As the world celebrated International Women’s Day this week we look at how the life insurance industry is setting an example for other sectors to follow.

Several Isle of Man life companies are members of the Association of International Life Offices (AILO) which is committed to leading the agenda on diversity and inclusion across the life assurance industry.

Vicki Hotchkiss is head of talent and organisation development at AILO member Canada Life, and she is a member of AILO’s diversity and inclusion committee.

In this article she explains why recognising International Women’s Day is so important, and gives some examples of how progress towards gender equality is being made here on the island.

Diversity across our industry is really important for two reasons.

First, because as business leaders we know that there is a direct and positive correlation between diversity and company financial performance; and second because we know that treating people equally is just the right thing to do.

AILO is an organisation which represents the interests of the cross-border life industry. It is a unique trade organisation with members that are international life companies based in financial centres within the member states of the European Union, UK Crown Dependencies (including the Isle of Man) and the British Overseas Territories of Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

As such, it’s in a strong position to lead on diversity and inclusion, and AILO has a committee dedicated to that purpose and it is playing a significant role in inspiring members to strengthen their commitment to those important issues.

At Canada Life, for example, we understand and recognise the outstanding contribution that women make to our business.

The theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is #Choose to Challenge.

As part of our celebratory activity, Canada Life colleagues across the UK and Isle of Man will take ’The Confidence Challenge’, a workshop on building and maintaining career confidence.

We are also hosting a live global panel event that features several of our most senior female leaders from across our organisation, talking candidly about the challenges they’ve faced in their careers and how they overcame them.

At Canada Life we believe in equality of opportunity. We also understand that achieving this isn’t just about a set of actions, processes or methods. This is why we do not approach diversity as a project, or a standalone initiative. Instead, we weave it through all aspects of our employee lifecycle, actively removing traditional systemic barriers, and at the same time introducing an inclusion lens across our core talent and performance frameworks.

The evidence speaks for itself. Since 2017 we have published our Gender Pay and Bonus Gap report, and I am pleased that we can show a year-on-year reduction.

Although not a regulatory requirement, in 2020 we included our Isle of Man data for the first time. The report will be available on the Canada Life website from mid-April.

We also hold ourselves accountable to the Women in Finance Charter whereby we publicly committed to achieving 30% of senior leadership roles being held by women by the end of 2020.

For our Isle of Man operation I am pleased that 29% of the locally based leadership team are female.

Local context matters, and the Isle of Man has many advantages.

We have a strong and mature financial services industry, backed up by an independent regulatory body committed to ongoing modernisation of business culture.

The island also has an almost 50/50 split of men and women in the island’s employable population.

So it makes sense to us to aim for a workforce that reflects the local market.

On this note, our Isle of Man based team is 48% female and 52% male.

We responded swiftly to the Covid-19 pandemic by enhancing our technologies enabling all colleagues to work from home.

This change provided us with the opportunity to reimagine how we work, which has redefined how we acquire talent, and how, when and where our people achieve what is expected of them.

In simple terms, we’ve said goodbye to office presenteeism by changing what we use the office for, and giving all our people, male and female, the ability to balance the demands of their day.

The leadership that AILO is providing on the issues of diversity and inclusion is making a real difference to the life sector, and can only encourage more women to pursue careers in the industry.

There is still more work to be done, but International Women’s Day is an ideal time for AILO and our members to celebrate what we have accomplished so far, and strengthen our commitment as we take the next steps on the journey towards achieving full gender equality.