Zurich Insurance’s outreach programmes come in many forms to connect with different communities internally and externally and achieve a multitude of objectives to drive increased understanding, use of and passion for all things data. The Zurich team wanted to ensure their story was told and that it reached future data talent as early as possible by focusing on graduate programmes and apprenticeships to improve recruitment levels.
“Very clear examples of the programmes. There is clearly a strong impact here.” – Judges’ comment
By upskilling existing team members and educating others on the importance of data, Zurich has been able to improve its overall data literacy standards and give additional weighting to data in top-level business discussions. This has been supplemented with the introduction of new tools and automation hubs within key verticals which over the past three years have developed almost 400 digital workers, processing almost 4 million transactions per annum.
The Zurich data science academy consists of knowledge session that cover topics such as machine learning, ethics and productionising data science solutions. Through the academy, participants are paired data mentors who assist them and provide guidance on their journey. Furthermore, other internal training programmes are focused on core concepts including data security and data ethics and modules providing knowledge on the use and discovery of data for customer-facing positions.
There has been a heavy focus on early years recruitment through apprenticeships and graduate programmes which has fostered a close relationship with multiple educational institutions and further promoted data-based career options. This has been further supplemented by outreach programmes for groups that are underrepresented in the data industry.
Externally, Zurich provides three volunteering days per year for staff which are often used to promote STEM careers to students, as well as participating in coaching and mentorship programmes for individuals from underrepresented backgrounds. A data science degree apprenticeship has been created in collaboration with University of Winchester and the team regularly participates in local career events to bolster the image of data science as a career.
