The senior team at Novarica has spent a great deal of time with our clients and Council members discussing their COVID-19 response and the associated successes and challenges. Overall, we are impressed with insurers’ ability to migrate to work from home so quickly and smoothly. Most clients were able to accomplish this in days, and all were able to complete the transition within two weeks. Given the technology state of many insurers, this was impressive!
Just as the Coronavirus Task Force outlined the phased reopening of the country two weeks ago, many of our clients started planning their return-to-work strategy. Many are looking at their situation more broadly; revisiting their business plans, technology priorities, and operating models; and planning to revisit these periodically during these uncertain times. But return to work is a top priority, and many companies are now working out the details.
Today, Nationwide announced a shift to a hybrid model of work from home and work from the office, and it looks like it will certainly have a lot of company. Our clients are reporting that the trial by fire has developed a new acceptance, and even appreciation, of work from home. One client mentioned that they are stopping all physical expansion and acquisition of new properties, even though their significant staff expansion is still in play. Others have indicated that they are in no hurry to get anyone back to the office since productivity is up, and why take the risk right now?
Those insurers that are planning to have a portion or all of their employees return to the office are talking about implementing some combination of the following measures:
- Decreasing capacity of the buildings through shift work in the office—employees rotate one week in the office, the next week from home
- Masks, regular temperature tests, sanitizer available in all public spaces
- Restrictions to vendors’ and partners’ on-site presence
- Return to WFH at any time as needed
- Workspace reconfiguration—the cubicle is back!
- No lunchroom seating
- No collaboration space/conference room use, continued online collaboration only
- Limited collaboration space/conference room use with strict guidelines around occupancy and seating
- Continued support for online collaboration with vendors, partners, and distributors
Since digital technology has freed office workers from a dependence on mailrooms, phone systems, and local computer systems, physical collaboration space is the only real value that an office provides. If this is going to be restricted further, is it any better to join a Zoom meeting from your cubicle than from your home?
It is very clear to everyone that we will have a new normal, but we don’t know how long it will take to get there or exactly what it will look like. As an industry, we need to become more agile in approaching our business plans, technology priorities, and operating models in order to deal with the uncertain times ahead.
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