Hiscox broadens staff skills to combat AI-driven career disruption
Insurance firm sets up rotation programme and facilitates internal moves to diversify staff skillset, to offset career disruption from cloud, AI and machine learning technologies
Insurance firm Hiscox is helping staff to diversify their skillsets and transfer between departments in a bid to offset disruption to many careers caused by cloud, AI and machine learning technologies.
Hiscox group CIO Ian Penny told Computing that this career disruption was identified by the organisation several years ago.
"We recognised that AI, machine learning and cloud are disrupting traditional career paths. You no longer join as an apprentice DBA [Databse Administrator], then junior developer, senior developer then team leader. I can buy database services from a cloud provider so that's disrupted that career," said Penny.
He advised staff to broaden their skills, with a wide set of interests alongside a perhaps one deeper area of expertise, which he calls a 'T-shaped approach'.
"Don't narrowly define your role. We encourage our staff to adopt a more T-shaped approach. Think of your role as 'I do data analytics and I use multiple tools.' But you must understand the business and its problems. Driving a T-shaped programme gives people diverse skills, with lots of tools in their toolbox. They understand different parts of insurance, and have wide technology skills including data analytics, networking, security, DevOps, and agile. And learn to use the appropriate tools with the appropriate problems," he added.
Hiscox changed its entry-level talent programme and offered industrial placements to undergraduates.
"Undergraduatess come to us after two years of university, join us for a year, then go back and complete the final year. After that they come back here to work. It's a great way of seeding the talent pipeline.
"We encourage people to take a bet on their careers. Take a bet on yourself and we will back you up. We've de-risked some of that by introducing a rotations programme. Staff get a diverse set of experiences in different business lines. So they go to another part of the organisation for a year, but it gives you a return ticket [back to the original role] should you need it."
Penny explained that this has also helped with diversity, a common problem in IT departments.
"It's really helped with diversity. We're quite a diverse tech organisation anyway, with lots of female technologists. But now with this rotation programme we've seen lots of females move to other parts of the business."
Penny gave the examples of the head of the technology programme office at Hiscox who is now moving into an infosec role, and a technology finance controller who is moving to portfolio management infrastructure.
"These career moves which previously would've seemed risky, are now less so because their rotations come with a safety net, which encourages people to take that bet. We encourage courage."
He argued that staff moving between departments also enables the business to learn from within, with employees taking good ideas from one area into another.
"We now have a great ability to cross-pollinate and use approaches that work elsewhere. For instance this analytics approach worked in catastrophe modeling, could it work in analytics for customer journeys in our retail space? And we gain all those benefits right now.
"We have to remember whilst we introduce new technology, we are at core a human-powered organisation. Our own IP, our own ability to apply technology to solve insurance problems is at the core of what we do."
Penny said that this approach has also led to improved staff morale, borne out by their answers to staff surveys.
"92 per cent of technology employees are proud to work at Hiscock. About 90 per cent say they have a positive work life balance."