the groups. So each group does have governance. They are provided with funding to be able to put together programming. So if they want to bring in speakers, if they want to host different events, we do provide funding for them to do so.
But they are fully employee-run. They do have senior advisors at the senior level of our organization that support the work that they do, as well as affinity coaches to help guide them in their leadership journey, because this is a leadership role, whether or not they have people that report to them in their regular day-to-day job or not. They are being developed for leadership.
So we want them to be able to go in and influence groups, to be able to bring folks together and keep D&I at the forefront of everything that we do. I have a small team, but I do see the DNs as extensions of the work that I do within the organization. And it's critical to have folks who report into different business units being able to carry forth the ideas that we have.
So they have a full understanding of the strategy that we have for D&I here in the organization, as well as keeping the pulse of what employees from the different affinities are looking to have more support around. So I mentioned the benefit that we just added last year for the health care communities.
That was something that our Pride and Allies Diversity Network and our Black and African American and Allies Diversity Network kept hearing. What more can we do to make sure that people have what they need when it comes to seeking medical care? We know-- I'm going to talk about the Black community. I have members of my family who are like, I'm not going to the doctor because I feel they don't hear me when I tell them, this is an issue that I have. They're saying, oh, it's fine. Oh, it's normal. It'll be fine. And that's not always the case.
So how do we make sure that folks don't have a fear of going to the doctor, even when they have access to health care? And just being able to do something like that was really cool.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's terrific, and so nice that it came out of the Diversity Networks, and it came out of the organic conversations that we're hosting internally. Thank you for that. So I want to get to some questions. I mentioned we want to really dig into the practical and the tangible and give people some blueprints and some tools and some very tangible things that they can take back to their organizations. So let's switch to that gear for a moment.
I mentioned at the top, in your bio, that you are an organizational change expert, and you create cultural transformations. Not an easy thing. So what's your advice to leaders on strengthening a sense of belonging? You talked about how that can seem very abstract. But how do you make that real?
LAUREN YOUNG: Yes. Well, I'll make it really simple. It's not going to happen overnight. But you have to start today. I would say one of the best things about the D&I journey that we've been on at Travelers is that our journey didn't start when our society faced that turning point in 2020. We've been actively working to advance our culture and diversify our workforce for quite a while now. So the programming, a lot of the things that I've mentioned, have been in place for more than 15 years, that we continue today. Those eight Diversity Networks go back to 2010, with the first being our Women and Allies DN.
And in 2019, one of the things that you were mentioning, we wanted to ensure that not only the folks who wanted to learn more about different communities could do so and felt welcome to join the Diversity Networks, so we added the words "and allies" to the end of each group. So you saw instead of just saying the Pride Diversity Network, it's the Pride and Allies Diversity Network. So just a very small change, but it had a very large impact to allow others to feel welcome, to join the discussions and the events, and not feel that they were encroaching in a space that was not inclusive of them.
I think about Diversity Speaks. I mentioned that program at the beginning of the conversation, which has been around for over a decade at Travelers, and really just continues to bring in amazing thought leaders who have left a lasting impression on our employees.
So I would say everyone has their favorite Diversity Speaks session. My favorite probably came at the end of 2021. We wrapped the series with author Howard Ross, and he brought in a special guest host, who was his friend, Dr. Johnnetta Cole. If you're familiar-- or not familiar-- she has so many accolades, one being, she was the first Black president of Spelman College.
And she really just spent some time speaking about her civil rights and human rights work, and just how she's advised so many leaders, and she continues to do so into her late 80s now. She's still advising folks. It was just a phenomenal opportunity to get to know and experience that level of leadership just in the middle of our workday.
And I don't want to forget to mention the Travelers EDGE program. EDGE is an acronym that we use for Empowering Dreams for Graduation and Employment. And over the past 15 years, we've worked with high schools and colleges and universities across the United States to really bring in students as interns during their freshman year of college, provide scholarships and mentoring, and that opportunity to gain that oh so valuable work experience as students complete their degrees.
So having that experience to kick off their professional careers with us really helps us build our pipeline and does encourage the retention of talent. And our business leaders are so enthusiastic about bringing this talent into their functions upon graduation.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's terrific. And yes, the Travelers EDGE program is well-known to Travelers employees. It's something that's near and dear to all of our hearts, has a great history within the company, and another great example of a program at [INAUDIBLE] that. That's terrific. Thank you.
