The Challenge
The Co-Operators Group Ltd., one of Canada's largest multi-line insurance companies, reached out to Agile By Design to help develop its ambitious Underwriting Transformation project. Company leadership was eager to tackle some existential pain points: It was slow to pivot and produce; workflow management was chaotic; and, crucially, an employee turnover problem lurked in the background.
Agile By Design organized workshops that doubled as group interviews, aiming to get to the heart of the friction disrupting team dynamics and garner an understanding of day-to-day challenges team members faced. Three major themes emerged:
· A lack of clear long-term planning and coherent strategic vision was causing significant concern and a lack of visibility across the team.
· Discrepancies among leaders regarding the priority of tasks and initiatives led to workload inefficiencies, duplicated efforts, and heightened team frustration.
· Significant misalignments and gaps in communication among teams and different leadership levels were creating confusion over work priorities.
Something else became clear from these invaluable sessions: The teams were hungry for more autonomy. Executive fear of failure was leading to micromanagement. Teams were chafing at this disruption to their workflow.
The Approach
Agile By Design guided the Co-Operators teams in the process of crafting their ideal workflows, with greater autonomy and creative control, while keeping the leadership in an advisory loop. The teams attacked the issues they had identified themselves.
To address the disconnect between strategy and execution, the team developed a workflow that seamlessly connected strategic planning and visioning with team-level operations. Long-term objectives were directly tied to daily tasks. This allowed the team to connect the big strategic picture and to their roles in achieving overarching company goals, bolstering their sense of purpose and direction.
To improve workflow management and get work moving through the system, Agile By Design and the teams designed a process to prioritize and sequence work, factoring in resource availability and specific skill sets needed, allocating resources efficiently and playing to the strengths of individual teams. Matching the right tasks with the right skills in the right sequence aimed to reduce bottlenecks and stress and optimize productivity.
Ongoing collaborative sessions were implemented to close gaps in communication, enhancing alignment and ensuring consistent information flow among teams and leadership. Teams share updates, discuss challenges and synchronize their efforts. This structured communication strategy helped minimize misunderstandings and align team efforts with (now better articulated)corporate goals. The open dialogue contributed to team cohesion—vital to combating staff turnover.
The Impact
The exercise in Underwriting Transformation accrued multiple benefits to team members and corporate leadership alike.
For teams, streamlined workflows and clarified roles meant more efficiency and autonomy. That autonomy, along with clearer communication, led to higher levels of employee engagement, better job satisfaction, and a sense of value. With better-defined roles and clearer priorities, employees were better equipped for their tasks, leading to higher quality work, and with increased autonomy, new ideas and solutions were more creative and sparked operational improvements.
Corporate leadership, having ceded some autonomy to the teams to manage operations, was now better positioned to focus on strategic decision-making. Structured meeting sessions made leaders more visible, accessible, connected and accountable. Leaders were coached to be more adaptable and flexible. Leaders could communicate and collaborate more effectively across silos, improving synergy. And, as a mutual benefit to leadership and the operational teams, leaders could identify and nurture prospects for a pipeline of future leaders.
We appreciate all of the time and effort you have put in, and we recognize that you have gone above and beyond. The entire experience has been amazing, and the results have truly exceeded our expectations. We are very much looking forward to further discussions about expanding coaching opportunities for our team and leaders, as we believe this will continue to foster our growth and success. - AVP Underwriting
