Adapting to a Hybrid Future

With a year of remote work behind us, and the pandemic continuing to impact our day-to-day lives, we now see a future that looks different than we ever could have anticipated. Insurers are beginning to roll out a hybrid working model, one perhaps best suited to meet the needs of both employees that prefer working remote and those that enjoy being in the office.

Last week, I hosted the eleventh Virtual Meeting of the Novarica Women’s Network on the topic of adapting to a hybrid future. Our panelists, Global Indemnity AVP, IT-BA, QA, and PM Donna Seapoe; MMG Insurance Business Architect Kelley Lamont-Kinney; Amica AVP Tracy McDonagh; and MMG Insurance Business Architect Sandy Flewelling, discussed the ways the pandemic has altered how we work and interact with one another. Panelists also shared their best strategies for building workplace connections within a hybrid work environment. I’ve included some highlights from our conversation below.

Insurers that embraced remote and hybrid work models before the pandemic enjoyed a competitive edge over those that did not.

One of our panelists shared that her company rolled out Teams and other remote work capabilities well before the pandemic hit. This allowed them to seamlessly transition into a fully remote work environment in 2020, demonstrating their agility and technological capabilities to their customers and maintaining business continuity.

As the pandemic continues to unfold and is poised to impact the insurance industry for quite some time, carriers that embrace a remote/hybrid work model may benefit from continued cost savings and a greater ability to serve customers during a very uncertain time.

Though under less-than-ideal circumstances, insurance professionals have adapted to our remote/hybrid work reality and developed new ways to stay connected to colleagues.

Missing out on “watercooler conversations,” some panelists started scheduling impromptu one-on-ones with both their direct reports and skip-level reports to maintain that sense of connection. Building time into meetings for informal catchups not only helped break the ice, but also made meetings feel more collegial. Encouraging people to turn their cameras on added another important element to feeling connected and personal, giving each participant the opportunity to observe and react to facial expressions and body language.

With everyone working from home, a new kind of connection grew between colleagues as they experienced similar and sometimes humorous work-from-home situations—a neighbor mowing the lawn during an important conference call, a cat walking across their laptop, a child running into the office for homework help. It hasn’t been easy, but insurance professionals have adapted admirably to our new remote and hybrid work realities.

The pandemic has proven that insurers can operate just as effectively—in some cases, even more so—with their employees working remotely.

One panelist noted that her company has soundly proven the effectiveness of remote work, having met all their premium goals over the past year. Our recent study revealed that 57% of Novarica Women’s Network respondents prefer working remote full-time, citing benefits ranging from better work/life balance to greater productivity. Across the board, remote workers enjoy the lack of commute, relaxed dress code, and unparalleled flexibility that working from home provides. With less time spent in traffic, employees are often able to get more done in a day while also taking necessary breaks from the screen on their own terms.

Additionally, insurers are realizing that by removing geographic boundaries when seeking out top talent, they now have greater access to skilled professionals across the entire US. By opening up their talent search to remote workers, carriers could undoubtedly help address the insurance talent gap, which has historically plagued the industry. With the many benefits of a hybrid working model in mind, some insurers have already begun redesigning their shared office spaces to accommodate the needs of a hybrid workforce. By converting individual offices into shareable workspaces, carriers are preparing to support employees that want to work both at home and in the office.

The next Novarica Women’s Network Virtual Meeting will take place on March 31, 2021 at 11AM ET on the topic of “The Agile Advantage.” Speakers include Novarica’s Vice President of Research and Consulting Deb Zawisza, Emergent Holdings’ Managing Director of Business Agility Susan Boyd, Glatfelter Insurance Group’s Senior Developer Samantha Ellis, and Pinnacol Assurance’s Director of Project Management and Agile Services Melissa Page. More information is available at https://novarica.com/womensnetwork.