LAUREN YOUNG: So I feel like we have all of these opportunities. We created them with the express purpose of just ensuring everyone feels welcome and that their perspectives are shared and valued within the Travelers community. So we plan to keep those programs going for quite a while.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's terrific. And just even adding the words "and allies," something just as simple as that, to make people feel included. That's terrific. You talked a little bit about the talent pipeline. You mentioned it just now, as well as earlier. Let's dig a little bit deeper into that. I'd love to get a little bit more practical advice. If you know you're thinking you want to set up that new talent pipeline, you're looking for new ways to bring in diverse candidates, where do you start?
LAUREN YOUNG: Yeah. First, I believe-- I'm a little biased, but I believe that diversity and inclusion should be implemented into everything that we do and the way that we work together, period. If we maintain the space for diverse voices and we put inclusive behavior front and center as a core enabler for our company, the results are endless-- what we can do as a company.
If you don't have that D&I lens like I share with the missing that typo example earlier, we're going to be likely to make those costly errors, because we're just missing that diverse perspective that's needed to succeed in business today. So once we can make diversity and inclusion a core enabler for the way that we work and the way that we do business, I do feel that the efforts and talent in acquiring that talent to reflect diversity, it's going to become second nature.
So for example, a lot of people want those diverse candidate slates. How do I make sure I have a diverse candidate slate for my role? Well, you want to make sure that the network for your candidates has been diversified and that the functions for your organization have access, and they also have real and established relationships with professional organizations and the institutional-- or the educational institutions where you already have that talent.
So I'm thinking about-- let's say you want to acquire talent from an HBCU, let's say, specifically, Howard. So Howard's really well known. It's a prestigious HBCU. But you don't have any success stories in your company with Howard alumni, or you're not even aware if any individuals in your company are Howard alumni. What do you think your chances of recruiting individuals from Howard will be if they can't see themselves reflected in your organization?
And not just diverse slates. For another example, you want to make sure that your interview panels are diverse, too. So, as a prospective candidate coming into the door, there is no greater turnoff for them than being interviewed by a homogeneous group during the interview process. Think about what does that say about your organization? And what does that say about what's expected of a prospective employee coming into your organization? Do they have to fit a certain mold? Do they need to look a certain way? Do they need to represent a certain group?
If you have employee resource groups or if you have a diversity council in place at your company, working to include them as part of your interview panel and ensuring that you showcase how diverse voices are included in that decision-making process, that's really important too. So I feel like once you enable D&I at all phases of acquiring talent, as well, I think that's a really easy way to build it in.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's great. And I think for this next question, it's probably going to be an extension of what you're just saying naturally. But thinking about, you have diverse talent, and moving the diverse talent into leadership roles, and how you create a culture where that happens within your organization. Do you have any guidance or perspective that you can share there?
LAUREN YOUNG: Oh, yes. Yes, I do. So I'll say, last year, I spoke at a conference-- last fall, actually. And I was asked this question. So I can give you the same answer I gave to the crowd. And across my career, I've worked with so many talented individuals who are Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, so on and so forth. They've been told that they're excellent talent. They're top talent. Some may even be on succession plans for leadership roles. And their performance reviews are outstanding every single year.
But for whatever reason, they just don't make it to that next leadership role. It's just out of reach for them. And I feel that, in some cases-- not in all cases, but in some cases-- there's a misconception that leaders need to focus more on developing underrepresented talent to ensure that they're ready to move into a leadership role.
I would say there needs to be a mindset shift to just start moving that underrepresented talent who's already been told that they're excellent into that next role and develop them as they get acclimated to their new responsibilities. All talent is going to need development, no matter what role they're in.
So development shouldn't be the barrier to keep that underrepresented talent from advancing. Go ahead and promote them. Give them the opportunity. Continue to develop them as they would be anyway in a new leadership role, and then support them as necessary. But don't let development be that one barrier to keeping folks from moving forward.
JESSICA KEARNEY: Terrific. Terrific. That's great advice. And then I guess zooming out, as you're doing all these things that you just talked about, developing your pipeline and developing your future leaders, obviously, all organizations have processes and procedures. So how do you take a look at those rules of the road within your organization and potentially uncover bias within them or find things that might be holding some of your talent back?
LAUREN YOUNG: Yeah, that's a great question, Jessica. Examining processes and procedures for bias is not something you should take lightly or go into uninformed. I would say the first step is to be open to the possibilities. And that's a huge first step. We work in risk management and risk mitigation, and sometimes, we may find it to be risky to even look into what could or should be changed.
