48% of Gen Z employees surveyed in the insurance broking sector are undecided about leaving their employer or already planning to do so.
The figure comes from the People and Culture exercise for SME insurance brokers, produced by LIIBA and Kintris, which analysed the workplace experiences of around 700 employees across eight broker firms. The finding raises important questions about how firms not only attract but also retain their next generation of talent, particularly as the industry faces an ageing workforce and declining graduate recruitment.
Although 79% of respondents reported a sense of belonging and 78% felt psychologically safe, it is important to look at the people behind the percentages. Positive experiences across a sample do not necessarily mean that every group feels equally supported or expects to build a long-term career in the sector, and at FAIRER, we spend our time trying to mainstream inclusion, belonging and fairness in everything we do.
With one in five insurance professionals expected to retire in the next five years, firms face growing questions about succession planning and the skills their future workforce will need, especially given changing workplace patterns and the introduction of new technologies that may affect generations differently. Organisations must also consider whether their cultures give people from different backgrounds a fair opportunity to enter the profession and build lasting careers.
These conversations formed the focus of Culture: Focussing on the Future, an event hosted by FAIRER Consulting and the London & International Insurance Brokers' Association (LIIBA). Bringing together perspectives from insurance, education, apprenticeships and business, the event explored the relationship between workplace culture and the industry's ability to attract, nurture and retain talent.
This article examines the key themes and findings from those discussions, sharing five takeaways for insurance organisations preparing their workforce for the future.
Poor workplace culture is a business risk
Workplace culture is often discussed in terms of employee engagement or organisational values, but its influence reaches much further. For insurance firms, employee experiences have direct implications for recruitment, retention, productivity and succession planning. The sector risks narrowing its future talent pool and may also lose valuable institutional knowledge when established employees retire.
The wider broker benchmark for LIIBA members offers a useful starting point for understanding these challenges. While its findings provide encouraging signals about employee experience, they also highlight gaps in how organisations monitor workplace culture. For example, 30% of participating firms do not track employee wellbeing, while 14% do not measure psychological safety. Without this data, organisations may struggle to identify where employees need greater support or whether their culture is working equally well for everyone.
Culture is fundamental to business, yet one of the hardest aspects of an organisation to measure. Employee surveys can provide useful insight, but the results must be examined through an intersectional lens and considered alongside the employee lifecycle to identify patterns that might otherwise remain hidden within organisation-wide averages.
Psychological safety also needs to be understood beyond a general measure of employee engagement. It concerns whether people feel safe to speak up, challenge decisions, share ideas and admit mistakes. Organisations need to find ways to measure psychological safety so that it can be tracked, challenged and improved.
A further point raised at the event was the need to make fairness part of mainstream organisational policies and decision-making. This does not mean removing targeted initiatives that address specific barriers, such as sexism, racism, homophobia and disability discrimination. Instead, organisations need to combine a consistent approach to fairness with targeted action that recognises the different experiences faced by particular groups.
Diversity must lead to fair opportunity
The insurance sector has historically relied on established routes into the profession, including university degrees and professional networks. These routes can unintentionally exclude people who have the ability to succeed but lack the qualifications, networks or financial support traditionally associated with entry into the industry. Alternative pathways, such as apprenticeships and school-leaver programmes, can help broaden access and offer employers an opportunity to identify potential within overlooked talent pools.
Social mobility was a key theme throughout the event. Through its Belonging @ LIIBA initiative, LIIBA aims to improve diversity and inclusion across the London insurance market, including by showcasing career opportunities and supporting access to the profession. Its professional work experience week, delivered with member firms, is one example of how the industry can introduce young people to insurance and help them understand the range of careers available.
At FAIRER, we have worked directly with Lloyd’s of London to strengthen inclusive leadership at executive level. We designed and delivered an Inclusive Leadership programme for its executive leadership team, beginning with an assessment of leaders’ existing understanding and attitudes before working with key stakeholders to shape the programme around Lloyd’s values and priorities. The programme focused on role-modelling inclusive behaviours, embedding inclusion into everyday leadership practices, recognising and reducing bias, and identifying practical actions leaders could take to create more inclusive teams.
At the event, the experiences of T-level students illustrated how some barriers to entering professional environments are less obvious than formal qualifications or recruitment criteria. Students may have the academic ability and potential to succeed, but lack familiarity with workplace expectations, professional language or the unwritten rules of corporate environments.
Schools are helping to bridge this gap through structured sessions that give students opportunities to interact with adults, practise networking, create LinkedIn profiles, write CVs and prepare for interviews. Workplace visits also help them understand professional settings and how to communicate with colleagues. Making these expectations more accessible can build confidence and reduce the anxiety and imposter syndrome many young people may experience when entering unfamiliar environments.
The apprenticeship discussion also highlighted that access is just the beginning. To thrive in the workplace, young people need support to balance work and study, navigate unfamiliar professional environments and build networks they can turn to for advice and encouragement. Peer support can help apprentices feel that they have a place in the organisation, rather than being left to work everything out on their own.
With the rise of AI and technology in the workplace, employers are also seeking people-centred skills such as communication, presentation, teamwork and critical thinking. These can be learned and developed through education and practical experience. T-levels and other vocational pathways give students opportunities to demonstrate these capabilities while gaining exposure to the workplace.
