Allianz Insurance and LV=General Insurance (LV=GI) are proud to announce that they have signed the Race at Work Charter as part of their commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Run by Business in the Community (BITC) the charter sets out five responsibilities and is a public pledge made by organisations towards racial equality.

The five commitments are to:

Appoint an Executive Sponsor for race

Capture ethnicity data and publicise progress

Commit at board level to zero tolerance of harassment and bullying

Make clear that supporting equality in the workplace in the responsibility of all leaders and managers

Take actions that support ethnic minority career progression

Together both organisations will work towards fulfilling the objectives of the charter through existing multi-cultural employee networks and a specific Race at Work Group that will meet regularly to drive action and change.

Jon Dye, Allianz Holdings CEO and chair of the D&I steering Group for Allianz Insurance: 'Signing this charter is a key milestone on our diversity and inclusion journey. We take the topic really seriously and have been making great strides over recent years helped greatly by our fantastic employee led networks, of which race and international cultural heritage is one. We're working hard to foster a diverse and inclusive culture within our organisation but recognise we have more work to do across the D&I spectrum, particularly in ensuring people from ethnic minorities are represented at all levels.

'Talking about D&I is important but it has to be backed by action. Words without deeds are of no use and that's where it's so important for it to be an engrained part of company culture. We want to make a difference and improve equality of opportunity in the workplace so by signing charters like these we are holding ourselves publically accountable. Through our brands we have a powerful voice that impacts both employees and customers.'

Steve Treloar, CEO at LV=GI commented: 'This is a really important and exciting moment for ourselves and Allianz as we continue to develop and build our Diversity and Inclusion proposition. We've worked hard to foster a diverse and inclusive culture at LV= GI but also realize we have more work to do in the area of race and racial equality, which is why we're publicly committing to taking action by signing the Race at Work Charter.

'We have a massive responsibility to deliver on this set of five principal calls to action and ensure our workplace is representative of British society today, and in the process let our customers and the people around us know that we want to make a difference to improving equality of opportunity in the workplace, and everything that brings with it. LV=GI and Allianz UK will be working closely to develop a plan of action to drive forward and deliver on a set of initiatives to meet each of the commitments, and we look forward to updating on progress in the months ahead.'

(C) 2020 Electronic News Publishing, source ENP Newswire