In today’s highly competitive carrier landscape, organizations encounter a wide variety of challenges when it comes to enhancing their talent management strategies, mitigating turnover, and attracting new talent.
At Gallagher Bassett (GB), we firmly believe that our skilled professionals are the driving force behind our ability to provide exceptional claims and risk management services. We are committed to developing talent, rewarding exceptional effort, investing in decision-support tools, and fostering an innovative culture. Let’s explore our ongoing initiatives aimed at cultivating a workforce that excels in delivering service excellence and exceptional claims results to our carrier partners.
Enhancing the Employee Experience: Fostering Engagement and Growth
A positive employee experience is the foundation of any successful organization. To ensure that we build the right teams who are engaged and excited about their work, we have implemented various initiatives. First, we have focused on providing our employees with the right tools and support needed to excel in their roles. This includes investing in technology and resources that enable them to perform at their best.
We have created a culture of continuous learning and development, offering opportunities for skill building and career advancement. We prioritize the development of a diverse group of cross-functional experts to ensure our team is equipped with industry-leading technology and the requisite expertise to deliver superior claims management for our partners.
Our team regularly distributes targeted internal communications to help our people champion employee achievement, outline strategic initiatives, highlight business wins, and connect employees with opportunities to engage with one another outside of the workplace. Our leaders play an active role in this internal engagement, hosting town halls and small group huddle sessions to share company news, answer questions, and recognize individual achievement. The huddles also focus on strategies to support service excellence as a team.
Our Claims Operation Recognition Program is a comprehensive and inclusive initiative that aims to celebrate and reward the exceptional performance and contributions of our claims operation team members. This creates a culture of recognition and appreciation, fostering a positive and motivating work environment that drives excellence in claims operations.
Revamping Management Training: Developing Strong Leaders
Meeting and exceeding evolving customer expectations requires leaders who can inspire teams and set a quality example to follow. To meet shifting demands and strengthen our leadership capabilities, GB has completely revamped our management training program to focus on developing essential skills for both newly promoted and experienced supervisors. We understand that leadership is not just about technical expertise but also about effective communication, decision making, and problem solving. In our training sessions, we have integrated practical situations to provide our managers with hands-on experience that prepares them for real-world claims management challenges.
By equipping our leaders with the necessary skills and knowledge, we empower them to effectively guide and support their teams. Additionally, offering meaningful career pathways that provide constant and diverse opportunities for learning and professional development is a critical factor in retention. These unique development opportunities are a part of our retention strategy that encourages our people to look for growth within—versus outside—our organization.
Listening to Our Teams: Driving Improvements and Innovation
Most importantly, we take the time to create opportunities for employees to share their feedback, which allows our organization to “hear our people” and focus on cultural initiatives that matter to our team members while balancing overall business objectives. This means using tools such as listening sessions and surveys to understand how people are feeling, what they need to be more successful in their roles, and what we can do to support them. We use this information to inform strategic initiatives across our organization to focus on the high-value issues that matter most to our employees by making a meaningful and measurable impact on their job satisfaction and personal experience.
We regularly hold meetings and focus groups to gather feedback and suggestions from our teams. This not only helps us identify areas for improvement but also fosters a culture of transparency, communication, and collaboration. We take their feedback seriously and use it to inform our strategy, planning, and investments, which increases engagement, leading to a more fulfilling and productive work environment. Our Transition Services Team (TST) model is designed to benefit our people by alleviating stress during surge events, as well as our clients by providing a more consistent opportunity for temporary claims management assistance based on dynamic demand.
Furthermore, we recognize the importance of giving our employees a voice in shaping our strategy and investments. By incorporating their perspectives, we ensure that our decisions align with their needs and aspirations. This not only enhances their experience but also drives innovation and growth within our organization.
Building for the Future: Focusing on the Next Generation of Claims Talent
While supporting our current staff is important, we are also focused on the next generation of claims talent. Our Resolution Associate Program is designed to hire and develop the next generation of claims professionals, transforming individuals new to the industry into highly skilled claims associates through our home-grown training curriculum. Each year, more than 150 Resolution Associates (RAs) are hired into Workers’ Compensation and Liability roles, receiving support from a leadership team who guides them through licensing and training. Throughout the process, RAs experience salary increases as they meet specific milestones and, upon achieving a twenty-four-month milestone, graduate to become Resolution Managers.
In addition, our Emerging Talent Program is our focused, end-to-end process of identifying, recruiting, and nurturing top talent to develop a pipeline of new talent to meet our growth needs in the years to come. Just this year, we launched our IN2GB Rotational Internship program, which partners with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to provide exposure to the insurance industry for students. The program recently won the Next Gen Initiative of the Year in Captive Review’s 2024 US Awards, which celebrates the organization that has put in place a Next Gen Initiative to usher in the next generation of talent and the willingness to make more young people aware of insurance and its merits as a career.
While the initiatives mentioned in this article are just a glimpse of the ongoing investments GB is making in our people, they demonstrate our commitment to service excellence and delivering on our promise to support our clients’ success. If you would like to learn more about how GB serves as a true partner, contact us to find out how we can achieve superior outcomes together.
