Stephens Rickard

Diversity & Inclusion

As champions of Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace, we appreciate that the lack thereof, not just in Insurance but in the wider financial markets, is an organisational and moral crisis that must be addressed by senior leadership and market influencers.

Too often do companies treat Diversity and Inclusion as a box-ticking exercise; reluctantly appointing someone into a senior role to proclaim themselves as diverse to appease shareholders. Diversity and Inclusion should be something a company intrinsically has, rather than begrudgingly does.

We are also acutely aware of the importance in acknowledging equity and accessibility along with diversity and inclusion, involving the principles of IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility) in every piece of work. Specifically, neurodiversity, socioeconomic-diversity, general accessibility, and equitable opportunities and inclusivity programmes for the disabled are often forgotten in most D&I, ESG, and CSR strategies; at Stephens Rickard, we are working to change that.

A lack of Diversity across an organisation is a catalyst for cultural collapse through groupthink and marketing myopia. However, companies that embrace a more diverse workforce breed greater collaboration, innovation, and creativity to ultimately become more financially successful.

Driving D&I in our search process:

At Stephens Rickard we are in a unique position, as an Executive Search firm, to leverage our experience, network and reputation to influence change at Board level in providing fair representation, opportunities and accessibility to all.

Within our searches, we take the appropriate and necessary steps to ensure appropriate representation in the shortlists we put forward and in our elimination of unconscious biases. Our specific measures include:

• On each assignment, we endeavour to deliver a diverse selection of candidates; one that is at least representative of the make-up of the relevant market
  

• We use out-of-the-box thinking to ensure that our research enquiry lines are not guilty of being inherently biased, ensuring we speak to a diverse selection of sources on each project
  

• Fair and consistent means of benchmarking talent ensures “best fit” candidates are introduced to our clients and subconscious bias is eliminated from our process. For each search we work on, we draft an Assessment Grid detailing our interpretation of the key skills, characteristics and core competencies sought in the position. We use this tool as the foundation of an effective, structured, interview and assessment process, ensuring that all candidates are assessed against identical criteria
  

• We use our global network to source the best candidates from around the world
  

• We remove any personal information from candidates’ profiles, consultant’s summaries, CVs and biographies that may give any indication of gender, race, socioeconomic background or any other personal characteristic
  

In addition, upon the completion of a shortlisting report for a search project, we can provide our clients with a D&I Synopsis; retroactively investigating the representation of gender within a given market segment.

 Read more about our Market Segment D&I Synopsis.

Explore D&I Synopsis