Veracity - February 2018 edition

Sarah Moltzen, Vero’s National Manager, Strategic Relationships speaks out on gender diversity in the workplace.

It seems almost every day I wake to hear stories about gender diversity and discrimination against women in the workplace. It is a recurring topic that occasionally even makes front page headlines. But I believe this reportage almost always misses the point.

It is easy to indulge in sensationalist stories designed to inflame opinions, but the real issues on gender equality are rarely addressed. As a staunch supporter of working women, I believe most of these stories trot out facile arguments that only pay lip-service to the real issues facing half of our workforce.

Discrimination against female workers is not always as simple or visible as it may seem. It is not simply a question of how much women are paid or how many women hold senior management positions versus men – it is really all about balance.

For example, many women who are trying to balance domestic duties as mothers with their jobs will opt to work a 3 to 4-day week. They will accept a proportionate salary reduction from their compliant employer. But what often transpires is that they end up working a similar number of weekly hours to their fulltime colleagues without the proper financial rewards.

Their employers gain the benefit of their diligence and dedication to duty – but at a discount! Surely, their benefits should match their performance and not a simple mathematical sum.

In another piece I read recently, I learnt a surprising new fact on female business owners in small to medium enterprises (SMEs). Research from the Vero SME Insurance Index conducted nationally with around 1500 respondents revealed that the number of female decision makers in Australian SMEs has grown by nearly 50% over the past ten years. *

Federal government statistics** support this and show that more than 600,000 Australian women run their own SME businesses. This is a dramatic change in a relatively short time span and I believe it bears further analysis.

Why are women increasingly choosing to start their own businesses? Are their ambitions more fulfilled in these start-up ventures than they were through working for an employer? Could it be that they found the legendary ‘glass ceiling’ a little too low and claustrophobic and decided to move out from under it?

More than half the female business owners surveyed said that the flexibility created by running their own business was the dominant motivation behind their career choice. This growth in self-employed women could be interpreted as a response to the lack of flexibility they enjoyed in traditional employed work.

More ambitious, entrepreneurial women could logically tend to gravitate away from these perceived constraints towards the freedom and rewards offered by self-employment. It could also be interpreted as an attempt to ‘escape ‘the problems of inclusion and diversity they find in the traditional workplace, rather than trying to solve them. While addressing these challenges directly may seem too onerous, a move into small business could prove to be a better strategy for women seeking a challenging, well paid and rewarding career.

Discussions of gender diversity in the workplace have been the subject of statistical analysis and opinion pieces for decades, both here in Australia and around the world. While advances can at times seem difficult and slight, progress is being achieved. Certainly, while the latest statistics are good, they need to show improvement.

Female employees dominate the financial services industries making up more than half of the workforce. **

For the past fifteen years, women have been consistently more likely than men to have attained a Bachelor’s degree or higher and in the ten years to 2016, female labour force participation rates have dramatically increased.

While women are steadily becoming better qualified than men, most senior roles in organisations in Australia are still male-dominated. At the top-level of organisations, women hold just 16.3% of CEO positions and 28.5% of key management positions within companies reporting to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

Happily, the company that employs me – Suncorp – is an exception to this rule and most importantly, our differences start at the very top.

Six of our thirteen senior leadership team are women.

One third of our board directors are women.

These figures place us well above national averages in gender diversity. More to the point, they help deliver real advantages. Research shows organisations with greater diversity produce quantifiable better business results. As an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality, Suncorp is at the forefront of gender diversity within corporate Australia.

I’m personally happy to see the increase in female participation in small business ownership. At the same time, I fear that employers may still be losing some of our most motivated and entrepreneurial women to the SME sector.

I believe balance is the key. Balance translates into true equality in the workplace. It means equal treatment for men and women and so the catalyst for the last removal of that archaic ‘glass ceiling’. That concept is a carryover from the age when suffragettes had to fight for the vote, when men-only clubs thrived while women were kept chained to the kitchen sink – barefoot and pregnant.

