Transforming HR: Strategies for Talent Retention and Diversity at Hiscox USA

Curious about transforming HR strategies and boosting employee engagement? Join us as we sit down with Laila Gillies, Head of HR for Hiscox USA, a leading insurer for more than 600,000 small businesses in the US.

Listen as Laila discusses her experience of transforming Hiscox’s talent retention and engagement strategies, elevating employee experiences and advancing the company’s overall industry impact.

Laila shares her innovative approaches to retaining top talent and fostering a thriving company culture. Discover how Hiscox has masterfully balanced proactive and reactive HR strategies to anticipate future needs while keeping pace with unexpected challenges like the pandemic. Laila shares the secrets behind their holistic wellness programs, which include everything from sabbaticals and upskilling to mental, emotional, and financial well-being initiatives—all of which have significantly enhanced employee satisfaction and retention.

In Bill Banham's conversation with Laila, they also explore the critical role of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in driving innovation and business growth at Hiscox. Leila emphasizes the value of embracing diverse perspectives and experiences, particularly through their strategic location in Atlanta, which provides a rich talent pool. We examine how the evolution of remote work has reshaped employee expectations and how Hiscox's activity-based approach seamlessly blends flexibility with in-person collaboration. Additionally, Laila highlights the importance of mentorship and the pivotal role senior employees play in nurturing the next generation of talent. Tune in to gain valuable insights into transforming HR practices and championing inclusivity in the workplace.

Chapters

• 0:03 Transforming Talent Strategies in HR
• 9:33 Embracing Diversity and Remote Work

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom and visit.

Speaker 2: 0:23

HRGazettecom. Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Battam, and joining me on this episode is the wonderful, fantastic, awesome Leila Gillies, head of HR for Hiscox USA, a leading insurer for more than 600,000 US small businesses. Listen as Leila discusses her experiences of transforming Hiscox talent retention and engagement strategies, elevating employee experiences and advancing the company's overall industry impact. Leila, how are you? Welcome to the show?

Speaker 3: 0:59

I'm doing well. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Well, thank you very much for being my guest. Before we get into the meat of today's discussion, why don't you just take a minute or two and tell the listeners a bit about yourself, your career background and why you love your current job Go?

Speaker 3: 1:14

All right, well, I am the People Director for Hiscox USA, otherwise known as the Head of HR. I've been with the organization for 15 years and in financial services and HR more broadly for around 20. I've spent some time leading HR operating model transformations and our global employee engagement practice, as it was called at the time, but predominantly in HR leadership positions where I'm developing plans and strategies to enable business performance. Hiscox USA is, as you said, a specialist insurance carrier with about 500 employees in the US and part of Hiscox Group, where we are helping people and businesses realize their ambitions In the US. A significant proportion of those people are small business owners who have a vital role in our communities and give us a great sense of pride.

Speaker 3: 2:22

I'm excited to be here, looking forward to the discussion. The best part of my role, my favorite part of my role, is just being in a field where there are no right answers, very few right answers, and one that is constantly evolving. So it's the approach that are taken and the decisions that are made are very much dependent on the circumstances, and that means that we have to really learn from each other and each other's experiences throughout all of this. So it's just it's wonderful to have the opportunity, as an avid listener and learner, to do the same.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Okay, wonderful, thank you very much. So one thing I heard from your answer there is there are times where it's important to be reactive. How important is it to be reactive versus proactive? What kind of proportion of your job should be reactive versus proactive? Just give me a sense of that.

Speaker 3: 3:24

The majority should be proactive. I mean, in developing those plans you are always looking forward. To help a business realize its ambitions, you have to understand the business's ambitions and the business's ambitions are typically not you know. It's kind of like you're looking at the history but shaping the future. And to shape the future you're looking at the future, skills, how that impacts the operating model, how it impacts the broader workforce, and that is the crux of the plans. I think, in looking back it helps to shape you understand your lessons learned and the trends that are used to help forecast what happens in the future. And there is an element of surprise, I suppose, because things are constantly evolving and so you can be as proactive as you want to be. But then there are other factors in the economy or otherwise that the pandemic is a great example of that, where we just didn't plan for it. So being adaptable and being agile as an HR leader is very key.

Speaker 2: 4:33

I don't think you're alone there. I think the pandemic got a lot of people off kilter, that's for sure. Okay, so Hiscox implements market leading employee benefits and programs such as sabbaticals and upskilling initiatives, as well as holistic wellness approaches encompassing mental, emotional and financial well-being. So kudos to you guys for doing that. How has this impacted employee satisfaction, culture, but also retention rates? This year is the year of retention right, and then lots of companies are expecting to see their employees on the move next year, so they're trying to do everything this year to make sure that they're happy and they want to stay around next year. Tell us about your efforts.