For employers, engaging with schools and education providers offers a practical way to widen access to talent and challenge assumptions about what a successful candidate looks like. Once people enter an organisation, fair access to development and progression becomes equally important. Employees need visibility of career pathways and opportunities to demonstrate their capabilities. Informal networks can influence who hears about opportunities and receives support, so organisations should examine whether development and promotion processes are genuinely accessible.
Sponsorship can help employees gain access to stretch projects and senior advocates that might otherwise remain out of reach. Unlike mentoring, which typically focuses on advice and development, sponsors use their influence to help others progress. The wider goal is to ensure talent is recognised and developed consistently, rather than allowing background or personal connections to dictate who progresses.
Belonging depends on workplace relationships
Recruiting people from a wider range of backgrounds is a positive start, but retaining them depends on the experience they have once they join an organisation. Organisation-wide measures can provide useful indicators of belonging and psychological safety, but they should not obscure differences between employee groups or the experiences of those who may feel less supported.
The event explored the distinction between inclusion and belonging. Inclusion is about having a voice and being treated with respect, while belonging is the feeling of being part of a group or community. An employee can be included in a workplace but still struggle to feel that they truly belong.
Connection plays an important role. Onboarding, peer support and affinity groups can help employees navigate unfamiliar environments and find colleagues they can relate to. These networks can provide reassurance and help people recognise that others may be facing similar challenges.
Line managers also have a significant influence on whether employees feel valued and supported. The event highlighted the importance of the relationship between neurodivergent employees and their managers in supporting retention. Kintris found that 15% of those surveyed in the insurance industry identified as neurodivergent, while 12% preferred not to say. This highlights the importance of creating environments where employees feel comfortable sharing their needs and accessing appropriate support.
Managers need practical skills to understand different communication styles and working needs, have constructive conversations and make reasonable adjustments where appropriate. They also need to recognise that treating everyone the same does not always produce fair or equal results. Different employees may need different forms of support to access the same opportunities.
Belonging also needs to extend beyond individual teams and networks. The event explored the importance of corporate cohesion: creating connections between different groups across an organisation, rather than allowing separate communities to operate in parallel. This means building opportunities for people with different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives to work together, while developing the skills to disagree constructively.
Preparing people for an AI-enabled workplace
The event highlighted how AI and technology will change the skills organisations need. As more work becomes technology-led, emotional intelligence, critical thinking and human-centred leadership will become increasingly important.
At FAIRER, we view perspective-taking as a critical skill: being able to recognise the validity of a viewpoint, even when it is fundamentally different from your own. This also means developing the ability to disagree well and work constructively with colleagues who hold different views.
Managers will need support to develop these capabilities, alongside the confidence to lead people through technological and organisational change. Technology may change how work is done, but leaders remain responsible for building trust, supporting employees and understanding how decisions affect people. Leadership accountability is therefore essential, as senior leaders need to take ownership of the culture they create and the behaviours they model and encourage.
The discussions also connected inclusion and wellbeing with business performance. Five principles were highlighted: belonging and purpose, growth and learning, co-worker support, career opportunities and leaders who role-model the behaviours they expect from others. These provide a useful framework for considering how organisations can support employee wellbeing while creating the conditions for productivity and performance.
Five takeaways from the event
The discussions at Culture: Focussing on the Future spotlighted five important considerations for insurance organisations looking to build a fairer and more sustainable workforce.
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Broaden access to the profession. Review recruitment criteria and entry-level pathways to identify where traditional requirements may exclude capable candidates. Expand access through apprenticeships, T-level placements, school partnerships and structured work experience. Give young people practical exposure to professional environments and assess candidates on their potential as well as their qualifications.
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Make workplace expectations and progression clearer. Don't assume that everyone understands the unwritten rules of the workplace or knows how to access development opportunities. Make expectations explicit, provide support during transitions into work and set out the skills and experience required for progression. Review how employees are selected for stretch projects and promotion to identify potential barriers.
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Equip managers to support different people. Give managers the practical skills to lead diverse teams and understand individual needs. This includes guidance on neuroinclusion, psychological safety, reasonable adjustments and wellbeing. Research by Neurodiversity in Business and Birkbeck University of London identified line manager support as an important influence on neurodivergent employees' intentions to leave an organisation.
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Build connection across the organisation. Create opportunities for employees to connect with colleagues outside their immediate teams and work constructively with people who hold different perspectives. Affinity groups and employee networks can provide valuable support, but organisations also need to encourage collaboration between different groups and develop a culture where people can disagree constructively.
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Measure culture and make leaders accountable. Use employee data to understand experiences across different groups. Measure belonging, trust, psychological safety and wellbeing, and consider these alongside retention and progression. Senior leaders should take responsibility for acting on the findings and connecting improvements in employee experience with wider business objectives.
Let’s continue the conversation
At FAIRER Consulting, we work with organisations to make fairness, inclusion and wellbeing part of everyday business decisions. This includes helping leaders understand their workplace culture, identify barriers to opportunity and build practices that promote fairness for everyone.
Our evidence-led training programmes and consultancy services are designed to help organisations turn their inclusion ambitions into practical, sustainable action. To start a conversation, simply get in touch to book a complimentary call with one of our consultants.
