How to get your reinsurance team excited for digitisation
It's very disheartening for a leader to have worked hard on the logistics and realities of digitising, humming and ha-ing trying to decide what's right for the company, only to be faced with an even bigger hurdle - their employees. It's an all too common occurrence, which Altimeter (2024) states accounts for 26% of the overall reasoning for why digitisation should fail.
Therefore, it's important to address why this might be so and what can be done to turn it around. That is what we are going to look at in this article, starting with the biggest hurdle leaders tend to come up against…
Addressing concerns
People are unlikely to get excited about something they are reserved, concerned or even straight-up fearful about. Thus, step one in generating excitement for any digitisation plans is to address employees' concerns. And this must be done authentically. From my experience, there are two rather pressing concerns most employees will have to some degree:
1. Job redundancy
One of the most significant fears surrounding digitisation is job redundancy. This can understandably cause a lack of employee buy-in which is, according to McKinsey (2019), a top reason why digitisation should fail. Employees often worry that new technologies will render their roles obsolete so leaders must demonstrate how digitisation enhances, rather than replaces, the human work.
Of the companies I have worked with, it has been a far more likely outcome that they focused on upskilling their workforce, allowing employees to transition into more strategic roles, rather than making people unnecessarily redundant. Leaders who plan on taking the upskilling route can and should use this when pitching digitisation to their employees as it can act as an instant reassurance for many and keep them listening with open ears.
2. Change
Now, above I mentioned that MOST employees will be reassured by the fact that they won't be made redundant. However, with digitisation and automation comes big changes. Change is yet another thing people are not that fond of - they've not lost their job but they've now got to potentially learn an entirely new skill to retain the job they've got? No pressure, then.
It is important that leaders are understanding and patient here. In their article about overcoming this resistance to change, WNS (2024) emphasises that clear communication, transparency and support are a must. Simple yet effective ways to do this can range from easy, everyday tasks like sharing regular updates of the digitisation stages and progress, to offering training opportunities that will support employees in feeling confident and proficient with the new way of doing things.
Providing training and resources
Once any worries have been set straight, leaders will need to make sure their workforce is practically up for the changes that will be made as a result of digitisation and automation. As mentioned above, the best way to do this is through training.
Now, not every employee will need or accept the same level of training or even the same type of training. Hence, training programmes need to be tailored to various levels of technical proficiency. Infopro Learning (2022) suggests launching any training programme to a limited workforce segment first. Then, if proven beneficial to that set of employees, make the training live for the rest of the workforce. While it's not traditional for the insurance sector to work in such ways, using online platforms really can support the tailored nature of training for digitisation.
What I will say about getting a workforce on board with training sessions and accepting ‘new’ ways of doing things is that it doesn't happen overnight. And it won't just happen because leadership said it will. It requires a real, nurtured cultural shift in the entire organisation. It needs to become part of the company values and therefore part of the values of anyone employed by the company. As with most worthwhile things, it's not easy but the benefits are fantastic for company growth and digitisation success.
Show, don't tell
The last point I think is important to make when discussing how to enthuse a workforce for something as big and new as digitisation and automation is to allow them to experience the success of digitisation before it has been implemented. This can be done in a number of ways:
1. Incremental changes: Digitisation generally should not be considered a ‘quick’ project, or even a project at all. I'm not much of a fan of calling it digital transformation for this exact reason. In fact, Resolute (2022) had the right idea in describing it as digital evolution instead, as this better accounts for the fact that small, manageable steps are more beneficial for overall implementation AND employees than a full-scale rollout.
2. Show that other companies are doing it successfully: Real life guides, reports or success stories from other companies are useful to illustrate the tangible benefits of digitisation. A few examples that spring to mind are perhaps articles like Swiss Re’s ‘The Power of AI Upskilling in insurance’ (2024) or ‘The digital workplace’ paper from Deloitte. Showing employees these examples can serve as powerful motivators of what is possible - especially if they emphasise the welfare of the employees, of course.
3. Shed light on internal wins: Celebrating company, or even individual team, successes related to digitisation helps to build momentum and demonstrate the value of ongoing projects. Now of course, not everyone is going to want to know the ins and outs of every process contributing to digitisation and automation efforts. However, people generally want to know about things which affect them. Make it easy for information and updates to be found if desired.
Overall, no matter what direction leaders choose to go in terms of getting employees on side, it's almost guaranteed to be an uphill battle for now. If your reinsurance company could use a pair of helping hands with this or any other digitisation challenge impacting your claims Ops, you're welcome to reach out to me (sven@buondrius.com).