Speaker 3: 5:10

This is another example of where we have to be forward looking. The holistic approach that you mentioned makes a big difference. We understand that well-being is multifaceted and people have different needs and preferences based on their personal circumstances, so we look at improving employee health in all aspects of employee health. There are a few things with regards to the approach that we've taken that we feel have made the biggest difference. It's more in the how. The first is what's that saying? Where you could buy a man a fish and he eats for a day, and then you teach a man a fish and he eats for a lifetime. We're very big on teaching people how to fish, so it's not just introducing benefits or giving employees access to benefits like here's your 401k, here's access to medical care or gym reimbursement and so on, but providing educational resources that build financial literacy and sharing techniques on how to improve mental health through mindfulness and and things like that. Um, so then employees kind of like learn more, and it acts as a preventative measure, and that's been a big part of it. We have one coming up, I believe, on at creating behaviors that enable healthy habits to last, and I know this because I received a calendar invite from our benefits team and so it's there. So we're not just putting these educational resources on the internet. We find that by the time employees go to access them, it's because their health has already been impacted. And you know you want it to be front and center, so we push the information out and schedule these sessions inside of the workday, which really signals the importance that we place on it.

Speaker 3: 7:11

The other piece is making it fun. You know we are all kids at heart and so we have wellness challenges and initiatives, things like walking challenges and hydration challenges, and I cannot tell you how into it people get. I mean, it creates such a buzz and a sense of camaraderie in the office and any time you can incorporate a bit of fun, we work very hard. So when you can do that and incorporate some social connectivity, that is a good thing. And the third is we are constantly looking for ways to evolve our benefits and our wellness offering. So a few years ago we introduced paid sabbatical. After five years of service, we just had an employee come back from a yoga retreat, another employee who's going out just to spend the summer with their kids, and you know you really have to think about it as an innovative and differentiating aspect of your organization and anything that you invest in requires that continuous improvement.

Speaker 3: 8:18

And it's been wonderful to see that recognized both internally with our teams and externally through Cigna, who have awarded us with the gold standard, healthy workforce designation for four years in a row In terms of retention and just satisfaction in general. It's noted as a key strength in our satisfaction surveys and in other surveys that we've done. You know we've. We've asked employees what has led you to join and then later, why do you stay? And in joining, things like wellness are. You know they're, they're there as one of the reasons for joining, but it's more around kind of like the benefits package from a compensation standpoint. When we ask people what are the reasons that they stay within the organization, wellness is right up there and it's the feeling of feeling kind of just cared for and looked out for as an employee and knowing that that matters to your employer that has made the biggest impact and that's what we've been seeing.

Speaker 2: 9:29

So my understanding is inclusivity. In fact, let's just expand upon that. Dei is a big focus at Hiscox, and as it should be. How is fostering an inclusive culture? Leila helped the, the company, grow and, as part of that answer, perhaps you can share how important is it to hire folks with diverse views, diverse skills and diverse experiences?

Speaker 3: 9:52

I mean it's critical. I don't know how you know it went from this nice to have many, many years ago and you know people doing it because kind of the feeling that it was the right thing to do, where there's so many studies and diversity of thought, driving innovation, driving business performance, driving growth, and businesses have started to recognize that. What I found kind of interesting is the expectation that organizations have a focus on DEI has grown tremendously amongst employees as well and newer generations of prospective employees. They're not just looking for a statement on the corporate website anymore, they're looking at the makeup of the board, they're looking at real evidence of inclusive practices. So our offices are in diverse communities. Our US corporate headquarters is in Atlanta, which enables us to more easily tap into diverse pools of talent, and that has enriched our workforce with ideas and perspectives that have enabled growth. Inclusivity is another important aspect of that. So there has to be that inclusive culture and there's strong commitment from the top. So our senior leaders feel heavily invested and heavily accountable in that, sharing their own personal experiences and perspectives in DEI, which has been key in creating that psychological safety for employees to do the same. They act as senior advocates for our employee networks, which helps on two fronts. It helps our networks get the guidance and the support that they need to leverage their platform for change, but it has this like reverse mentoring effect as well in our leaders learning more about the experiences and the perspectives of our employee groups or the LGBT community and so on, which is what you want.

Speaker 3: 12:00

We feel our role in promoting DEI extends beyond the organization, so we tend to look at it, you know, kind of a bit more broadly. We are a founding sponsor of the Black Insurance Industry Collective and, if you're not familiar, this is an organization that supports and accelerates the advancement of Black talent in the insurance industry. So we participate in roundtable discussions just sharing best practices, and we also want to see our customers grow along with us. So we've funded some real fantastic market leading research around the benefits of diversity in small businesses and released that through our diversity in small business report about a few years ago, and so when we think about it, um, we take that broader approach. We consider our role in the organization um as an employer, which is hugely important, but also how we can have a positive impact both in the industry and in the wider community okay, very good.

Speaker 2: 13:17

Thank you very much. As part of your answer there, you mentioned that, that your HQ is in Atlanta. There's a city I've not been to. I've done 36 states so far. I haven't done Georgia, yet it's on my list. Another form of diversity, leila, is ways people like to work. A lot of people like to work remotely. A big lesson from the pandemic is that you can find a much bigger pool of awesome talent if you're willing to allow people to work remotely, work from different time zones and all the rest of it. What's what? What are your feelings in terms of um remote workers and how much time do people actually need to be in the physical office these days, in 2024?

