David Howell
Chief Executive Officer
Gender Pay Gap Report
At PL Re, we regularly monitor pay equality and are committed to continue to compensate employees fairly, regardless of gender, race age etc. We have published our UK Gender Pay Gap Report 2023 which you can read here.
We are proud to be an active member of the Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion.
Diversity is about differences. Each of us is individual, and at Pacific Life Re, we not only respect this but we value it. We recognise that the best client service, the most impressive innovations, and the greatest work environments, come from combining a vast range of skill sets, experiences and points of view.
Inclusion is about having an environment in which all our people feel and are valued. It is about having an environment in which they can confidently bring their differences to work each day, knowing that they will be not only accepted but celebrated. Allowing everyone to contribute their personal best in every encounter.
We strongly believe it’s not just about adding diversity and educating our employees to draw on our differences to change our business, it’s about how well we are listening to – and learning from – the diversity that we already have within the business. We foster open conversations and we are actively training our employees, with sessions covering unconscious bias and allyship, helping us to unite, learn and grow.
Key initiatives around the world
Each of our global locations has their own Diversity and Inclusion Committee, made up of volunteers who work hard to organise a wide range of activities, celebrations and learning opportunities for their colleagues. The main event is our annual global Inclusion Week, but many other activities are held throughout the year as well, such as training, external speakers, socials and so much more. Our key focus areas are: LGBTQ+, Mental Health, Disability, Gender, Ethnicity and Religion, Beliefs and Culture.
Here are a couple of the activities that have been put in place:
Asia
LGBTQ+
It is important to us that everyone feels safe and comfortable to bring their whole selves to work each day. With the key message that ‘Love is Love’ in mind, we wanted to give employees a visual way of showing allyship and support to the LGBTQ+ community. We therefore organised the creation of large rainbow stickers with the message ‘Love is for Everyone’ printed on them, to be sent out to all employees. It is important to remember that even small acts of support start important conversations.
Inclusive language guide
The language that we use on a day-to-day basis can become habit, and without realising it, we could be using language that is disrespectful to our fellow colleagues. With the desire to make sure our conversations are all inclusive and respectful, we have created an Inclusive Language Guide for our employees to use to help them with any terminology that they might not be sure about. It is a dynamic document that is there to encourage continuous learning.
UK
Access to Sport
Only 18% of disabled people regularly engage in sport, despite 70% wanting to and as Access Sport says: ‘no one should be excluded from the transformational benefits of community sport’. For this reason, we are thrilled to be supporting the Flyerz Hockey initiative through London Wayfarers Hockey Club. Flyerz provides hockey sessions for people aged 8 to 25 with pan-disabilities and involves a variety of activities, exercise and most importantly fun! Please get in touch if you would like more information about joining with your child.
Pacific Pride
We have created an LGBTQ+ and allies network, called “Pacific Pride”. The vision for the network is to lead with our inclusive values and beliefs enabling all employees to bring their full selves to our workplace, benefitting from our differences. The network aims to promote and develop allyship, provide a sense of community and celebrate LGBTQ+ initiatives internally and externally.
Australia
Gender equality in the workplace
To celebrate International Women’s Day, we tuned into several panel discussions on gender equality and unconscious biases in the workplace, which were live streamed from both our Sydney and Singapore offices.
We were also delighted to welcome a representative from charity organisation, Fitted for Work, to speak to our employees about the important work they’re doing to help women thrive in the workplace.
Diversity and Inclusion survey
This year, our D&I Committee in Sydney are working on a local, tailored employee survey, to better understand employees’ views on our culture and our approach to Diversity and Inclusion, with the aim of encouraging more open discussions and making further improvements. It is vital that all our employees are heard and given the chance to be truly open in an anonymous forum.
North America
Anti-racism
A key focus for the Toronto and Boston offices this year is anti-racism. With the Black Lives Matter movement coming to the forefront in 2020, we wanted to raise awareness and educate our employees around the topic. To do this we have been getting involved with and signing up to a wide variety of external webinars; it is important that we are gaining knowledge from a range of different sources and so have been learning about anti-Black racism, anti-Asian racism, and faith/cultural prejudices, to name a few.
Recommended Reading
We like to encourage employees to take the time to learn about and educate themselves within the topic of Diversity and Inclusion, when they can. As such, we have been putting together a dynamic recommended reading list, where employees can suggest books they have enjoyed, that educate in the areas of Pride, gender equality, the fight against racism, and indigenous rights, among others.