Understanding ESG and workplace diversity: Willis Towers Watson’s Chin Han Lim breaks it down

What’s your definition of workplace diversity?

It essentially just means difference, right? At the end of the day, diversity creates creativity and innovation, because it allows for different viewpoints. If you have 10 of the smartest people in the world in a room and they’re all engineers, all they will tell you are engineering solutions. But if you have a biologist, an engineer, a university professor, a housewife or anyone else at the table, you’ll get an unbelievable output. So you now have this power to address different situations versus everyone in the room having the same mindsets and perspectives. 

Many people stick too closely to gender diversity more than anything else. But diversity in the workplace is about having people of different generations coming together; different ages, genders, experiences, even geographic locations. At its heart, diversity is about having access to different perspectives from people. So it goes beyond a lot of the surface things that people typically see.

What are the biggest barriers to workplace diversity?

One of the barriers is fear. As a leader, fear of being uncomfortable with people who are different from you. When I say leader, I mean the person making the decisions on how to construct a board or a management team. Often the person in charge is the number one determinant of how diverse a team is going to be. If that person is afraid of diverse views or not patient enough to consider a view that’s coming from the left field, for instance, they’re not going to construct a team that is different. If the leader doesn’t have the openness or desire to learn from different groups of people or is fearful of having someone who might argue with or question them—that is the biggest stumbling block.

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Is it a challenge for you personally to overcome these barriers in your team at Willis Towers Watson?

I like to hear people's views as long as it makes sense, and I like to be surprised. Even if my little boy asks me why something is a certain way, I’ll take some time to think about what he said. Fundamentally, I also don’t like wasting time trying to solve every single problem by myself. I like having a team that can solve different problems as they arise. What I have found is that you have to take the trouble with “difficult” people. That’s also an aspect of diversity we don’t talk often about. Yes, you can have all the easy yes-men who say the right things and don’t challenge anything you say.

But I have found that I get so much from the so-called difficult people, the ones that challenge everybody. It’s a risk you have to take, especially if that person has a good heart, if they’re clever, if they’re willing to listen to another person’s point of view and they want to be part of something good. It’s not about following quotas for me. When I feel we are running out of ideas or coming up with the same old ways of solving problems, that’s when I know it’s time to shake things up a bit.

Speaking of quotas, what’s your take on the potential pitfalls of diversity targets?

That people will just tick boxes without getting the true power out of them. The thing about quotas is that if they are the be-all and end-all of it, people can score, however, they will learn nothing and get nothing out of it. Let’s say there’s a study from the Harvard Business Review that says 20 per cent of your workforce needs to be Gen Z. If you blindly make decisions just to follow that criteria, if you don’t thoughtfully put the team together and take the time to make sure it works, if you simply hire someone from this group regardless of whether they’re smart or not, whether they’re integrate-able or not, then you’re not going to get any benefits out of it. To me, having people of substance is more important than quotas.

How does ESG (Environmental, social and governance) align with your own values as a leader? 

One of the aspects of ESG which is extremely powerful and which resonates most with me is the ‘S’ part of it. In Malaysia we tend to look more at the ‘E’ part, which is environmental, green initiatives and so on. But I’ve realised that the social part is important to help you become aware of where you are in the big scheme of things, it gives perspective and helps you make better decisions. What do I mean by that?

I work for a consulting company, Willis Towers Watson. I meet board members and captains of industry. But am I really helping the people around me? Yes I make money for what I do. But if I don’t help the security guards who guard the community, the gardeners, the everyday people around me on a personal level, who am I? It upsets me when banks and financial institutions report ‘stellar historical high profits’. Does that mean you’re squeezing money from someone who is trying to run a business or pay for their house? What they should be proud of instead is how they have helped the community around them. 

What resonates with me is understanding the effect of any organisation on the community at large. I’m not one of those that grew up hugging trees. But along the way, with things I read and becoming more aware of what was going on around me, it mattered to me about how my clients and our company affect the community.

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So what, in your opinion, are the consequences of corporations prioritising profits over social responsibility?   

Take the pay-gap issue. Twenty years ago, somebody earning RM50,000 a month was a huge deal, a bank CEO in Malaysia, for instance. Twenty years ago, a starting salary was say RM1,500 to RM2,000. Today, some CEOs in Malaysia earn over RM200,000 a month—base pay. But a starting salary went from RM2,000 back then to RM3,000 or RM3,500 today. That’s crazy—the first salary increased by five times whereas a starting salary today just doubled. That shows us that the rich will always be rich. But if too much of the population ends up struggling, it creates unrest and unhappiness at the end of the day. We see the numbers rising, and it’s important for us to talk about it.

You’re never going to be able to take the high salaries away. But if CEOs and C-suites can do more good with their salaries, the impact would be real. It’s not just about buying more handbags or cars, but recognising the bigger impact of what you do.

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