So just remember your goals as it relates to culture. We're not the same people today that we were yesterday or that we were three years ago. So we do have to be open to the possibilities for us to grow. I would also say, look at your data. We all have so much data, and not enough insights around that data. So if you want to know whether a process or procedure has bias to it, look at who's benefiting from the current way of doing things. Or vice versa. Who's not benefiting from the way that we're doing that?
And then finally, once you have the insights, put together a plan with milestones to determine are you making progress at mitigating that bias? It may not be possible to fully eliminate bias in every process without delving deep into another large change management initiative. I know it can be a lot of work. But start by doing the analysis, and then just commit to making progress every year.
JESSICA KEARNEY: Which requires some real leadership and vulnerability, as well.
LAUREN YOUNG: That's right. Always.
JESSICA KEARNEY: So my next question is, I don't want to say, what are the easy things to do to advance your D&I initiatives, but maybe what are some of the absolute must-do, actions that you must take, if you're starting out thinking about this, the stuff that's really first step-level stuff here that you would recommend that we all really get in on board on.
LAUREN YOUNG: Yeah. I agree, nothing's easy. But I think it ties into your last question. I would say the easiest thing to do is just be honest about where you are today and just commit to making progress. Diversity and inclusion initiatives are large-scale organizational change efforts. So within my team, I always remind my team, you are not the D&I person. We are not the D&I people. We are organizational change experts with a focus in diversity and inclusion.
So just making sure that you keep that top of mind, that it's going to take time, and it's going to take the effort of everyone. It's not just, we can do this by ourselves in a vacuum. We have to work in tandem with everyone to move things forward. So I would say the worst thing an organization can do is to just start going in and making changes without determining where they are in their D&I journey today.
If you don't know what you're looking for, everything sounds like it could be a great idea. Let's bring in this training. Let's offer this mentoring program. Let's just see what works. But you really want to be informed about where you are starting, build a strategy in partnership with diverse voices, and just commit to making directionally positive progress.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's great. That's great. So let's talk about the insurance industry. Where is the insurance industry today, and what are some things that overall, as an industry, that we can do to improve?
LAUREN YOUNG: Yeah. I see progress every year. And that makes me so excited to be in the insurance industry. I know, traditionally, we think of this as a slower-moving industry in comparison to tech or retail. It seems like they can make changes happen a lot faster.
But I'm seeing a lot of promise in the work that's happening. And I think it's because we're starting to partner together more. And there are a number of groups that exist for this purpose. So at Travelers, we have so many partnerships. I'm thinking about IICF, the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation. I chair the Culture and Workforce Committee as part of this group. And just working together, what can we do more, better, different, to impact the culture of our workplaces?
I think about NAAIA, the National African American Insurance Association. The work that they're doing at the college level with the talent competitions and the career fairs that they offer students, they have multiple opportunities to touch base with individuals and bring them in and get them excited about insurance before they make a decision on what they want to do with their career.
The AAIN, the Asian American Insurance Network, which is relatively new. But I've met the leaders last year at a conference. They're doing some amazing things to bring together the Asian community within the insurance industry. BIIC, which is the Black Insurance Industry Collective, started by four visionaries from different organizations, and what they're doing to try to help Black insurance professionals ascend into leadership roles. IABA, I-A-B-A, the International Association of Black Actuaries. Just, the list goes on. But I know we have limited time.
Really just getting to know the leadership in these groups. And their mission to help diversify the insurance industry at all levels has been really helpful for us. And it's great, because they allow providers, agents, brokers-- we can all partner together in the shared goals. So I would definitely say, if you're not involved in some of these organizations, definitely get involved.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's terrific. And just one or two more thoughts before we hop over to audience questions. The first is, I know we've got audience members on the line from organizations of all sizes. Any particular thoughts for small organizations?
LAUREN YOUNG: Yeah. For the small organizations, I would just say partnering with one or all of the groups that I just listed is a great start. Any organization can-- any size-- can be part of those associations. And I would say it's a great way to build a pipeline through your involvement. Everybody is working on building their pipelines.
So I also know of some smaller companies that have had success with building their pipeline for college students through an app called Handshake. It's an online job posting system. It's specific to college students and alumni. So if you don't have the resources to build a formal internship program, like Travelers EDGE, or you don't have an entry-level program for new hires, Handshake could be a great way to present internship opportunities and entry-level roles to a very specific audience.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's great. That's great, Lauren. And I have to get this in as our last question before we go to audience questions. So you shared, at a recent conference, a quote from Mark Twain, which is, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." Can you talk about that?
