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Strategy to Manage Talent in Insurance

The world is changing. So should your talent strategy.

A future-proof talent strategy must anticipate and address the next generation talent needs, and is critical to enable sustained business growth.

It is no longer news that insurers today are operating in an increasingly complex and fast changing environment. Some examples are:

“Super app” Grab in Southeast Asia has grown from its original business of ride-hailing and expanded to consumer insurance business via a tie-up with Chubb offering travel insurance to its customers.

A major insurance player in China has expanded from insurance to healthcare and even housing.

More recently, with the widespread COVID-19 pandemic, we see how critical the digital channels are to help sustain business amid the lockdown orders and social distancing measures globally.

The Insurance Industry’s Challenges

At Sia Partners, we have categorized the key trends in the insurance industry today as follows:

When change is the only constant, the increasingly rapid disruptions are jeopardizing the traditional business models for insurance. At Sia Partners, we believe insurance companies struggling to adjust to the pace of change and adapt talent strategy to disruptive innovations are losing out to their peers.

While the future of the insurance industry will undoubtedly be shaped by many of the disruptive forces, the challenges ahead also present unprecedented opportunities. With the advancement and commercialization of robotic process automation (RPA), data analytics, blockchain, and AI etc., the next generation of insurers are better equipped to enhance efficiency, deliver a more customer-centric experience, and create more value-added roles.

One of the opportunities that no insurer should ignore, is the power and potential within its workforce. With the emergence of gig economy, there is real opportunity to capitalize on developing the skills that are unique to the evolving talent market and generate exponential value to insurers.

The Future of Talent in Insurance

At Sia Partners, we see how technological disruptions, and more recently, the global pandemic of COVID-19 is changing the way our clients work across the global. Increasingly we see the need to evolve the business and operating models in this constantly changing and ever more challenging environment, calling for a new generation of talent to drive value creation within the insurance industry.

So as an incumbent player in the insurance market, where do you start?

Strategy & Analytics

  • For talent strategy to remain relevant, the definition and identification of competencies involved in the business and operational processes are top priorities. Insurers that are ready to constantly align their talent strategy to the business and operational requirements, and consistently invest in skills needed will emerge to become future market leaders.
  • Focused actions must be taken to use data-driven approach to understand and bridge skill gaps within the organization, and constantly benchmark against competitors - both traditional insurers and InsurTech startups alike.

The "Bare Minimum"

  • Analyze technical and soft skills and competencies required to successfully fulfil the given mandate of the business.
  • Engage workforce to provide focused and targeted learning and development opportunities.

HR Systems & Technology

  • HR systems and HR Technology Solutions are the backbones to HR functions in any organization.
  • With technological advancement, HR functions should leverage technological solutions to evolve with enhanced efficiency, effectiveness, and compliance, and continue serving as a valuable strategic partner to the business.

The "Bare Minimum"

  • Implement relevant HR Information System (HRIS) and HR technology solutions to drive efficiency, compliance, and analytics capabilities.
  • Conduct data privacy assessments to ensure ongoing compliance to the evolving regulatory and compliance requirements.

Employee experience

  • Employee experience is mission-critical to building a customer-centric organization and hence vital to the success and growth of insurers in future.
  • As alternative work arrangements gain popularity (before the COVID-19 pandemic) and telecommuting becomes “the new norm” across the globe amid lockdown orders and social distancing measures in response to the pandemic, insurers must find alternative ways to appeal to and engage with the next generation of workforce to continue ensuring their experience is a pleasant one.

The "Bare Minimum"

  • Increase process and organizational optimization (via e.g., RPA, or operating model revamp) to alleviate “pain points” processes resulting in employee dissatisfaction/under-satisfaction.
  • Understand the needs of employees and design employee professional programs to explicitly state and meet those needs.

Change Management

  • Insurance companies, like all other organizations, undergo changes for many reasons. How it handles change is crucial to the insurer’s success.
  • Insurers that adopt a people-centric change management approach, and clearly articulate and communicate the change across the organization will be in a better position to ensure the change will be a success.

The "Bare Minimum"

  • Understand the change implications across the organization and tailor communication strategy accordingly to clearly articulate the benefit, the requirement, and the expected outcome of the change.
  • Develop a centralized “Organizational Change Management Centre of Excellence (CoE)” to oversee major organizational change efforts to capture collective synergies and share best practices.

The Future of Talent Strategy Starts Today

Organizations need to adjust to the pace of change and adapt talent strategy to a disruptive innovation to sustain future business growth. They must rethink how they attract, develop, and retain a new generation of talent to drive value creation within the industry in the decades to come. To do so, insurers need to understand their talent competencies and requirements, invest in the HR digital tools and technologies, enhance experiences of a new generation of talent, and adopt a people-centric change management approach while embracing the disruptive opportunities.

Sia Partners’ HR Transformation offerings provide dedicated support to the HR function to navigate the challenges. We provide our clients with our unique blend of best practices and expertise across Digital, Data Science, UX Design and Agile Change management.

HR Transformation Capabilities

  • Global HR practice with over 200 consultants across 26 offices and a strong track-record of 20+ years of successful HR transformation project delivery.
  • Successful projects delivered across all dimensions of the HR function including Talent and Competency frameworks, HR Analytics, HR Process Improvement, Target Operating Model Design.
  • Strong credentials on successful project delivery across a wide range of industries and sectors including insurance, financial services, retail and luxury, energy.

 

Human Centric Design Solutions

  • Makestorming, our in-house methodology combining the best of Design Thinking and Lean, perfectly suited for design initiation and collective problem solving.
  • Transformation Hub, our centralized one-stop shop for proven change management methodologies and toolkits.
  • Sparted, our app-based microlearning platform takes bite-sized, gamified learning to the next level.
  • Fove, our digital marketing agency enables us to craft employee journeys that matter.

Data Science & Analytics

  • Data Management expertise (data governance, data quality, data privacy and data analytics).
  • Robust Digital Transformation capabilities along the value chain, from design to implementation.
  • Artificial Intelligence, Data Science & RPA: our Data Science Lab showcases 60+ bots developed to answer our clients’ needs.
  • ​A global in-house data science team of 80+ data scientists spread across 3 continents.

Capability