The era of subjugation and discrimination has long since passed in so many areas of our 21st century lives, all that remains is the workplace.

*Australian Bureau of Statistics for the Office of Women 2015

**Australian Government Workplace Gender Equality

RM Advancer announcement

Mining company wins Workers’ Compensation category at Vero’s RM Advancer Awards

Mineral drilling contractor Swick Mining has taken out the first-ever RM Advancer award for excellence in Workers Compensation risk management at a gala ceremony recently hosted by Vero.

Other award winners were:

• Metcash – Property Risk Management Award
• Elders – Liability Risk Management Award
• City Holdings – Motor Risk Management Award
• Shaw’s Darwin Transport – Enterprise-Wide Risk Management

The GIO Workers’ Compensation Risk Management category was added to this year’s awards to recognise the importance of investing in workplace health and safety.

“Workers’ compensation is typically the biggest insurance cost for an organisation. You can have a positive impact on your bottom line when you invest in workplace health and safety risk management,” said Darren O’Connell, Executive General Manager, Suncorp.

The twelfth edition of Vero’s awards was staged at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney on Thursday, 26 October. Award winners each receive 200,000 Qantas Business Rewards points.

The RM Advancer Awards were established in 2005 to reward and promote the best risk management achievements of Vero customers during the previous 12 months.

Swick Mining accepting the GIO Workers’ Compensation category award

Representatives included:

• Richard Todhunter - Gallagher
• Nathan Ings - Swick Mining
• Kevin Petersen - Swick Mining
• Prof Ron Bartsch - Avlaw International

Forklifts and pedestrians – a recipe for disaster?

They’re both very useful in so many applications, but forklifts and people also have their unfortunate interactions. The result can be serious accidents and severe personal injuries.

Every year, there are around 250 accidents involving people and forklifts in Victoria alone.

The effective identification, assessment and control of hazards associated with forklift use are essential to ensure pedestrian, co-worker and forklift operator safety. You can learn a lot about measures to reduce risks around the operation of forklifts in the latest edition of Vero’s RM Insights.

Download the full issue

OneTouch Claims - faster, simple, better

Vero continues to improve products and processes and our claims service is introducing a brand-new initiative - OneTouch.

You now have access to OneTouch Claims!

OneTouch Claims are lodged, paid and finalised at the first touch point between the broker and Vero. OneTouch applies to claims up to $10,000 and is available for property claims in SME packages and householders.

A OneTouch claim can be lodged and paid within 15 minutes!

• 24% of claims are going through OneTouch
• 66% are being settled within an hour

Lodgement is easy and the choice is yours

To notify us of your claim you can either:

• Simply call 1300 888 073 to lodge your claim over the phone
• Complete the OneTouch claim form, attach any documents and email lodgeclaim@vero.com.au
• Capture all the information required (as outlined) in an email, attach any documents and email lodgeclaim@vero.com.au

More information

• Download an Information flyer that you can keep at your desk.
• Download a Claim Notification form

Vero | NIBA 2018 Young Professional Broker of the Year

Nominations are open for the Vero | NIBA 2018 Young Profession Broker of the Year.

This award represents the pinnacle of achievement for the nation's young broker community.

Nominations close 28 February 2018.

Yourview Survey Results

Last September, Vero conducted the YourView Survey which was sent to over 1,500 brokers and we received a great response and valuable feedback.

Finding ways to make it easier to do business is important to us, we’ve listened to you and have made the following improvements to our claims and underwriting services:

• Non-assessed claims processing reduced by 10 days
• 29% of OneTouch claims settled within one hour
• 10 more staff employed within the SME team, allowing underwriters to focus on broker requests

Thank you to those who participated in the survey, we appreciate your feedback.

Vero’s latest prize winner

Congratulations to Andre Ferreira from Ausure Insuranet, ACT who was our lucky winner!

Vero BDM, Carla Taylor, presents Andre with his $500 prize.