An ‘extra mile’ culture: why DE&I is vital for MGAs

The UK Financial Conduct Authority’s renewed focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) is not the only reason managing general agents (MGAs) need to embrace it: a more diverse and inclusive approach can add to the bottom line too, argued Mike Keating, chief executive officer of the Managing General Agents’ Association (MGAA).

“People will go the extra mile at work if they feel that their MGA is a great place to work, and organisations that embrace DE&I will be viewed as a great place to work,” he said.

However, to maximise the business benefits, DE&I must be more than just a tickbox exercise, Keating added—it must become “part of the fabric of an MGA’s business”.

His comments came as he spoke to Intelligent Insurer about new DE&I training that the MGA body launched in March for its members.

The training will take the form of bimonthly webinars, podcasts and articles led by Holly Mapstone, a financial services human resources (HR) and DE&I specialist and has been designed to support the MGAA’s members, from large to small.

Early webinar sessions examined how MGAs should be evidencing DE&I and looking at organisational communication, Keating said. This offered the opportunity to assess where a company is in terms of its communications plan from that perspective.

“Large MGAs, which clearly would have embraced DE&I, will have within their HR what this gives them. The opportunity is to validate that what they’re doing is still on track and their direction of travel.

“For smaller members, which perhaps haven’t got that wider resource, this gives them training, which could be a great starting point. If they have a DE&I strategy this training will allow them to cascade that in the right way to their staff. It will be supported by the right collateral, in the right language and the right communications, so they’re consistent in terms of how they operate.”

A regulatory lever

Keating suggested that one of the reasons the regulator takes DE&I so seriously is because it can be a lever for improving customer outcomes.

“DE&I goes to culture and how the business operates. If the business is operating with an excellent culture, that should drive the right behaviours towards the end customer. Where the regulator is absolutely focused on best outcomes for consumers, then you’d expect that DE&I is a lever and an important part of the toolkit in driving good culture, good inclusion, etc, which then leads to good outcomes for consumers,” he explained.

As to how the MGAA’s training in this area could help improve a business’s bottom line, Keating said it starts with new entrants into financial services sector jobs.

“The industry has certainly changed a lot since I started.
“For people choosing where they want to work, the DE&I strategy and how that company embraces it become a factor in whether people want to work in that business.”

People considering a move into the industry look at how inclusive or diverse an employer is and what programmes that organisation has in place.

“They want to know how that organisation can demonstrate that it takes DE&I seriously, so it’s not a tickbox exercise,” he said.

Job candidates want to know what the culture at the top is like and how that cascades down to real examples in terms of operating and working in that business.

“That’s why when you look at the MGAA training programme the first webinars are aimed at the C-suite and senior managers, because this has to be brought in at the top of the business. Leaders demonstrate to their staff that they take DE&I seriously,” he said.

The approach can then flow throughout the organisation through clear examples, programmes and training activities and become embedded and “part of the hygiene factor”.

Keating has three ultimate goals for the MGAA’s training: to support MGAA members who don’t have a strategy to introduce one; for larger MGAs with an existing plan to be able to validate what they’re doing; and that the MGA community as a whole recognises that the MGAA has put DE&I at its heart and wants members to embrace it.

“As the MGA trade association, we see DE&I as important. We’re putting the tools in place for our members to execute that in terms of their own businesses,” Keating concluded.