By Stuart Dennis, Industry Director for Finance at Six Degrees
Insurers who leverage the latest agile workspace technology will gain a head start in building the inclusive and innovative cultures that help attract today’s best talent.
Lloyd’s, the world’s largest insurance marketplace, recently published a prospectus that highlighted the need to build an inclusive and innovative culture that attracts leading talent. Competition and disruptive technologies are driving a need for innovation across the insurance market, breaking down traditional barriers and re-architecting the way we think about ‘work’.
In order to remain competitive in today’s global markets, insurers need to build inclusive and innovative cultures that attract leading talent. High quality candidates understand their value, and seek employers that meet their requirements in terms of culture and career progression opportunities, over and above basic salary expectations. Attracting and retaining talent requires a combination of brand, technology and work/life balance.
There are a number of opportunities for insurers to leverage technology to their benefit: the latest cloud technology means we can now work from anywhere; unified communications and collaboration tools enhance creativity and accelerate innovation; and new devices are enabling access across multiple applications, driving engagement and productivity.
However, in a highly regulated industry securing the multitude of devices across multiple remote locations is paramount. The risk of data breach is ever present for insurers, who deal with high volumes of highly confidential personally identifiable information (PII). With the FCA announcing their intention to issue a huge fine to British Airways for a data breach suffered in 2018, firms’ attentions have become more focused than ever before on ensuring robust security throughout their operations.
The world is changing, and insurers need to change with it or risk being left behind. In this article, I will explain how insurers can use technology to attract new talent that will allow them to future-proof their businesses and secure competitive advantage.
Use Technology to Attract New Talent
Prospective employees’ expectations for the technology available to them is constantly being shaped by the tools they have at their disposal throughout their everyday lives. Smartphone apps, wearable tech and home entertainment setups may not have figured into candidates’ thinking in 2009, but in 2019 they will expect the seamless communication, limitless mobility and easy-to-use conferencing and collaboration that the latest consumer technology has left them accustomed to.
Fortunately, cloud-based agile workspace technology is placing power back in the hands of employers, giving them the autonomy and scope to implement transformative solutions that not only meet but exceed employees’ expectations of how technology can support them. Here are some examples:
- Increase productivity by enhancing application delivery. The latest application delivery technology allows you to rapidly deliver the tools that employees need to carry out their roles effectively, wherever they are. So whether they’re in the office or on the move, your employees will benefit from the ability to work in a consistent manner that gives them access to the tools they need, when they need them. This in turn will increase productivity and alleviate many of the frustrations that have previously come with working away from the office.
- Work smarter by delivering the right tools at the right time. Agile working isn’t just about accessing all of your data and applications, all of the time. Your employees need time to integrate and collaborate, but they will often also need time to burrow themselves away and focus on executing. The latest agile working tools understand this, and are designed to meet employees’ needs as they change throughout the working week.
- Collaborate more effectively with dynamic workspaces. Simplified collaboration technology allows you to rationalise the workspace with remote working capabilities. By enabling structured collaboration by integrating voice, video, instant messaging, tasks and sharing within a single application, collaboration services allow firms to achieve full cross-functional team working throughout their organisations.
- Communicate seamlessly through multi-channel platforms. The latest unified communications technology enables employees by offering fully integrated voice, video, persistent team chat and messaging, and file and screen sharing. Consistent user experience through desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones drive harmonised productivity and efficiencies for all users, independent of location, device or network access type.
- Enhance security with enterprise mobile management. There are a great many agile working options available to today’s insurance firms. But when you expand the workspace, you introduce risk to your business. This is where enterprise mobile management comes in, minimising risk by retaining consistent control and management over the entire laptop, tablet and smartphone estate and ensuring proper governance throughout.
Building Inclusive and Innovative Cultures
Technology is never going to be the only tenet of any insurance firm’s culture, but in today’s fast-moving industry it is playing an increasingly central role in enabling firms to have the agility and flexibility that leading candidates expect. If increasing productivity, working smarter, collaborating effectively, communicating seamlessly and enhancing security sound good to you, you won’t be alone; the talented individuals you are trying to attract to your firm will invariably feel the same way.
Your firm’s drive to enhance agility and expand the workspace should not be hampered by security risk. Industry regulators are taking an increasingly dim view of data breaches, so ensuring your agile working arrangements have a strong security seam running throughout is critical. It is always better to prevent a breach through robust cybersecurity arrangements than have to deal with a successful cyber-attack and the financial, operational and reputational damage it leaves in its wake.
Leveraging the latest agile workspace technology will allow your firm to gain a head start in building an inclusive and innovative culture that will help attract today’s best talent. Partnering with a cloud-led technology partner could be the first step in helping you achieve this.
About the Author
Stuart Dennis is Industry Director for Finance at Six Degrees, a leading cloud-led managed service provider that works as a collaborative technology partner to businesses making a digital transition.
Six Degrees works collaboratively and builds long-term partnerships through exceptional services that match its clients’ needs. It continually innovates the right solutions to enable clients’ brilliance.
