MetLife LGBTIQ+ advocate Sommer Green to speak at ANZIIF Luncheon

Sommer Green (she/her), Head of Customer and Digital Experience at MetLife Australia, sees a lot of online hate and media that belittles or denigrates who she is as a person.

“If a workplace can be a safer space for me, of course I will thrive there,” says Green, who identifies as pansexual and Co-chairs MetLife's DEI [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] LGBTQ+ Committee.

A speaker at the upcoming ANZIIF Diversity & Inclusion Luncheon, Green asserts that a wide variety of research [see a selection of sources below] shows that psychologically safe, diverse and inclusive workforces are the highest performers. They also have the lowest cases of compensation claims for workers’ mental health.

Detrimental effects of hiding

Green accepted her job offer at MetLife after finding a featured story on the company website about a trans man who transitioned while at MetLife. “As someone with a trans partner, it signalled safety to me,” she says.

Previously, Green had been concerned that being open could be detrimental to her career and could even be unsafe. In every prior workplace, she was initially closeted.

“Not being out at work is often dismissed as no big deal, but it actually means I was masking constantly. I was checking my language, watching how I described myself, my partner and my friends.

"I was always careful not to give too much away about my weekend, for fear I would slip up and mention Mardi Gras, a drag show or anything that might trigger questions. That level of hypervigilance over your own life makes it nearly impossible to be authentic at work,” Green says. This cost her the ability to make connections, friends, and an impact.

Green grew up in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains of NSW on the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri, Wolgalu and Ngunnawal peoples.

She is one of seven children, who were all home schooled on the land, spending long, hot summer days riding horses, mustering stock and competing in rodeos on weekends.

“My younger days are certainly a far cry from my life in Sydney and my career in insurance,” she laughs.

Although she didn’t grow up around many examples of corporate careers, Green was a voracious reader, spending many hours reading her way through almost everything in the town’s local library.

“I remember reading about worlds that seemed so foreign to me, towering buildings, towering high heels, impressive businesswomen who travelled the world. I knew very early on that I was different to those around me. Those stories inspired me to break out of the mould and head off to university at a young age,” she says.  

A privilege to work in insurance

From her first corporate role, in magazines, she gravitated to “the people side of the industry.” She says she has “always been drawn to traditionally challenging industries, ones where small differences to the way we operate can make a massive impact on the humans at the other end of that process.”

“It is a great privilege to work in insurance, handling the spectrum of what people go through throughout their lives. Insurance touches on the most critical human emotions: fear, love, the desire to protect loved ones and lifestyles, sadness, hope, gratitude, safety,” she says.

Green notes that statistically, just 36 per cent of bi and pansexual people are out at work. “I can’t imagine what a difference it would have made to me, to feel safe to come out earlier in my previous workplaces. My guess is I would have suffered a lot less imposter syndrome, fear and shame,” she says.

At her prior workplaces, Green “came out slowly” once she found some safe people. “Eventually, after my probation periods ended, I would contact People and Culture to propose a pride network,” she explains.

Green founded employee-led pride networks at three previous workplaces. She recognises how important these networks are for creating a space for shared experiences.

“We ran the first-ever pride event at one 100-year-old company. Afterwards, so many people emailed us saying how seen they felt, and how they hadn’t realised something was missing, until our pride committee started,” she recounts. Conversely, she says that “businesses with no pride network send a signal to employees that DEI isn’t a priority for the business.”

A joint effort

While Pride Networks are a great source of “celebration and allyship”, Green stresses that LGBTQ+ people are not obligated to sit on pride committees.

“Advocating for your rights and acceptance every day is exhausting and can take a monumental emotional toll,” she says.

She argues that mental health support is needed for teams who volunteer for their employee networks, especially after big conversations and events. “For us to create safe spaces, we need funding, and pathways for support if we meet resistance,” she says.

Creating a truly diverse and equitable work environment is a joint effort.

“Pride networks need executive level support to move beyond the surface of cupcakes and rainbows. For real change to occur, it is essential to have executive sponsors ready to approve policies, funding and training,” she asserts.

Executives also need to be prepared to deal with any hostility. “Companies who receive backlash after posting a positive pride event tile on social media don’t often handle those situations well,” Green says. “Comments don’t get addressed."

Instead, the posts often get taken down. "In many cases, the business will ask the pride employee network what to do. It is incredibly important that businesses have a safety plan in place before they make these statements/posts. Otherwise, they are unintentionally putting their queer staff in the firing line for a lot of hate and pain in public forums."

From grassroots to embedded culture

Green says diversity and inclusion strategies need to consider how to move from grassroots employee-led awareness events, into real change to the fundamental ways in which businesses are run.

Some of these include:

• Having leave for gender affirmation (which MetLife has recently announced),
• ensuring there are safe bathrooms
• embedding training at executive and leadership levels around how to manage diverse teams, hiring practices,
• making LGBTQ leaders and voices visible,
• moving away from white-centric examples of queerness
• minimising gendered language when speaking to the collective
• understanding the impact of intersectionality.

The challenge of making things happen

Green says that while there are so many things we need to be doing, five people on a pride committee cannot make these happen alone. “It is always challenging to find capacity or face potential resentment that we are adding more work to people’s already overflowing to-do lists.”

However, she is buoyed by the passion and buy-in she is seeing from senior stakeholders at MetLife.

"The DEI LGBTQ+ committee at MetLife has worked tirelessly to bring about meaningful change regarding the recommendations in the Worth The Risk (WTR) report," she says.

"They established a WTR working group, with executive sponsors and Heads from across all areas of the business. Richard Russell, co-chair of the committee, keeps a spreadsheet of the report’s recommended actions. They work through these, assigning cross-functional owners and looking at ways to implement changes."

The working group recognises that it can be challenging for people to adjust to changes in language and other inclusive practices.

“We are taking the time to embed training at a fundamental level first. We will build that up over time so that our front-line teams will continue to meet the needs of all customers, regardless of gender, pronouns, sexuality or history,” she explains.

Getting it right

Green is excited by the opportunity to surprise and delight people by getting some things really right.

“For example, how we handle customers changing their name or gender, seeing examples of intersectional customers experiencing positive claim experiences, care being taken to ensure employees know that we are a safe environment where they can be themselves," she says.

"I can see so much positive change on the horizon, and a hell of a lot of work to be done.

With many years of experience working across multiple industries including media, health and wellness, Green concedes that the insurance industry hasn’t kept up, and has a "long way to go” in terms of DEI.

“Traditional, long-standing industries always have a harder time turning the ship,” she explains.

Yet she is optimistic. “I can see a greater desire to improve than I have seen in other industries.” She is inspired by “the great progress occurring, thanks to employee pride networks and diversity councils that are supported by executive level sponsorship”.

As a speaker at the Diversity and Inclusion Luncheon, Green will “tell a great story about bull riding,” and share some of her own experiences.

“These aren’t just hypothetical scenarios,” she says. “These are conversations that allow us to dive into what DEI really means and how it truly impacts people in the workplace.

"People will walk away from the luncheon knowing more, understanding more, and being more impassioned about how to make changes that save lives and have a lasting impact on employees and customers.”

Sources for the connection between psychological safety in the workplace, productivity and compensation claims

• https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/media-centre/media-release/new-report-psychological-health-australian-workplaces
• https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/modern_work.pdf
• https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/document/publication/workers_mental_illness_guide_0.pdf
• https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/system/files/documents/1902/taking-action-framework-2018.pdf
• https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/creating-mentally-healthy-workplaces.pdf

 Last chance to register for the Diversity & Inclusion Luncheon