“Look around the UK benefits industry and you will notice that there are still far too few people who look like me.” Uche Enemchukwu, chief executive Nelu Diversified Consulting Solutions, is direct about the challenges the benefits industry faces when it comes to diversity. And as she points out this isn’t just an issue for those who belong to under-represented groups and ethnic minority backgrounds, it is a serious problem for the pension companies, service providers and health and wellbeing firms who are failing to recruit talent and reach a far wider customer base as a result.
In recent years there has been an increased focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) policies, with these issues starting to rise up the corporate agenda in the UK. The murder of George Floyd in the US and the rise of the Black Live Matters movement globally has made this one of the most pressing political issues of our times.
Enemchukwu says she welcomes the fact that many companies are now starting to have conversations about diversity and inclusion in the workplace, particularly when it comes to race and ethnicity. But she says there is still considerable progress to be made, particularly in the UK benefits industry, where these conversations need to be matched with concrete action to boost recruitment from these groups, and foster career progression and promotion.
It is this need to drive change across the industry that has led to Enemchukwu expanding her consultancy business. Enemchukwu launched Nelu Diversified Consulting Solutions in the US in 2019, and will be starting to roll out the consultancy to UK-based companies from the start of next year.
Enemchukwu has worked for many years in the benefits industry. She initially qualified as a lawyer, and started work as a benefits attorney with a large law firm in the US, with employee benefits being her practice area.
This was followed by work as a consultant for Willis Towers Watson. She says “I was looking after middle market clients when it was just Willis and larger market clients when the firm became WTW.”
She was then hired by Boeing to manage compliance for their retirement plans, where she became instrumental in helping them apply a more rigorous approach to DE&I across their benefits offering.
Enemchukwu says it was through her work with WTW that she started to “open her eyes” to some of the issues around DE&I. Although she says she was personally treated well she became aware of some of the structural challenges presented by the benefits industry as a whole.
“I was working with a client who was going through a very difficult staff benefits transition, and had the opportunity to sit down with one of their benefits managers who was leaving. We had a long talk about the things that mattered to her, and to me, and it really opened my eyes to the fact that in benefits we have been focused on one demographic to the expense of all others.”
Enemchukwu describes how it is easy for those working in such environments to adopt this mindset. “I realised I was ‘code switching’ at work, and the work I was doing, be it communications I was reviewing, or the strategies I was proposing, were all geared towards serving the interest of this one demographic, and largely ignoring all non-white-male demographics.
“I started to realise that these strategies were ignoring people like me and they didn’t reflect or take into account the sort of background or experiences I knew. From this conversation it just became very clear to me that this was something that I needed to address.”
As she points out, there is often the underlying assumption that those from less well-represented groups may not have the money to invest. “My sisters are doctors, I trained as a lawyer. There are many professional black men and women who have money to invest in retirement plans and insurance policies.
“But many people like me might have come from families who did not have the opportunity or the experience to buy these products, so through no fault of their own, they do not necessarily know what is available, or how these products work because they don’t have these experiences. A lack of diversity within benefits companies mean that these issues are often not coming to light.”
Enemchukwu says when she first went to law school she wanted to be a human rights lawyer. In fact, she spent both of her law school apprenticeships in the Netherlands at a human rights think
tank. First she says she decided to enter the corporate world, to pay off her loans, support herself, and help her family. But through her work launching her own consultancy she says she is connecting with this initial drive for justice by addressing some of the inequalities that exist when it comes to wealth and wellbeing.
Having worked in both the US and now the UK, does Enemchukwu see any differences between the countries when it comes to diversity and inclusion?
She says: “Some things are very similar. Hopefully most of us can see that there are still huge inequalities when it comes to issues of gender and race, whether you are looking at opportunities in the workplace, access to healthcare or how people are treated in society. These disparities exist in the US and the UK.
“But there are more subtle differences between the two countries. One issue I’ve really noticed is the intersection between ethnicity and class in the UK. From what I’ve observed this plays a significant role here. The way people talk and think about ethnicity is much more granular in the UK, whether someone has a Nigerian, Jamaican or Indian background for example.
“What this means from a DE&I standpoint is that the approach can’t be the same across the board. We need to look at different strategies to recruit and reach people from different communities. We have to acknowledge and address these differences if we are going to improve diversity and start providing products and services that really meet the needs of a far wider group of people.”
The question Enemchukwu wants the benefits industry to be discussing is what can be done to change all this. The priority she says “must be to diversify service providers and to diversify vendors”. This needs to happen throughout organisations, from board level to those in member or customer-facing roles.
As she points out, a recent US study by the Employee Benefits Research Institution showed there was clear evidence that Black and Latinx individuals were less likely to talk to financial advisers who don’t share their background. “They felt they didn’t understand the particular challenges and hurdles they faced. It comes down to an issue of trust. You can do all the outreach you want, but people often want to talk to people who are like them and if they don’t see anyone like them in your organisation they are going to start to think it is not for them.”
