November 28, 2023

Marsh: Developing a Strategic Approach to Education

How Business in the Community suppported Marsh to establish new relationships within the education sector and develop an education strategy.

Marsh is a leading insurance broker and risk advisor with over 1,000 employees across the UK. It is committed to moving away from ad-hoc community and education interventions and is looking to develop a long-term, strategic approach to community investment, education and partnerships.

Marsh wanted to collaborate with and engage internal and external stakeholders on the development of its education strategy, recognising the need for collaboration and alignment on material issues, in order to keep the strategy focused and increase the likelihood of embedding it effectively and creating impact.

How Business in the Community helped

To help achieve this, Business in the Community (BITC) were brought in to work with Marsh’s Head of Social Impact. BITC carried out extensive research, as part of a transformational change project, to outline and assess the needs within the education sector, post-covid and during the cost-of-living crisis. From here, BITC led stakeholder engagement with Marsh’s colleagues, education experts, and current education partners. This established key priorities for both the education sector and partners, ensuring that any future education work would align with all strategies across Marsh, including its recruitment plans, talent development strategy, and wider Responsible Business strategy.

The outcome

BITC then supported Marsh to establish new relationships within the education sector, whilst deepening its impact with current partners. The research and stakeholder engagement were used to write a draft education strategy for Marsh. BITC also created tools to standardise Marsh’s approach to education partnerships, to be used across the country.

Moving forward, BITC will support the Head of Social Impact to engage and mobilise internal and external stakeholders, embed the strategy through collaboration, and set clear and tangible goals.

Helen Lam, Head of Social Impact, UK, Marsh: “Working with Chelsie and the wider team on developing the education strategy has been a fantastic process. The expertise and advice offered by BITC has been instrumental for us in setting our aims and objectives and has helped us to see a clear long-term direction for the work we do in this space. They have been able to carry out extensive research with our key stakeholders to ensure the strategy works well with our wider business strategy, whilst mutually benefiting the schools and colleges we will be working with. We are looking forward to continuing to develop our strategy with the team!”