Back in January, Zurich Resilience Solutions (ZRS) announced the launch of a groundbreaking offering: the Workplace Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Service. Developed in collaboration with Inclusion Score, a leading organization that helped advise on a new global diversity and inclusion standard from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Zurich's service responds to requests from customers and brokers for a product to help businesses strategically assess DEI in their organization and work toward the ISO standard and their unique DEI goals.

Zurich is one of the first insurance providers to offer a DEI assessment and consulting service. Using the ISO standard as a benchmark, ZRS will work with customers to incorporate DEI into every layer of their organizations, including governance, human resources, product delivery and supply chain. The collaboration with Inclusion Score uniquely positions ZRS to help companies take meaningful, measurable action to enhance equity, fairness and accessibility in their organizations.

"Insufficient attention to diversity and inclusion has become a business risk that can have a direct impact both on an organization's financial performance and its workforce," said Thomas Fioretti, Head of Zurich Resilience Solutions in North America. "Recoveries in discrimination lawsuits are at all-time highs, and shareholder derivative lawsuits based on D&I are growing. Corporations need guidance when it comes to assessing and enhancing their DEI practices and policies, training their teams to address concerns and insuring themselves from business risks."

Zurich's DEI service is designed to be customizable to a wide range of industries and organizations of all sizes, helping them comply with ISO 30415, the new global D&I standard, and providing guidance on D&I principles, practices and methods to enable and support equity, fairness and accessibility for people of all backgrounds in the workplace.

ZRS' program features a multi-tiered approach aimed at helping to ensure holistic analysis and long-term success. It includes:

• Assessment and reporting:  Measuring where organizations are succeeding in DEI as well as falling short, ZRS will offer customers a Capability Maturity Model Integration Score that assesses their organization's DEI maturity along with an improvement roadmap focused on critical areas of need in their business.
• Consulting:  Once the roadmap is set, ZRS Risk Engineers will work with customers to customize recommendations for their unique business challenges and provide ongoing consultation to ensure measures are implemented in accordance with benchmarks.
• Services and training:  With the infrastructure in place, ZRS will assist customers in communicating DEI principles throughout all levels of the organization and follow up with appropriate training to ensure objectives are understood and put into action.

"Businesses of all sizes are increasingly being asked not only about their DEI beliefs but also to demonstrate their practices and progress as a prerequisite for winning new and renewal business from customers, for securing insurance protection and for recruiting and retaining top talent," said Julia Oltmanns, Director of DEI Services for Zurich Resilience Solutions. "Our new solution will help companies fortify and measure their DEI practices and integrate the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion through their entire organization."

"We are pleased to collaborate with Zurich to help businesses bring greater rigor, clarity and effectiveness to their DEI efforts," said James Felton Keith, CEO of Inclusion Score. "The investment is worthwhile for many reasons. With evidence from multiple studies, it is now widely accepted that diverse organizations are more resilient, innovative, profitable and successful in attracting as well as retaining talent."

ZRS' relationship with Inclusion Score will give customers access to some of the world's leading experts on diversity, equity and inclusion and increase the scope of solutions ZRS is able to provide.

Find out more about Zurich’s Workplace Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Service:

An interview with James Felton Keith

Inclusion Score’s CEO discusses his company’s collaboration with Zurich and why DEI needs to be part of ongoing change management, not crisis management. 

Read it here.

Julia Oltmanns on the ISO standard

The Director of Workplace DEI Services for Zurich Resilience Solutions talks about why the new DEI standard from ISO should be welcome news for businesses on our Future of Risk podcast.

Listen here.