Richard Brown, senior manager at Scottish Widows, speaks to Health & Protection about how his sexuality does not define him in the workplace, the importance of being open about his sexuality and how more people are joining company calls featuring LGBTQ+ colleagues sharing their experiences.
What have been your own experiences with regard to attitudes towards LGBT communities in the sector?
I have worked in the protection industry for 10 years and in financial services for almost 20 and I have always felt supported in relation to my sexuality.
To be completely honest, I have never felt that it has ever played a part in my career, and I personally feel that’s how it should be. I would never wish for my sexuality to define me as a person or in the workplace, just as being heterosexual doesn’t define the majority.
It’s a very small part of my role at work, but the fact that Scottish Widows promotes an inclusive environment in the workplace gives me the foundation to thrive in my role.
How have attitudes evolved in the sector?
Attitudes have absolutely evolved since I joined.
As a simple example, here at Scottish Widows and the wider Lloyds Banking Group, we have used one of our existing networks to move away from the usual rainbow theme and use ‘Out and Proud’ as our identity.
While I absolutely see the rainbow symbol as important, for me, just being able to be open about my sexuality, and working in an environment where you can be proud of it is important.
As part of Out and Proud, while we have still focused on this underlying principle of promoting an inclusive workplace, we have moved this on to highlighting and supporting the importance of not just the ‘L and the G’, but the ‘B, T and Q’, along with our allies.
Over the last 18 months, we held all-employee calls in the insurance part of our business with colleagues feeling comfortable enough to share their stories and experiences, which would have been a challenge only a few years back.
We see an increasing number of colleagues joining these types of calls, not because they identify as LGBT+, but because they have a son, daughter, siblings, parent, or so on that identifies as LGBTQ+ and they can join to learn more.
From a process perspective, we have seen advancements in underwriting and even our systems that support gender identity – something that wasn’t even considered a few years back.
We are now able to highlight our pronouns on e-mail signatures if we choose to do so, or to log our personal information regarding our sexuality for data analytics purposes. We now also have a dedicated DE&I senior leader to help drive the agenda which demonstrates how committed we are as a business to promoting an inclusive workplace.
What is the sector doing well and where does it need to up its game?
While lots of great progress has been made, there is always more we can do.
In Out and Proud we have a set of objectives to try and progress the LGBTQ+ agenda. Engagement scores are generally lower with LGBTQ+ colleagues, and only around three quarters of colleagues in our division are comfortable sharing their sexual orientation.
Understanding the ‘why’ is never an easy task, but we continue to do all we can to ensure colleagues can be themselves when they come to work.
Do you feel encouraged and enabled to bring your whole self to work?
I do feel enabled to bring my whole self to work, sometimes too much. It’s hugely important to me that I can be in my role, and I’ve never felt I couldn’t.
Leading and supporting over 300 colleagues, it’s essential that I demonstrate and role model this and I absolutely believe that you get the best from your team if you create an inclusive culture.
Over and above this, I have the privilege of working alongside my line manager who is hugely passionate about driving the wider DE&I agenda, which only motivates me to want to do more in this space.
