Future of Work meets Insurance

When I started this newsletter, I told myself not to focus only on technology and digital transformation in insurance; but other topics as well that are changing the industry overall. This week, I would like to talk about the “Future of Work”.

Many of you already know that the rise of the gig economy is leading to a shift in workforce, including the insurance industry. Employees are looking for new career paths and they’re using technology to perform tasks previously performed by humans. This signals that insurers, brokers and others need to retrain their employees to survive in a changing work environment; they have to adapt their cultures to reflect the changing talent market, and adapt to technological change (we already knew this part).

Here are some concepts to get familiar with, that come to mind when we say "future of work"; 

Manage like a startup 

In the age of disruption, competition is far less daunting when the best attributes of a startup culture are combined with a company's scalability. Businesses -large or small, will always have to be flexible and dynamic, which is the key to effective management. Therefore, it is necessary for companies to adapt to changes, whether it is a new product, a change in technology or anything that could affect the business. 

Startups thrive to disrupt and innovate! So think about how enterprises can benefit from this approach. The aim is to transform the organization and its culture in order to enable and inspire employees to innovate, regardless of role, rank or region. Only by setting up the encouraging tone at the top, providing a wealth of resources, training and incentives; game-changing innovations can be achieved.

Businesses need more innovation because the world is getting faster, and the faster the better. Perhaps more importantly, it creates a sense of urgency that quickly makes companies realize whether an idea has promise or not. 

This can be a cultural challenge for traditional leadership, but people in startups adopt agile methods because they are working to accomplish a mission, not an established role, and they quickly repeat what works and give up what doesn't. Executives at large organizations fear that strengthening teams will lead to chaos even if customer needs are met, and that is a thought we need to eliminate fast, if we want the insurance industry to attract the future talent. 

Blended teams

Siloes in insurance companies are not working anymore, and the industry has been working on eliminating them for several years now, but we are not even close. The new reality is “blended teams”. These teams include business folks (i.e. underwriting, claims), data scientists, folks with technology knowledge and others. They don’t have departmental goals but they have real, meaningful business goals. They learn about (or from) each others' expertise, and they encourage transformation and finding new ways to run the business.

From a recruitment point of view, companies would no longer look to hire veteran claims adjusters, underwriters, or actuaries whose day-to-day is being replaced easily with robots that perform those tasks faster, cheaper, and better. Instead, companies should focus on creating blended teams, and bringing the deep expertise of those veteran insurance professionals into the mix, to create a real change in our industry. Because one thing that robots cannot replace is that experience.  

Unlimited vacation days

An open vacation days policy allows employees to take "as many or as few days off as they want". This is the new style now: no more “you only have 14 days”... Under the unlimited vacation policy, employees are allowed to take as much free time as they want, as long as it does not affect their ability to work. 

As new types of benefits become more popular, more and more start-ups are advertising their unlimited vacation policies as a benefit to their employer, besides other financial benefits they offer. Yes, startups adapted the unlimited vacation days approach pretty quickly, but there are so many large companies that offer this to their employees; companies like General Electric, Netflix, Honeywell, Eventbrite, Groupon, Sony… and the list continues…

It is becoming more popular everyday, because companies have discovered that giving employees sufficient time off to relax promotes more productivity. Encouraging employees to take time off helps them improve their overall performance once they return from vacation. And of course, like everything else, there needs to be rules in place to avoid abuse of this policy. 

Millennial take-over

Although there are many opinions about millennials, there is no doubt that they are already changing the tide of work. New job opportunities are opening up and changes in the talent market are already having a profound impact on the future of work. Millennials are a new generation of workers in their 20s or 30s, but they are only the first in a long line of young people with new skills and talents. Millennials are growing up in an era when technology is evolving rapidly, and passing the torch brings a new style of leadership that enables innovation and learning to perfection. They understand the importance of streamlining processes for their teams and the impact technology has had on their work.

They like flexible working conditions which may seem like a temporary situation, but when millennials begin to take over the workforce, they will become a hallmark of the future of work. While technology continues to capture every aspect of life, millennials are pushing for a work-life balance that allows time to switch off and recharge. As smartphones raise expectations in the workplace and social media emerge as the primary means of communication, millennials are entering an ever-changing era of the talent market. 

Moreover, companies must engage this new generation of talent by offering them the opportunity to participate actively in transformation programs that will determine the insurer's future. In addition, C-suites and board members must recognize that their company needs different talent than before and it’s not only about hiring them but how they manage them after will make the real difference.   

Digital

A Bain & Company survey highlights that the number of digitally active customers has increased more than 60% in four years. Businesses that thrive embrace the idea of human and digital employees coming together to deliver more productivity, efficiency, and service. Traditional insurance companies are starting to use innovative technologies to improve the work of their employees and improve the customer experience. 

The whole “going digital” movement is encouraging the industry to accept and manage the need to change and work with partners to build an ecosystem. This will increasingly bring technologies that improve the customer experience, such as the introduction of automatically filled forms, progressive insurance products, better managing and monitoring the risk exposures. 

It is clear that the insurance industry has a tough road ahead in terms of talent, and recruiting critical talent is becoming increasingly difficult as non-traditional insurers or other companies are able to recruit for remote positions and for more attractive innovation oriented jobs. An interesting recent example is Tesla: they literally posted a job called “Revolutionary Actuary” which clearly is aiming to “change the game”. 

I wanted to share my quick thoughts on the Future of Work and how the Insurance industry needs to learn about it. Hope you enjoyed and hope you’re already thinking about doing things differently in your company and contribute to the insurance industry transformation by advocating more future of work practices.

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