Novarica’s virtual Town Hall Meetings have provided us with a great platform to share insights and discuss current events during the pandemic. As we move into the second half of 2020, our Town Hall focus will shift to ways of operating within the opportunities and challenges of this new reality.
Last week, we had the opportunity to reexamine the issues insurers face as they plan to have associates return to the office. The wide-ranging discussion touched on the importance of taking a flexible, agile approach to RTO planning as the US faces rising and falling infection rates across the country. The session also focused on the cultural implications of the decisions that insurers need to make. Concerns about day-care and school availability also play a role as insurers try to balance corporate needs and employee health, safety, and morale.
This week, VPs Nancy Casbarro and Deb Zawisza joined me to share insights from discussions with industry leaders and their personal experiences managing through times of significant change and transformation.
Carriers will need to be dynamic as they plan a return to the office. “One size fits all” approaches will not succeed. Insurers must consider an array of factors: issues unique to urban centers (e.g., use of mass transit), rising and falling case counts, the potential for a second wave, and the inconsistent approaches that state and local governments are taking to enforce social distancing.
Nancy outlined emerging RTO best practices and discussed the cultural drivers and drawbacks of returning to the office this early. Insurers have been inviting volunteers to start the re-opening process; the percentage of employees who return has been far lower than expected. Insurers that required employees to return to the office report heightened levels of anxiety and declining morale.
Pressures of personal and professional lives are colliding amid the worst health crisis the country has seen in more than a century. Nancy stressed the importance of learning quickly. Many elements of Agile methodology seem appropriate here: test and learn, fail fast, and revise and move forward is an emerging mantra.
Communication methods are also critical. Deb noted that, when the pandemic first hit, insurers focused on how employees would work from home. Lines of communication need to be open as we look forward so that employees can articulate how they feel about remote and on-site work.
Insurers need to articulate their rationales for returning to the office and express them in a manner that will resonate with impacted associates. Merely returning to the office to exercise social distancing skills and keep meetings virtual seems to many to be a poor tradeoff, given the attendant risks.
Insurers noted that employee engagement and participation seemed to have fallen in recent weeks. This change may be due to summer and that many employees began vacationing on Independence Day weekend. It could also be fatigue that relates to concurrent health and financial crises. It is a point worthy of managerial attention regardless of cause.
More than a few organizations have noted that employees are pushing back against turning every meeting into a video event. This phenomenon, i.e., Zoom fatigue, reflects elevated pressures that go with being in the spotlight for long periods. Zoom fatigue may be the 21st-century version of “If the only tool I have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”
Some organizations found it helpful to mix up the media—using video more sparingly than in April or May—to reflect that we are in a marathon, not a sprint. Expanding and exploring the communication toolbox can provide everyone with much-needed variety.
Several new challenges await insurers in the next six to 12 months. How quickly should they return to the office? How many times will they need to return, then leave again? What will they do when an employee tests positive? Can they implement contact tracing practically?
Many insurers that said they would revisit the RTO issue around Labor Day are now referring to October as a decision point. Others see a return as something that would happen in 2021. Insurers should identify and consider an array of scenarios to manage their organizations through a much longer WFH scenario than anticipated.
Next week, Novarica VP Martin Higgins and EVP Jeff Goldberg to focus on broader technology considerations that could impact future-state planning. The session will center on low-code/no-code tools and how insurers could incorporate them into their technology roadmaps.
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