Pen Underwriting awarded a 4 star rating in the Insurance Post 'Best Insurance Employer' survey

Published On : 14 Jul 2023

This week it was fantastic to learn that Pen has, once again, been voted by our own colleagues as one of the ‘Best Insurance Employers’ in the annual Insurance Post survey and awarded a 4-star rating.

The 2023 survey saw Post’s biggest response yet, with more than 4000 submitted from a diverse range of insurance employees, from entry-level to C-suite. More than 140 insurers, brokers and MGAs were nominated across the two categories, SMEs and large employers, and so we’re especially proud that Pen was one of less than 20 firms in the latter category to be ultimately featured.

Here’s what our HR Director, Caroline Spalding, said to Post on hearing the results of the survey:

Q: Why do you think your employees recommend working for your company?

“At Pen we have worked hard to build a culture that colleagues can feel proud to be part of –one of openness, two-way communication and delivery on promises. And so the willingness of our people to recommend Pen as a place to work is both fantastic and energising. It gives us the drive to keep on doing what we are doing, and to keep on collaborating with our teams up and down the UK to make this a happy and rewarding home for people.

“Working for Pen really does have a feeling of closeness or family about it and our inclusive culture comes through loud and clear in engagement surveys. Everyone knows each other or how to get to know one another, and they know that their thoughts, opinions and suggestions are valued and will be heard. They also know – because we frequently communicate about the importance of it – that every individual’s career progression and development is taken seriously, and that we will always embrace flexibility in creating good-work life balances, with hybrid models, that work equally well for the business and our team members.

“Underpinning all this is trust, transparency and mutual respect. So it was really heartening to see these so firmly endorsed in our most recent engagement survey through questions on trust in managers (94%) and being treated with respect by managers (97%).

“As a leadership team, it’s important to us that we give colleagues the ability to influence change and make sure we create a ‘One Pen’ environment where everyone feels confident to be themselves, contribute, embrace difference and support one another. So we hope those factors play a big part in their recommendation too.”

Q: How do you ensure staff feel valued?

“When it comes to feeling valued, we know the importance and emphasis our colleagues place on recognition, so this is central to our approach. We have an active programme that combines our annual One Pen awards, which recognise both individual and team achievements; an ongoing ‘shout out’ facility available to all via our intranet; and the encouragement of on-the-spot recognition by people managers.

“Last year, following Pen’s growth, expansion and great progress towards our £1bn GWP goal, we moved our One Pen awards to a standalone event that brought together all our finalists from across the country at a five-star London hotel to champion all their achievements and celebrate everyone’s contribution to making this a great business. And we’re very much looking forward to doing the same this year.

“We also appreciate that pay and benefits play an important part in how valued colleagues feel, so we constantly monitor this and focus on offering competitive packages of total compensation. This includes benchmarking role remuneration to ensure we are always in step with the market on colleague compensation, as well as offering discretionary bonuses and continuing to invest in a growing and extensive range of both standard benefits and optional, flexible ones.”

Q: How does employee feedback affect ESG decision-making at your company?

“As mentioned earlier, two-way communication is part of Pen’s DNA and our colleagues, quite rightly, continue to demand more from us as a business on ESG actions and commitments. So a wide-angle ESG lens is applied when evaluating every potential merger partner, business win and supplier relationship, just as well as much as it is on how we conduct our own activities.

“But it’s equally important that we encourage colleagues to get involved in helping to shape the future direction of ESG, both within Pen and the wider group, through active participation in the different ESG work streams and networks of champions that have been established for this purpose.

“Pen also has direct representation on the ESG Committee of the wider UK & EMEA Gallagher group business, which comprises colleagues from right across the business and therefore our employees’ views and feedback are shared and discussed at the highest level. This committee is responsible for driving our collective ESG efforts, creating and implementing action plans and tracking progress against each of the work streams.”

Q: What impact is your diversity and inclusion work having on the make-up and culture of the company?

“We are consciously and continuously reviewing our workforce to make sure that we are as reflective as possible of the geographic locations and markets we operate in, and taking more deliberate decisions to ensure we continue to drive and enhance diversity within our team. This includes having internal targets on a range of key metrics to ensure we deliver real change and can hold ourselves to account on making tangible progress in an area that takes ongoing investment over many years.

“That said, our culture at Pen is already strong and inclusive with colleagues registering how they feel this on a day-to-day basis in the business. For example, in our last engagement survey, 91% of Pen colleagues agreed that diverse perspectives are valued within Pen, and all questions relating to inclusion and diversity were answered positively by over 85% of respondents.”

Q: How would you describe working at the company to a friend or family?

“Pen is like working for a family. All our leaders, including Tom Downey as CEO, are very accessible and personable; they don’t sit in closed off offices but are part of the day to day office environment and take the time to visit and work alongside our teams across the UK. We take pride in knowing that our culture is genuinely inclusive and our consistently high colleague engagement scores are testament to this. But we will always strive to do more, so that colleagues continue to recommend Pen as a great place to work, with strong career pathways and equal opportunities for all.”