Transcript by Kensho.

Lindsey Hall: Hi. I'm Lindsey Hall, Head of Thought Leadership at S&P Global Sustainable1.

Esther Whieldon: And I'm Esther Whieldon, a senior writer on the Sustainable1 Thought Leadership team.

Lindsey Hall: Welcome to ESG Insider, a podcast hosted by S&P Global, where we explore environmental, social and governance issues that are shaping investor activity and company strategy.

Esther Whieldon: In the sustainability world, diversity and leadership has gotten increasing attention from many stakeholders in recent years. But at the same time, the number of women in top roles remains low. 

If you're a regular listener, you'll know that earlier this year for women's history month and International Women's Day in March, we brought you a special many series focused on women in leadership. Across several episodes, we interviewed women's EOs and executives from around the world and across different industries to go beyond the data. We wanted to understand how the few women who make it to the C-suite get there. That series, by the way, is what helped us push the ESG Insider podcast over the 1 million download mark.

Lindsey Hall: Yes. And one of my favorite interviews from that series was an interview with Marita Zuraitis, the CEO of U.S. insurance company Horace Mann. Marita was just so candid about her experience and will include a link to that episode in our show notes in case you'd like to listen. Now our colleague Hailey Ross conducted that interview with Marita. Hailey is joining us again today for another interview with the leader from the insurance space. Hailey, by the way, is a reporter at S&P Global Market Intelligence. Hailey, welcome back to the show, so tell us who did you speak to this time? 

Hailey Ross: Hi Lindsey, hi Esther. Thanks for having me back. So I spoke with Eloiza Domingo, who is Vice President for Human Resources and Chief Inclusive Diversity and Equity Officer at Allstate, which is one of the largest U.S. property and casualty cures. 

Lindsey Hall: Now you've been covering the insurance industry for years and specifically diversity in the industry. Can you tell us what have you been hearing?

Hailey Ross: Yes. So increasing diversity has been something that the insurance industry has been struggling with for some time. And really diversity has been something that the financial world in general has been trying to contend with. 

In the past several years, though, many companies have been stepping up to make more of an effort in this area and have been making some steady progress to grow diversity, not just in the workforce, but also at the top in the C-suite and at the Board level. 

U.S. insurance regulators have been paying attention to this issue, too. State insurance regulators are members of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which is an organization that aims to help insurance regulators take a more uniform approach to cross state issues. And this body launched an effort to look at diversity and develop recommendations on action steps that state regulators and insurance companies can take to improve diversity. So that's some of the industry context. 

In my conversation with Eloiza from Allstate, I started by asking about her personal experience in the industry and her path to the C-suite. Here she is.

Eloiza Domingo: My path really in diversity started when I was little. My parents are from the Philippines. So I am the first daughter to immigrants who came here in the 1970s. And my dad and mom were both doctors. I witnessed a lot of discrimination against them in the medical field because they had pretty heavy accents. And I didn't understand it then, but I had quite a desire for fairness and kind of people treating each other fairly and giving each other kind of the same opportunities regardless of who you were. But I didn't really understand all of that until I kind of grew older. And other people realize you can do this for a living. I just didn't -- I didn't know that. 

But I think I've always been in this field advocating and working for other people to find care and feel comfortable and advocate for others and in a variety of ways. Prior to Allstate, I was in health care and also pharmaceuticals. So Astellas Pharmaceutical prior to this in a global Chief Diversity Officer, role. I  also owned engagement, employee engagement. 

Prior to that, was at Johns Hopkins Medicine as the Deputy Chief Diversity Officer for the Medical Corporation and then the Senior Director of Diversity for the School of Medicine -- and then similar roles prior to that at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and then directing diversity programs at schools like Bucknell University and other higher education institutions across the nation. 

Hailey Ross: So since you've been at Allstate, have you tried to foster diversity there? 

Eloiza Domingo: I think a few things. So when I came to Allstate, similar to many other companies, we have an entrepreneurial spirit, right? And what that means is that there is the ability to come up with an idea and apply it pretty quickly. So there are pros and cons to that. 

The pros of an entrepreneurial spirit is that you can do a lot with an idea. The con of that is that it can create silos. And so when I came here, there was a lot of stuff going on with diversity. Allstate had a 20- to 21-year career with we call it IDE, inclusive diversity and equity. 

And so my coming here in June of 2021, the first thing I had to do is really inventorize what was going on and create some sort of efficiency or just make sense of everything that was happening. And when you do that as a new leader, it gives you an opportunity to learn everything that's great, but also to create, again, kind of efficiencies and pathways to say, we could optimize and a lot of the work and resources that are going into this and make sure that we have kind of common goals in common language. 

So when I came in, we deployed a 5-year strategy immediately, 3- to 5-year strategy immediately, under the 4 pillars of inclusive diversity and equity. So everyone is kind of speaking from the same book. So the 4 pillars in this order are business practices, culture, people and community. 

And really, again, we lead our diversity work with the pillar of business practices because we really do believe that if you implement or you integrate inclusion, diversity and equity into your daily operations, you will create a culture that is inclusive, that is advancing equity, you will build a group of people, your workforce, that is diverse and you are then mirroring the communities in which we live, work and serve.

