The Insurance Coffee House with Nick Hoadley

“We learned a lot early on and we continue to learn as we scale the organization remotely. Some of the key things are over communicating. Sometimes you're having a few more meetings to feel that personal connection”, says Vikki. “We've set up mentor programs, our summit leadership where you're partnered with another leader in the organization. If you're interested in growing your career, whether t...

The opportunities are vast. Hundreds and hundreds of companies with a physical presence here and the jobs to go with it. It's important that all Bermudians remember that we're not just competing within Bermuda and our small country, we're competing on a global scale”, says Kirsten. “We are an exceptionally well-educated island. It's critical there are opportunities for Bermudians. And that Bermudi...

“We’ve got to deliver financial results and profitability, but you’ve got to be thinking about the way you can do that most efficiently too”, says Lisa, describing what a high performance culture means to her.   “High performance is people being clear on what's expected of them, delivering that and then some, because they want to. It’s constantly improving and trying to do better. We make mis...

“Throughput is really exciting when you connect those three areas, so what does that ecosystem look like? We make sure we are branching out and seeking underrepresented talent and also talent who have amazing experience. We do that in our acquisition process”, says Christina Parr as she discusses her role of combining talent acquisition, learning & development and organizational development. “...

“We look at our people as our number one asset, they are really providing our product. You need the people in order to bring that (insurance) promise to life. When we bring in an entry level person, we’re looking at their development path. We want to know, ‘what do you want to do?’, says Roxanne Nelson as she explains how Falvey create a clear career path for those entering the insurance industry....

“We always have a common goal every year for the entire organization. It’s in every single employee’s goal plan, from CEO all the way to somebody in an administrative position. The same goal we're all working towards”, says Aimee. “You can't expect people to rally around a goal unless you help them understand what that goal is.  You have to help connect every person's role or every team's rol...

“I changed the department from HR to People and culture. The term HR is a construct of an economist in the 1800s, talking about people as commodities, just like paper and pens. That's not what this is about anymore”, says Denise. “The world has changed. In order to unlock true potential of a company and its performance, you have to focus on the people, unlocking their true potential as whole indiv...

“Flexibility has become increasingly important. Not just working from home, but being able to work remotely and work the hours that suit you“, says Jason. “No one's expected to work late into the night or weekends unless they want to. Unless that's a rhythm that suits them.” On the podcast this week, Jason discusses his background in tech and digital recruitment, before moving to an in-house talen...

“Because we’re such a mission driven organization, it is really important that we are bringing people in who want to make a difference in the world, who are excited about joining our mission and making an impact ”, says Sarah. “The people who are involved in that process are really committed to finding the people who are going to amplify the team the most and help us achieve our objectives." On th...

“Anyone stepping into a predominantly 100% remote opportunity, assuming it's not their first time, they know what they're getting into and what to expect from the day-to-day”, says Blair. “In terms of building a culture, the onus is really on the company, but also us as individuals to engage with co-workers. You have to be intentional about over-communicating.” On the Insurance Coffee House Podcas...

“Patience is such a virtue when working in a high growth organization like this. The number of partner agencies that we’ve brought together are all in different phases of talent maturity. You just have to be patient and figure out where they are on the continuum and bring them along. I'm building and doing and teaching all at the same time”, says Lea as she emphasizes the need to be patient in a s...

“Having events like the town hall is incredibly important. For everyone to get together and be able to celebrate what we're building”, says Eric. “It gives us a forum to talk about what's going on, what the strategy is. It’s a time for anyone to ask questions so they can get a better understanding of what everyone does. We don't want everything to be just work. We also have fun things, that people...

“We're able to move mountains with far fewer people because of the fact that everybody in their role is exceptional and they’re that 90th percentile. It's really hard to maintain that talent density, especially as we've started to scale. But we absolutely refuse to just put bodies in seats because we need them”, says Datha. On the podcast this week, Steadily’s Co-Founder & COO shares her caree...

“We’ve had 115 acquisitions. That’s 115 individual small businesses who’ve become part of Inszone. How do you connect that? How do you make people feel like they're part of one company? says Matt. “We put this quarterly meeting in place where we have the whole C suite on and focus on three things, ‘Where are we at? Where are we going? And how are we going to get there?’ On the podcast this week, M...

“Every employee, even the most entry level positions, gets bonus company stock at the end of the year. You start thinking differently, about improvements in processes. It doesn't just benefit you. You're looking for things that benefit the whole organisation“, says Ryan. On our insurance executive search and talent acquisition podcast this week, Ryan discusses growing up in a farming family to his...

“We’re very committed to staying connected. We’re very careful about how we meet, when we meet and who is in the various meetings”, says Marjorie as she highlights the key success factors to implementing a remote-first culture at insurtech, Openly.   On the podcast this week, Marjorie charts her career journey from consultancy to insurance people leader. “I started my career in the lean six s...

“Generative AI, it's going to change the world in an incredibly positive way”, says Alex. “In the long term, I truly believe that we will elevate the role of HR because we'll be able to not only remove a lot of the friction from finding complex answers around HR policies and programs, but we'll also be able to augment our services to be able to do more.” Alex charts her career journey to falling i...

“One of our divisions wanted to pilot a work from home model in 2019. They tried it and it was successful. We made a decision that we would pilot that across our business and I remember working with others to figure out the guiding principles. When Covid hit, it’s not an overstatement to say that we had zero issues from a technology and productivity perspective”, says Andrew. On the podcast this w...

““Don't compromise. Too often we're going through a process and have a deadline to get people so you kind of take what's there. There are great folks out there. Never compromise”, says Jamie. “It's all about how strong the talent is that you can attract, develop and nurture.” On the podcast this week, Jamie Yoder shares his career background with the world’s largest consultancy firms. He was Manag...

“We’ve set ourselves ambitions to have 40% of women in leadership by 2025. You've got to do a lot over many years. It is not a short term change. We've got a range of programs throughout the employee life cycle", says Rachel. "For us it's not just about diversity. It's also about inclusion. We want to make sure we have less than 5% variation in people's sense of belonging no matter what part of th...

“Our M&A work has been tremendous. We have sought out companies that we believe fit our culture.  You don't grow as rapidly as we have without having a strong M&A presence. We love to find entrepreneurs who care about their employees and want to grow their business. If you acquire the right type of leader and then they refer to a friend or someone else they do business with, that help...

“There's been hundreds, if not thousands, of people that have said that, ‘this will never work’. I probably called 50 body shops just doing research.  40 to 45 of them said, ‘Absolutely not’. But there were five shops that said, ‘Absolutely. This is a process that I’d use. Just from that small kernel, I went all in”, says Brad. Brad talks through his career journey from working on HBO shows S...

“Development has been a hot topic for us. We’ve launched our first programme for our more junior members of the team. A series of learning sessions about Mosaic, about Lloyds, about the marketplace, about the insurance industry in general”, says Claire.   “The beauty of being part of an organisation with great growth plans is that we want to make sure that our younger members of the team can...

“In that early stage, you really have to leverage your network and those around you who have done it before. Because they're only advisors, they can only go so far. It's kind of wild in that first year of having nothing and creating everything. You have to trust your instincts”, says Lauri. She shares her journey from growing up in a family of entrepreneurs through to joining Pie Insurance at its...

“Statistics show that productivity and the delivery of innovation is much higher with diversity in your teams. I'm passionate about really helping people think about it bigger than just gender or race. It’s diversity of thought”, says Sandy. “A few weeks ago, the new Head of our Global Risk Analytics team was observing a group going through a presentation. It wasn't just pages being put together a...