LAUREN YOUNG: Yes. So I was at a conference, the Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit, earlier this year, and I was invited to speak on a panel that was titled Progress, Not Perfection. So there were four of us on stage-- four Black women. We've accomplished so much. We all did different things.
But what really united us was that we went through absolute hell to get to where we were because we were fixated on achieving perfection as we built our careers and our personal brands. So the stories that each of us told were full of physical and mental and emotional trauma that we put ourselves through to try to achieve perfection.
And it was very painful for a number of us to recall. And we're speaking to an audience of hundreds of Black women who were just like us, and they were all in tears and saddened and horrified to hear, you had to go through all of that just to be where you are today? But they completely related to our stories, because they also feel we've been conditioned to seek perfection first, and then that's going to help us make progress in our careers.
But the other thing that united all four of us on stage together were, we were able to break out of that mindset and continue to achieve despite not focusing on perfection anymore. And when I thought about the Mark Twain quote, I shared with everybody that I realized I was born to break barriers. So I'm not meant, necessarily, to be everything that people expect me to be. I'm only meant to be myself. And I don't fit in a prescribed box. None of us do, actually, because we're all so much better than that.
So I focus on breaking outside of the box and breaking barriers that keep organizations from being willing to try something different or new-- within reason of course. We work in risk. So within reason. But as well as build the support system for the work that lies ahead once those barriers come down.
So I realize that you can't break barriers if you're too busy living up to everyone else's perspectives of you. You have to know your own true worth to break barriers. And I found more peace in my life and was able to do so much more in my career when I realized that was my purpose. And I'm very comfortable helping others break barriers down as well.
JESSICA KEARNEY: Wow, that's a powerful story. I'm glad we had time to fit that into the conversation. And I bet a lot of people can relate to the perfection comment. So thank you for sharing that.
LAUREN YOUNG: For sure.
JESSICA KEARNEY: All right, so now, we're going to go to audience questions. And I'm going to do rapid-fire here. First, Lisa Tepper from Gallagher asks, how do you fight diversity fatigue?
LAUREN YOUNG: Oh, great question. We can't afford to get fatigued now, because there's a lot of work that we need to keep doing to keep the progress moving forward. But understandably, we can get burned out if we feel that we're working on overdrive, and we're not seeing the progress we expected by this point.
But just remember, D&I is organizational change. Takes a lot of time to see the major results that we seek. So it's important to build in those metrics of visible progress, like I mentioned earlier in our strategy, which are the milestones that people can see and say, hey, that's great news. I feel good about the direction we're moving in, and it's enough to keep me motivated and pursuing the end goal. Build those pipelines. Advance talent into leadership. And look at the feedback from your program to give yourself indicators of what direction you're moving in.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's terrific. OK, next up, Cynthia Rider wants to know, any recommendations for staff-wide training, online or in-person, for a company? And related, I've gotten a few questions in about 50 Ways to Fight Bias and when it is available.
LAUREN YOUNG: Yes, exactly. That's the one I'll call-- So leanin.org and McKinsey offer some free-- yes, free, for the small businesses out there-- some training modules around unconscious bias that we really like. So we brought in the 50 Ways to Fight Bias content into Travelers at the end of 2021.
And we made some customizations to it and started offering the training to leadership groups. And it's just been a big success. So like I said, we've honored requests to deliver the training to more than 2,000 employees just in 2022 alone, all the way from our EVPs to entry level of employees. So we found some great content-- or value in that content. And I hope that helps, Cynthia.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's great. That's great. I like this one. Tyrell Hughes asks, what's a typical day for a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer?
LAUREN YOUNG: Oh, lots of meetings. Speaking at events like this. I speak pretty much for a living. I spend about 50% of my day just meeting with people and listening to them, answering their questions, getting to know about their experiences, and learning about why they came to work here and what keeps them here.
And I feel like these stories are so important to help inform that we're doing the right things to help people achieve a sense of belonging here. Like I said, I lead a team of amazing specialists in various areas of strategy, operations, project management with that focus on D&I.
So working with them, making sure that they feel good, that they don't feel burnt out and they continue bringing their best selves to work. I advise our leaders on their strategies to make D&I tangible within their functions. And then of course, partnering with all of our HR functions to ensure that we're making D&I a core enabler in our policies and practices. So in one word, very busy-- or busy-- but I enjoy it very much.
JESSICA KEARNEY: Terrific. Thank you. Ralph Pulver wants to know, when you look at diversity of your customer base, when you're looking externally at customers, how can you ensure that you are reaching underserved communities?