The structure of the benefits industry in the UK is not necessarily helping to drive change according to Enemchukwu. She says: “There are just very few providers at the end of the day, so employers don’t really have too many options.
“Because there are so few providers there’s little space for change and innovation, which has created a situation where it is hard to drive through the improvement that is needed. Everyone becomes a bit entrenched, a bit set in their ways. I know from having worked in the industry that’s it’s easy to simply fall into the trap of thinking this is how things are, as they have always been like that. I had to intentionally step out of this.
“There is a real appetite for change I think. A more diverse organisation is likely to be more open to new ideas and innovation. It can challenge industry groupthink and the rigidity that our industry is known for.”
Is the US further down this path than the UK? Enemchukwu says unfortunately this is not the case. “They may have been talking about these issues for longer, but particularly in the pensions industry we need more intentional movement towards change.
“There has been innovation in the health and welfare sector in the US though, which has really been needed, particularly with the high cost of healthcare. This has been driven by employers and other organisations who are demanding change, which in turn has created space for innovators to come up with new ways of doing business that address the needs of those who have not been well served by this sector.
“But when it comes to pensions, there is a lot of talk about diversity but little in the way of concrete action and impact.
“There are a couple of companies who have made some very specific statements about their diversity goals, which is great. However, what is disappointing is when you take a closer look at what is being done today very few companies can evidence real impactful change when it comes to DE&I. Putting a few more white women on the board is great, but it is not diversity and isn’t addressing the racial diversity challenges we face today.”
Enemchukwu says there are parallels to the way some benefits firms are also championing future ‘net zero’ goals but may be slow to reduce carbon emissions today. What is needed she says is action today, with short-term targets, and accountability regarding these targets.
“Companies are often far more comfortable discussing climate change than they are DE&I. But they are all part of the same issue – part of sustainability.”
As she points out, DE&I falls under both the ‘social’ and ‘governance’ aspects of ESG, with requirements in the US, and some other countries, around board diversity. But the relationship is more complex.
“When we are looking at environmental change, we need to also consider the people who are most impacted. There is a wealth of research that shows it is women, particularly women of colour, and ethnic minorities that are impacted most acutely. This is true whether you look at populations in developed countries like the US and UK, or the countries in the globe that will be hardest hit by rising temperatures.
“It is also true when you look at the people who have been most affected by the global pandemic. Data shows that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are less likely to be working from home in front of a computer, and are more likely to be in lower-paid frontline jobs that require them to go to work every day.
“But the business leaders and people we see talking about environmental sustainability and building back better are invariably not from the communities most impacted by this issue.”
She says that the UK and Europe are clearly ahead of the US when it comes to ESG-related issues. But adds: “Here in the UK there’s more of an awareness about ESG, but thinking around many of these interlinked issues hasn’t been fully fleshed out, particularly as to what this means in relation to the benefits space.”
From next year Enemchukwu’s consultancy will be fully operational in the UK. Their ethos is to put in place programmes and systems that enact change and have an immediate impact on diversity and inclusion within organisations and for member populations.
The company will offer consultancy services offered through a DE&I lens, and will also offer a three-tier certification process for UK companies, covering employers, service providers and individual benefits practitioners. At launch she says there will be a focus on this certification suite. She says they have already signed agreements to certify a number of multinational employers and US service providers in the benefits space.
She explains: “Basically what we do is we review employers’ benefits programmes and make specific recommendations round these programmes.”
Too many companies, she says, assume they don’t have a problem because there is eligibility to all groups. “But eligibility is not access. There are so many moving pieces involved in creating access. We want to look at why certain groups may not have accessed these benefits and look at ways to address and improve this.
“We also run multi-module training for service providers where we will review their hiring and recruitment practices. Those that want certification will commit to interviewing a set percentage of candidates from under-represented groups for their management positions, and a certain per cent of this number must be people of colour.”
The consultancy will work with companies across the benefits industry, but Enemchukwu says there is likely
to be an initial focus on asset managers and financial advisers.
Ultimately, Enemchukwu says that her pitch to the UK benefits industry is to start giving the issue of diversity the serious attention it demands. “First and foremost this is the right thing to do. Our workforce is becoming increasingly diverse and we need to make sure that companies are not restricting opportunity.
“We need to also think about future workforces. There are many businesses that talk about having difficulties today recruiting and hiring talent. Becoming a more diverse and inclusive business can address some of these issues, today and tomorrow.
“And finally I want to say that we need to stop making assumptions about these different demographics not being interested in engaging. As an industry we’ve ignored whole groups, on both low and high incomes — and as a result we as an industry have missed out too. It’s time to start acknowledging this and doing better.”