WTW's Clare Lewis and Catherine Sanzell Share Their Insights on Inclusive Recruitment

WTW's Clare Lewis and Catherine Sanzell share their insights on inclusive recruitment.

Hi Catherine and Clare! Thanks for chatting with us - can you tell us a bit about yourselves?

My name is Catherine Sanzelle and I’ve worked at WTW since March 2019 as a Talent Acquisition Manager in France. I have extensive experience in Recruitment and HR in the Insurance market, and I’ve recruited across Europe for various organizations and roles. My role at WTW is to assist managers in the recruitment of their new employees, and working with my team, we focus on creating ways of attracting diverse talent to our organization across all levels and lines of business.  

Hi everyone, my name is Clare Lewis, and I am the Talent Acquisition Director for our European business and like Catherine, I support our hiring managers and business leaders to think about how we can attract the best possible talent to our business. I’ve been fortunate to live and work in a variety of countries and this enables me to partner with our business and recruiters to empower colleagues and future talent to bring their true selves to the workplace. An inclusive environment isn’t just a tick box for us, it’s a way of life!

WTW's Clare Lewis and Catherine Sanzell 

How difficult is it to recruit diverse talent now, especially amid the ‘Great Resignation’ and ‘War for Talent’?   

Catherine: WTW is at the forefront of inclusion and diversity (I&D) and one of the ways we do this is by promoting inclusive recruitment best practice, by aligning ourselves with internal inclusive committees/networks, as well as through external partnerships with local or international organizations such as myGwork. It’s certainly more challenging than ever to attract diverse talent. The Great resignation is not exclusive to France but experienced globally. In France we know the Insurance job market has a niche pool of talent, with so many companies looking for the exact same talent profiles

Clare: As Catherine shares, globally this is a challenge and economic uncertainty with a major shortage of skilled talent. What we do well at WTW is ensuring that we don’t just talk about inclusivity but that it’s something candidates get to experience from the moment they look at our careers page (we’ve worked hard to ensure it reflects a truly global footprint) right through to their experience when they join the organization.  

Are you having to cast the net wider across borders to find qualified, diverse talent?   

Clare: Yes, absolutely. The war on talent has really challenged us to look at different pools of talent with transferrable skills; promoting opportunities to our internal colleagues and partnering with external vendors who can help us identify talent that may not necessarily be aware of who we are and all we have to offer.

What are some of the top challenges of recruiting international talent? 

Catherine: I believe that the top challenge in finding international candidates is the logistics of finding the right opportunity with the right scope of the role and the right skills (something like language capability is more important in some roles than others). What we do at WTW is try not to limit candidate opportunities simply due to where they are based and challenge our managers to think creatively about what is really important (such as essential skills), which allows us to cast the net more broadly and attract more diverse talent.

Clare: We try to make it clear on our job description what’s really important rather than an endless list of criteria which may exclude great talent; this helps us identify talent in other markets/locations and allows us to be more flexible in experience and skills that are essential versus nice to have

What specific actions are you taking to recruit LGBTQ+ talent from overseas and ensure that they are in a safe environment/community?  

Catherine: Our company has been promoting I&D for many years through measurable actions internally (something which both HR and the business commit to doing) and partnering with various internal I&D committees looking at ways to further promote opportunities and share learnings/I&D best practice. Associations such as Le Refuge in France are an example of a key partnership that helps young LGBT+ people to find accommodation in times of great personal difficulty. This is just one example of how WTW has engaged an external partner to help us ensure we are engaging a much broader talent pool.

Clare: Being able to bring your true self to work is something that is incredibly important to us and at WTW we not only have policies and best practice that ensure colleagues feel empowered to bring all that makes them unique to their role, but we have initiatives such as ‘License to Hire’ (inclusive recruitment training that we encourage colleagues to take) that remind us of what’s important to remember throughout the recruitment experience.

What incentives are you using to attract and retain international diverse talent? 

Clare: We make sure we cover why this is important to us on our careers page but also in our job adverts and weave I&D priorities into our recruitment process from the start right through to the end. We also cover key relevant information about our many I&D networks and councils on our intranet, and we take time to partner with external vendors that focus on attracting and promoting diverse talent. In addition to this, we have the most fantastic Global Employer Brand team that built out specific training and materials for us to promote and learn about inclusive hiring practices.

How do you help international recruits overcome cultural barriers and feel welcomed and included at your company? 

Catherine: We have many resources available for our international recruits directly on our intranet. For example, employees who have chosen to work in different regions share their advice on how to manage international mobility depending on the country chosen. We also have teams of managers along with international and local HR colleagues who are trained to provide guidance in this area. We are very much a company which uses open and honest communication, to enable our colleagues to grow, develop and thrive.

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