Developing new skills for different generations of workers
300,000
jobs provided in Britain
86%
of our employees work full time
Fostering
future leaders
The insurance and long-term savings sector employs over 300,000 people in Britain, in high-skill, high-value jobs. 86 per cent of those that work in the sector are employed full-time, compared with the national average of 67 per cent. Insurance is one of the most productive industries in Britain. The average worker contributes £150,000 per year to the economy of the United Kingdom – double the average amount of British workers as a whole.
Insurance and long-term savings providers understand the importance of staff training and development. The industry firmly recognises the need to invest in its workforce – particularly those at an early stage in their careers and have the potential to enjoy long and successful working lives within the industry. But the insurance sector also invests in those people that have something to contribute but may need support to do so – such as younger people from less privileged backgrounds and older people that could drift out of the labour market.
The ABI: training future leaders
Following the Government’s 2013 Insurance Growth Action Plan, the ABI established its “Future Leaders” programme to help develop promising senior leaders in the sector. Reflecting the ABI’s support for diversity and inclusion, there is a strong commitment to gender diversity among the Future Leaders delegates. Since launching in 2015, over 80 people from across the industry have benefitted from the programme.
The Glasgow Insurance Hub: early career development
Insurance and long-term savings businesses in Glasgow are active members of the Chartered Institute of Insurers and focus on fostering the skills of the sector in the city, including the creation of a mentoring programme for employees at the early stage of their career and running regular skills workshops.
Direct Line Group: boosting school leavers’ skills
Direct Line Group supports Pearson College's “Rotational Degree Apprenticeship” scheme, enabling school-leavers to complete a degree in Business Management while participating in a three year apprenticeship programme. Apprentices spend four days a week at work and one day studying at college and rotate through companies including IBM, Tesco, Unilever and Direct Line Group, spending a year at each company.
Unum: helping young people to get ready for the workplace
Protection provider, Unum, has established long-term partnerships with SATRO, IntoUniversity and Basingstoke Consortium to deliver secondary school mentoring programmes. The programmes include helping young people with work readiness and employability skills like CV clinics and mock interviews, as well as advice on revision techniques, learning styles and time management. Unum also runs a programme for its employees to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds to go to university. Typically these are the first member of their family to consider further education.
Boosting
younger workers’ skills
Training
older workers
Aviva: recruiting and training the over 50s
Aviva runs a highly regarded graduate recruitment programme. However, it also runs a series of initiatives to recruit and retain its over-50s workforce, including refreshing its apprenticeship offering to include all age groups. The company runs advertising campaigns targeted directly at the over-50s.
Allianz: combining personal development with social impact
Allianz runs “Our Pathways”, a senior leadership programmes, which combines personal development with social impact. Its leadership talent is matched with emerging social enterprises (organisations that are achieving social and environmental impact and are – or aim to be – financially sustainable). Together they develop solutions and tackle the social enterprise’s critical organisational challenges in order to improve business operations and better tackle wider social and environmental challenges.
Allianz also runs a leadership programme for junior employees – “Routes to Success” – which brings aspiring leaders together with charitable organisations, utilising their professional expertise and skills to deliver a project brief of the charities’ choice.
An active professional body training future leaders
With 125,000 members in 150 countries, the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) is the world’s largest professional body for the insurance and financial planning sectors. It currently offers over a hundred face-to-face courses for members – for people at different phases of their careers – and it has delivered education and training to over a million students in the last decade. However, the commitment to education and training runs right through the sector – from the ABI to the businesses that make up its membership.