And so we do believe that the way that we build our culture is a practice of our business. We believe that the way that we treat people is a practice of our business. Again, the way that we interact and engage with our community is a practice of our business. So those are some of the things, Hailey, that we wanted to make sure to do to differentiate ourselves from not just other insurance companies, but other companies in general. 

And I think the other thing, we really lead with not just the HR component, the people and the culture piece of diversity, but also how are you, again, changing the way that we're creating our products, accessing and penetrating different markets, making sure that you're a culturally relevant organization moving into every year and every generation of consumer and employees. 

So we're really kind of looking forward in all of our marketing aspects, our production aspects, our service aspects, the way that we hire, the way that we work in all parts of our company.

We also have the ACT framework, ACT, which is a framework. It's essentially a cross governance framework that pulls all of our departments together and optimizes on all of the IDE things that they're doing. So ACT stands for action clarity, transparency, and it is a proprietary model that we have that ensures that our kind of global complex Allstate is matrixed so that everybody can connect with their IDE work, and that is unique for Allstate.

Hailey Ross: And what would you say is driving your approach to diversity, equity and inclusion? Is it customers, employees, investors, your Board, the regulatory environment or something else entirely?

Eloiza Domingo: Yes. So that's a really good question. I'm going to say something first and then I'll substantiate it. You know how oftentimes in business, we often say, "Oh, it's not personal. It's just business." That's really not what this is. 

For Allstate, inclusive diversity and equity is personal for us. It's not just business. This is personal for us. This is a part of our mission. This is a part of what we call our shared purpose. So we ask everybody about what is your purpose and how can you be a part of our shared purpose. It is a part of our values. It is within our performance management systems. It's in the way that we drive our accountability structures. I mean it really is part of our DNA. So nobody can really say, "Oh you know, diversity is just a part of your business, not really. It's pretty personal for us. And so when something is personal for you, it's a part of your identity. It's actually who you are as a company. That's really what drives you. 

For lack of a better term, it really is — I really hate saying this — it really is the right thing to do and that really is what drives us. Now with that being said, Haley, we also recognize that Allstate, we came from Sears Robo. We were created in the 1930s, the late 1930s, from Sears. And so our brand is pretty traditional, right, pretty -- a certain type of kind of stanch America, right? And so we recognize that, and that's part of our background.

But at the same time, we have to continue to be relevant. And so diversity, inclusive diversity and equity helps us to do that, right? So it's part of our identity, but it also drives us to continue to be relevant for all the people that you mentioned, our employees, our market, which is our consumers who also could be our employees and back and forth. 

Again, the communities in which we live, work and serve. So we are motivated by a number of things. But I would say, at risk of sounding romantic, it's because it's in our blood. That's just -- we kind of unapologetically respond to things in the environment and unapologetically create policies and practices that are aligned with IDE because that's who we are. 

Hailey Ross: I also wanted to understand how the company is approaching work from home versus returning to the office. So I asked Eloiza about that and about how these policies can impact diversity and inclusion. 

Eloiza Domingo: We've been talking about it. And we play around with that policy and said, well, maybe the officers can do it or maybe we could do the directors in a bump. So it's not yet -- it's not like a policy policy yet, but we have been figuring it out just like many other companies, because we went almost entirely virtual after COVID, and we sold our North Book locations, which was our headquarters for many, many years. We, like many companies, are in that kind of space of figuring out our cultural in-person identity. There was such a tie to this Northbrook space and other places around the country that our culture was attached to a brick-and-mortar. And so as we're moving more into this digital workplace or virtual workplace, we are trying to figure out of a hybrid model, three in, two days out or some version of that would work. 

What's hard about that is that we are more global now and becoming more virtual does allow for more diverse opportunities for talent and saying, well, yes, just because you're not in Chicago, it doesn't mean that I can't hire you now, where sometimes that would be a restriction in the past. This has actually opened up our ability to look for great talent across the nation and now across the globe. 

So do I think that a hybrid model is helpful? Yes, I do. Are we still figuring out what that is for Allstate? Yes. Are we kind of in a hybrid, hybrid? Yes, meaning that many of our officers right now are traveling across the country to go to our talent centers and be around our staff and make sure that there is some sort of presence. 

The other thing that we're doing, Hailey, is our culture team is really fantastic. And they're finding opportunities like at football games, right? So we have a great marketing presence within many sports programs. If we have tickets, right? Or if we have a tailgate, we really try to be a little bit more intentional on opening up those opportunities for people in the area. 

Or for example, if we go to an event, I don't know, like we had a Toys for Tots event in Texas. We let all of the agents and our employees in that area know that, oh, hey, we've got this toys for tax events going on, come down, join us at this event. So we're being a little bit more proactive and broad about saying, "Hey, we've got these events, if you're in the area come and be a part of it." 

So it's not just about the workplace, Hailey, it's not just coming in on Monday through Friday, right? But what are some of those other opportunities where you're just having fun, right, with your coworkers again, meeting at a football game, going to a soccer game or sitting just in an area to watch a town hall, we try to do those as well than opening up our spaces. So we have people who come in for our town hall and watch them and viewing parties. So there's a lot of algorithms that we're working on. I don't think we have it perfect. We're certainly working on it. And I do think that having a consciousness around this is really great for us.

