Aviva: HR systems data can boost diversity and build trust

Multinational insurance and pensions provider Aviva is public about its diversity, equity and inclusion (D,E&I) stances.

As a signatory to the Women in Finance Charter (a commitment for financial services firms to progress women into senior roles) and the 30% club, as well as the Race at Work charter, the $40 billion-by-revenue insurance business is keen to commit to improving diversity outcomes, as well as modeling good practice, within an industry, financial services, that is still described as having “severe” diversity issues.

As well as publicly visible targets — which also include setting the target of having 40% of their leadership team as women by 2024, publishing their pay gap and recruitment efforts, and partnering with a variety of diversity-minded bodies (including Change the Race ratio and upReach) — the London-headquartered organization is keen to sure that any focus on diversity isn’t just a “vanity project” which isn’t followed by measurable action.

For Jonny Briggs, Group Head of Talent Acquisition at Aviva, this means engaging in efforts to understand who their workforce is in a nuanced way, what blockers to their success might exist, and making sure Aviva’s understanding of what diversity isn’t reductive — and that any follow-on diversity initiatives are safe, secure, target-driven, leadership-aligned and work to build trust.

As he tells UNLEASH during an interview at Workday’s Rising conference: “It’s about demonstrating our commitment to individuals. It’s about what you’re going to do…otherwise, it’s a vanity project.”

Data collection and diversity characteristics

For Briggs, who looks after both D,E&I and talent acquisition, Aviva’s diversity initiatives start at the understanding and data-collection stage.

It means Aviva gathers as much data as employees feel comfortable disclosing — if they don’t want to disclose, they don’t have to — on who they feel they are: from more traditional diversity characteristics, such as sexual orientation and ethnicity, to neurological and physical conditions, as well as whether an employee is a caregiver, and if they’re using learning and development (L&D) programs.

Briggs says this helps the organization understand diversity in an intersectional manner which then helps everyone feel they are part of the broader diversity picture. “We want everyone to see their parts of their D,E&I story and therefore we go beyond the initial characteristics,” he said.

With a global workforce of 22,000, Briggs explains that Workday’s HRIS functionality plays a key role in this holistic and intersectional data-gathering exercise. “Where Workday was really strong was giving us the ability to add a diversity page to the personal information page where we could ask the full suite of questions and go beyond the usual diversity spectrum,” he adds.

Emphasizing data security and employee agency along the data-gathering journey — all data is aggregated and not even line managers can see their employee’s individual data — Briggs reveals that this HR system has underpinned the foundational stage of improving diversity outcomes has been successful.

He adds: “We have an 87% disclosure rate for ethnicity at work [CIPD data suggests the usual level is lower] which is really good and it allowed us to publish an ethnicity pay gap.

“But it’s not just about producing an ethnicity pay gap or [data-gathering] because it’s on the leadership agenda but about understanding our employees and understanding what happens to career progression if an employee goes part-time or is in a different part of the country.

“For us, this data this data gathering is all about ‘Why this data’ and ‘What are we going to do with it.’”

Demonstrating the value of data

Briggs explains the data-gathering Aviva undertake isn’t merely to satisfy pay gap demands and burnish its public brand

It’s undertaken to better pinpoint what might be preventing full equity or inclusivity in their organization.

By getting data on everything from gender to sexual orientation, to outside-of-work life, to what in-work development an employee is engaging in, the business can better understand, in an intersectional manner, what might be stopping the career progression of a specific demographic.

With ambitious targets around women in leadership positions, Briggs explains that this has helped Aviva to understand where to intervene in the employee lifecycle to improve outcomes against diversity targets.

He says: “Using our data scientists we asked ‘Why aren’t women progressing as quickly as men?’ and because of the data we capture [in our HRIS] we can look at this in regards to ethnicity, whether they’ve been in a leadership program, whether they’re part-time or what location they’re in.

“It showed us that when [women] are going for a job if you just count their gender they’ll have a similar outcome [as men]. However, it did show us red flags for why they don’t progress: it was if you go part-time, if you take parental leave, or if you move to London you have a faster rate of progression.”

As a result of this intersectional data use, Briggs explains it is allowing Aviva to improve outcomes and tailor programs and support.

He adds: “This data showed us that, for example, going part-time was a big issue for progression. 15% of our population are part-time but 93% of that population are women. It showed how massively they are affected.”

“It also showed us that the longer you have off for parental leave [and women are likely to take longer] the slower your progression so we’ve now created coaching for people before that leave and a program for getting back into your job.”

Engagement, listening, and trust

It’s not just in the arena of women in leadership positions that Aviva is using data to improve.

A useful byproduct of the exercise has been trust-building and understanding which cohorts are most engaged.

Here, HRIS dad, along with classic engagement and pulse surveys, can help show the business which cohorts are more or less engaged giving them a clue as to why that is and what they can replicate for further success.

“Believe it or not we found that it is our ethnic minority employees that are more engaged and I think that’s based on the work we did off the back of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter,” he explains.

Briggs also believes that by creating a visible and well-explained ecosystem attached to this diversity data. From the internal publication of reasons why this data is being collected to giving leaders responsibility over specific diversity areas, attaching leadership rewards to diversity targets, and going public with ambitious diversity targets, as well as showcasing security and agency, Aviva’s focus is helping to build trust.

“I think that gives confidence [in what we’re doing] and we can’t do anything without somebody having trust in the organization,” Briggs adds.

Importantly, Briggs also feels that Aviva’s broad-spectrum approach to diversity can also help make employees feel like they belong — an increasingly important part of the talent picture.

He added: “Creating initiatives off the back of the data we now have on neurological health and helping those people at work has helped bring in those with passion here.

“It might be because they personally have a condition or it’s their relations or children but now they feel recognized.”

Coupled with the creation of employee resource groups — Aviva employees can join more than one (something Briggs adds is important in creating a truly intersectional approach) — executive sponsorship of different diverse communities, and diversity on the leadership agenda, Briggs explains the organization hopes to keep the D,E&I moving forward on every channel.

He added: “We talk about intersectionality as everything is important as we genuinely mean that.”

Find out more essential employee voice insight through our activity with Workday here.