LAUREN YOUNG: Yeah. That's a difficult one. But I would say the work that we do specifically with our community relations department can help with that. We have an amazing community relations team. And we make sure that we put on programming and opportunities to engage with folks in the community in as many ways as possible.
So I think about the connections that we have-- so just like we have a Diversity Speaks program, we have an Art Speaks program to be able to connect to folks in the community, help bring them into understanding what Travelers is and what we do so that when they see the red umbrella, they realize this is a place where we want diversity of customers as well. So we have some programs set up for that.
JESSICA KEARNEY: Terrific. And last question. How has the work from home or hybrid model potentially impacted D&I efforts since the pandemic?
LAUREN YOUNG: Yeah. I know everybody working remote, when we were all sheltering in place, basically kept everybody at the same level. So we're all at home. We're all being interrupted by pets or children or parents, or any family within the house. So we're all just trying to balance everything as we continue to work remotely.
Moving to a hybrid model and allowing individuals to make decisions on coming in and being at home, I would say has impacted D&I. So the programming that we offer, we're very intentional about making sure that folks who are watching virtually have a similar experience to folks who are in person. Or if we do an event, making sure that this type of event is available to folks in different areas.
So for example, Diversity Speaks used to be, traditionally, in our Hartford location, in person. We would pack the auditorium. And these are the folks that got to enjoy and experience the event live. We've started going out to some of our offices in Richardson, in Saint Paul. We're talking about potentially doing an international event. So folks from different areas can also enjoy and be part of the experience as well and not feel that they are detached from it.
So we have made some adjustments. I would say it's increased our engagement, as well, because folks can be a part of it either virtually or in person. And then just making sure we don't do everything in just one location anymore. We've started to expand that as well.
JESSICA KEARNEY: That's terrific. Lauren, Dr. Young, thank you so much for joining us on our program today. On behalf of us here at the Travelers Institute, we thank you for your time and really appreciate all the wonderful insights and practical advice that you've shared over the last hour.
LAUREN YOUNG: It was a pleasure. Thank you so much, Jessica.
JESSICA KEARNEY: Great.
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New slide. Text, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Upcoming Programs: Webinars: June 14 – Crash and Learn LIVE Edition with IIHS. June 28 – Advancing Disability Inclusion in the Workplace. July 12 – Independent Agents: The Trusted Choice. July 19 -- Global Hotspots and Geopolitical Risks with Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper. Register: travelersinstitute.org.
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Thank you all for joining us. I'm going to pivot now and preview some of our upcoming programs, things that you can join before we get into the summer here. Thank you again to Dr. Young for that fantastic conversation.
We have a link about today's program, a survey link, in the chat. So as always, please feel free to click on that and give us your feedback about today's session, and also things that you'd like to hear about moving forward. We're always listening to your ideas. On screen here, you can see some of the great webinar programming that we have coming up in the coming weeks.
Next week, on June 14, we are going to be live-- I'm very excited about this one-- from Ruckersville, Virginia. We're going to be at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. We are going to do a live vehicle crash test. So we're going to cross our fingers, hope all the tech works. We've got an amazing, advanced studio at IIHS. And understand what we can learn about vehicle research today and understand what we can learn about auto safety. So don't miss that one. That's going to be next Wednesday.
Then on June 28, we're going to have a conversation about advancing disability hiring, so another really important conversation about inclusion in the workplace featuring Disability:IN President and CEO Jill Houghton and our own Travelers VP Bruce Soltys. So that's going to be another really great and informative conversation.
And then in July, we've got two programs. We're going to welcome the CEO of Trusted Choice and Travelers' very own SVP Sean Ramalho for a discussion about the independent agent distribution channel and some of the dynamics and changes in the market that we're seeing today. So for all of our insurance folks and business partners, that will be a great one to dial into on July 12.
And then on July 19, we're going to examine geopolitical risk and everything that's happening in the world, global hotspots, with former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. So another one that you won't want to miss as we're rounding out the summer here. As always, visit us at travelersinstitute.org. Connect with us.
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New slide. Text, Watch replays: travelersinstitute.org. LinkedIn, Connect: Joan Kois Woodward. Take our survey: Link in chat. #WednesdayswithWoodward.
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Register for our programs. Find replays and more at travelersinstitute.org. Thank you again for joining us this afternoon and have a great rest of the day.
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Logos: Travelers Institute, registered trademark. Travelers. Text, travelersinstitute.org.
Speaker
Dr. Lauren Young
Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, Travelers
Host
Jessica Kearney
Assistant Vice President, Travelers Institute, Travelers