Hailey Ross: Sure. That's super helpful. And then how does having greater diversity in both race and gender impact decision-making? And why do you think it might be important to move towards a more diverse industry in both of those categories, if that's something that you think needs to happen?

Eloiza Domingo: Yes, absolutely. So yes, we absolutely do believe it needs to happen in so far as we have now public goals that are -- that drive our goals around people of color and women particularly in our leadership in our leadership spaces. 

So Allstate is pretty clear that from our management positions and below. So again, management positions and below, we look like the United States of America. So that's fantastic. Our goal was to mirror the communities in which we live, work and serve. From our management below, we've accomplished that. Quite a while, gosh, we accomplished that.

From our senior managers and above, we don't do that. We start becoming much more homogonous, much... There are spots of female leadership. It is not as consistent as we'd like. There are spots of people of color leadership and spots of promise within our senior managers and above, it is not at a place where we want it to be, right? 

And so you asked 2 questions. The first one, why do we do that? Why is that beneficial: for 2 primary reasons that -- I mean, I'm not going to go into the diatribe of evidence out there that shows that more diverse teams, and diverse here means a lot of different things, right? But more diverse teams breed more innovation? 

There's this story out there about the software that was created for the Apple iPhones and that where when you turn your phone when you're watching something, you're holding your phone kind of in a portrait space up and down and you move your phone to the side, everything moves. So it goes into landscape. 

Whoever created that software, they released it to a pilot group. They thought, "Oh, my gosh, it's perfect, that everyone's going to love it." The pilot group was like, "no", it didn't come back with great feedback, and they were like, what happened? Like this was perfect. And what they learned is that the pilot group had people who are left-handed, and their design group were almost exclusively, if not exclusively right handed. So they designed it for people who were holding the phone on the right hand and turned it counterclockwise, whereas people who are left handed would turn clockwise and so the software wouldn't adjust -- and so that's how diversity, right, helps.

Having people with diverse experiences, diverse backgrounds and diverse backgrounds does come from things like diverse demographics, being a woman, being a minority, being a person of color, having a different language than the primary language of English, oming from immigrant families, sexual orientation, gender identity, all of those things bring diverse backgrounds. So that breeds innovation. 

The other piece too is that, again, our market, our consumer market, our employee market is becoming more and more diversified the day. And it is critical that it's not just about looking like your market, but thinking like them. And making sure that your leadership particularly looks like the communities in which you live, work and serve and you aspire to live, work and serve, that only grows your consumer base and, of course, your employee base.

Hailey Ross: And I know that you've long been involved with leadership around diversity. From your experiences, what do you think is one of the biggest mistakes that organizations make around diversity and inclusion?

Eloiza Domingo: Yes. So in my opinion, one of the #1 things is that they house it in HR and only in HR. So I'm under the Chief HR Officer. So I am housed in HR, but my role is not HR specific. So I do support HR, which is the people and culture pieces. But the mistake that many companies make is that's all that they do. 

The field of diversity started somewhere in the 1940s kind of formally and then it grew into what we know now. But really, what it was about was taking care of people, this idea that we've been talking about, Hailey, diverse people, inclusive workplaces, practices and policies that support the people and the culture. That's good. necessary. And frankly, right now, it's table stakes.

The mistake that many companies make is that they stop there. As I mentioned, our leading pillar for IDE at Allstate is business practices, the way in which you implement and integrate IDE into the daily operations of the business. For us, the business is finance and insurance. So creating safety products and protection for the United States and global enterprises or global communities. 

So how can you do that with an IDE lens? So again, in my opinion, the biggest -- that's the biggest stopper for a company that implements a great diversity program and stops at just its people. Doing more within the products that you actually create, whether it's an educational product, you're a higher education institution or for me, health care, right, coming from health care, creating spaces where patients and their families are looking at the variety of again, health care products or pharmaceutical products that are supportive of their health, right? 

And for us, looking at ways in which -- so for example, I think that we all know that catastrophes impact people of color and socio, and people of different socioeconomic statuses differently, disproportionately, right? So Alstate is actually having some conversations internally about that. How are we supporting how are our products supporting climate shifts and ensuring that all of the people that we support are supported equally. And so that's kind of the way that you pursue equity in everything, that you do not just in working with your people and your culture.

Lindsey Hall: We just heard Eloiza talk about how Allstate is thinking about climate change, and we'll be covering this topic a lot more on the podcast and future episodes. This topic of how climate is changing the way insurers do business. 

And Hailey, I was also glad to hear you ask about the company's approach to work from home. Workplace flexibility, worker well-being, the future of work. These are all topics we're going to be focusing on in future episodes. So Hailey, thanks so much for joining us today.

Hailey Ross: Thank you so much for having me.

Lindsey Hall: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of ESG Insider and a special thanks to our producer, Kyle Cangialosi. Please be sure to subscribe to our podcast and sign up for our weekly newsletter, ESG Insider. See you next time.

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