Dive In 2023 – takeaway classes in micro-courtesy

There’s a private and knowledgeable part to each variety, fairness & inclusion (DE&I) journey, and a really “lived expertise” of DE&I is what occurs when one by no means loses sight of the opposite.

In an interview with Insurance coverage Enterprise, Jon Hayes (pictured), international co-chair and senior associate at DLA Piper, highlighted that it’s this lived expertise which has enabled him to understand the commonalities and have a good time the variations inherent to everybody. Over the course of his childhood and younger maturity, he mentioned, he turned keenly conscious of how in another way everyone experiences the world round them, whether or not that’s on account of prejudice or just a scarcity of alternative. 

Talking within the wake of the success of the 2023 Dive In Competition, Hayes famous that earlier than he turned a practising lawyer, he taught legislation to part-time college students, a lot of whom had failed of their O-level or A-level journey in school. What quickly turned clear, he mentioned, was that there was such a broad number of causes behind that, and all too typically it was a mix of socio-economic elements that was at play.

“I used to be serving to folks, by way of an entry course, to get locations on legislation levels, as a result of they had been vivid,” he mentioned. “Every little thing else wasn’t going of their favour, however their brains had been. So, that was a fairly good basis on which to reach in a legislation agency that’s fuelled by folks and expertise, the place our purchasers are very numerous geographically, culturally, and in all the opposite traits we are likely to concentrate on.

“It appears to me that the extra those who I’ve round me the place I don’t assume I’ve all the things in widespread with them, the happier I really feel – and the higher I feel we serve one another and our purchasers.”

Exploring the commonality on the coronary heart of DE&I efforts

Beforehand probably the most senior international sponsor of DLA Piper’s LGBTQ+ community, just lately Hayes has taken up a brand new mantle sponsoring all the worldwide legislation agency’s networks, a task which has given him a deeper understanding of the total breadth of the Dive In providing and attain. Within the years he has been concerned within the pageant, he mentioned, he’s seen what an extremely wealthy supply of knowledge it offers on what’s occurring within the insurance coverage sector.

Hayes highlighted that whereas there’s a commonality to legislation and insurance coverage by way of the important thing matters that the sectors have to be tackling, Dive In represents an incredible alternative to discover the challenges going through DLA Piper’s insurance coverage purchasers and companions. Not that it stops there, he mentioned, provided that insurance coverage is a crucial subject for all purchasers because it’s a vital issue within the sustainability of their operations.

“Whenever you come collectively, you discover you’ve got extra in widespread and extra methods you are able to do issues collectively,” he mentioned. “As you get to know one another higher within the context of selling fairness, variety and inclusion, you’re attending to know one another higher total and the belief builds and the industrial good thing about that follows naturally as effectively.

“Dive In is a really welcome a part of our insurance coverage sector technique of contributing to the insurance coverage career on this manner. I’m delighted to say that we’ve been in a position to contribute for about 5 years now, and we sit up for that persevering with.”

Exploring the evolution of the DE&I pageant

It’s been fantastic to see how the Dive In pageant has developed, Hayes mentioned, and the way it has embraced the actually international nature of DE&I as a topic and expanded its syllabus to replicate the intersectionality that’s on the coronary heart of inclusion efforts. The mental ambition underpinning this syllabus simply will get deeper, richer and extra textured and nuanced yearly, and there’s extra for everybody because the conversations proceed.

“And it’s way more international than ever,” he mentioned. “This yr, for instance, we had been concerned in 13 occasions throughout eight nations… It’s actually spectacular as a result of I consider that each single day, we’ve cause to remind ourselves that the extra we are able to discover in widespread with folks, the higher. The extra we have a good time and spotlight what’s widespread to us – which may be our pleasure about our variations – the higher for everybody.

“And I feel that, for me, is what Dive In has all the time been about. It’s turbocharging the insurance coverage business’s method to DE&I – and to see that turn into extra international over time has been actually thrilling for us.”

Prime takeaways from Dive In 2023

Sharing what he has taken away from Dive In 2023, Hayes emphasised the facility of setting the tone from the highest, and the way the pageant has given a platform to business function fashions who’re setting the instance of every day engagement with DE&I. A phrase he’s very keen on, he mentioned, is that of ‘micro-courtesy’ which basically is the act of discovering widespread floor by interacting and genuinely partaking with these round you.

“If I don’t ask myself, ‘how am I going to be sure that earlier than I clock off tonight, the those who work with me have been seen by me and I’ve related with them and proven an consciousness about one thing about them I didn’t know two weeks in the past’, then I’m not doing sufficient,” he mentioned. “I feel that method of a number of micro-courtesies is an efficient manner of making an attempt to push DE&I additional… Lively management is essential so [at DLA Piper] we’re eager to do as a lot as we are able to with Dive In in future years.”

For at present, nevertheless, Hayes mentioned, his key takeaway is finest summarised by the sentiment, “Sure please, can we do that once more quickly?” He famous that Dive In has had a major affect on making a refined however essential nuance in how DE&I is mentioned in insurance coverage. As a result of the place as soon as the query was “Is DE&I related to this?” now the query is “How is DE&I related to this?”

“I feel Dive In has moved the needle within the course of that basically engaged-in curiosity,” he mentioned. “The query now’s, what’s the implication right here? How can this assist us all to be higher and assist one another to be higher? Not, ‘Oh I ponder if there’s an angle right here?’.”

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