Speaker 3: 13:56

I'll give you my my perspective. I think it differs by the organization and kind of their culture and their values and their views around that. We've seen many organizations take an approach, kind of pull back on that approach, so I think a lot of organizations are still working through it. When we were considering what approach to take you know we tend to refer back to our values in times of uncertainty there really wasn't a best practice established yet and I don't know that there still is.

Speaker 3: 14:22

Being connected is actually one of our values, so we had to really think about what that looked like in the new world.

Speaker 3: 14:30

And we did a great job at being connected when we were working remotely team members checking in on each other and virtual initiatives and things like that.

Speaker 3: 14:40

But we place A lot of value on coming together in person and recognize the positive impact that has on building connections and establishing new ones. So we ended up adopting an activity based approach to working which allows individuals with the flexibility to work from home when performing activities that are best done remotely. So if you're in a Zoom call with people across multiple locations, you know, or in a virtual training all day, adding a commute time to that just doesn't make sense but, at the same time, coming together in person for those activities that we feel are best done together, such as innovation sessions or, you know, team building and things like that. When you can do those in person, you really start feeling the benefits, and so our teams are doing that and it creates a bit of you know, flexibility, but also empowerment for individuals to help make those determinations, and that's how we balanced it. It is, I'd say, a relatively newer approach. We implemented it over a year ago and it's been well received, but we're going to continue to monitor and adapt.

Speaker 2: 16:05

Just a quick follow-up on that one. Do you think that the onus on being in the office depends on your seniority, your experience? Ie, I'm a big proponent of a global talent pool. I think that's something that a lot of people were made aware of as a result of the pandemic. However, I feel for junior folks, folks coming into a role for the first time, I think back to my first job, all those things I learned by osmosis, just being observing, taking in the politics, understanding dynamics and all the rest of it. What are your thoughts on if you're a more junior person? Is it more important that you are physically in an office sometimes?

Speaker 3: 16:44

I think it goes both ways. Actually, junior employees, I do think it matters, and learning through osmosis happens across all levels. But you also find that employees that are more junior level are more likely to be there when employees at a more senior level are there as well, and there's a lot of talk about kind of how we maintain our culture and so on. When you have individuals who are there, if your culture is around being approachable senior leaders and camaraderie across all levels and establishing trust across all levels and then internal networking, you know you have to consider your role as part of the broader ecosystem and not by seniority or by kind of looking too narrowly at your direct team. So you know, kind of looking too narrowly at your direct team. So you know there's something valuable there regardless of what level you're in. Now I do think, in terms of an activity, initial onboarding is, you know, one of those that we've outlined that are more effectively done in person. But you know, I don't think it stops there.

Speaker 2: 17:46

OK, very good, we are almost out of time for today. Just two last quick questions for you, as we have got an awesome HR senior leader on the call here. What are your predictions for the evolution of HR leadership roles over the next few years? What's impacting it? So, for example, I'm guessing you're going to say AI in 60 seconds or less. I'm going to challenge you, go.

Speaker 3: 18:10

Yeah, we've seen it evolve over time. I think we've gotten to that point where we're at the table using data driven insights. We have the business acumen that the two, the two skills that I think about into the future are adaptability and digital fluency skills that I think about into the future adaptability and digital fluency so as organizations become more digitally enabled, we have to understand what that means and how to leverage those technologies and the impact that's going to have on the workforce, to effectively embed them into plans. And because it's constantly evolving, we're going to have to be more adaptable and agile, as we talked about, so there's not plans that are going to last five years untouched. We are going to have to pivot quickly.

Speaker 2: 18:49

You pivoted quickly to answer that question in under 60 seconds, so congratulations. And just finally for today, leila, how can the folks connect with you? So maybe that's LinkedIn, maybe you might want to share your email, maybe you're super cool all over TikTok and places. And, of course, how can they learn more about all of the things happening over at hiscox?

Speaker 3: 19:07

well, they could absolutely reach out to me to link in and I'm happy to share my email as well. So anyone who's interested and I'm happy to share best practices or what we've learned and and kind of um, what would work for us organization knowing that it may not work for others, I think it's always important to learn, so they can access me through any channel great.

Speaker 2: 19:25

And if they want to learn more about his cocks, how can they do that?

Speaker 3: 19:29

yeah, I mean we do have, of course, corporate website which provides some great information about that um and within our corporate website there are some avenues to achieve more information. So we do kind of you know, we have our leaders there and our leaders in general um are happy to reach out and provide that information as well. So that kind of just make the connection, take the initiative to make the connection. We are an approachable culture and for anyone who wants to learn, people will make themselves available rock and roll.

Speaker 2: 20:00

That just leaves me to say for today, leila, I've enjoyed this conversation. I'd love to do it again with you in the future, but for now, thank you very much for being my guest. Thank you for having me and listeners, as always. Until next time, happy working.

Speaker 1: 20:15

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom you.