Dealing with a backlog of claims is not uncommon for any large insurer but when Allianz faced a stockpile of motor claims in 2021, it went looking for a new solution to an old problem.
Covid lockdowns had disrupted offshore processing operations and it was struggling to fill temp roles to deal with about 5000 assessment reports for motor claims.
“We’d train them up and they'd last two or three weeks, maybe four weeks max, [only] to get a better offer where the work was more stimulating and we'd be back to square one,” Glenn Slater (pictured above), Senior Human Resources Business Partner at Allianz Insurance told HRD.
“I said ‘hey, let’s think outside the square’.”
Armed with experience from a previous role at Westpac, Slater pitched the idea of partnering with Jigsaw, a social enterprise that trains and transitions people with disabilities into mainstream employment.
Launched as a six-month pilot project, the first four Jigsaw trainees reduced the stockpile of claims to 50 within two weeks – fixing a business problem and, in the process, kickstarted a new employment initiative.
Since the partnership started, 90 Jigsaw trainees have worked at Allianz, with 26 securing permanent positions and 18 employed as contractors, working in areas including catastrophe claims support, risk and compliance, personal injury, and third-party claims.
Slater said the program was always about meeting a business need.
“It wasn't about ticking a box and saying, ‘hey, we're doing the right thing from a social impact perspective’,” he said.
“That was a side benefit. It was about, first and foremost, I need to tap a different talent pool.”
Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Alliance Edyta Torpy (pictured above) said the partnership with Jigsaw aligned with the company’s focus on inclusion, while also getting great people on board to fill a business need.
She said she was proud the company was “putting our money where our mouth is” and supporting a program that benefits the organisation, customers and individuals.
“In 2022, there was something like 2.1 million Australians of working age who are living with a disability and only just over 50% of those are employed, versus over 85% of people without a disability being employed,” she said.
“For us, it made business sense internally but from a wider perspective, it made sense from a community and customer perspective because we were providing employment opportunities to an underemployed group of people who, through this program, it's been obvious that they have delivered much more than was expected and the program has gone from strength to strength.”
Slater believes one of the reasons the program has been succesful is the initial work that was done to breakdown the requirements of the roles into clearly defined tasks and then match the tasks to a trainees’ strengths, not their weaknesses.
“We designed the roles so that it was as efficient as possible and it worked to their strengths,” he said.
"So it was task-based. We did a full assessment with Jigsaw. What are these individuals' strengths?8] They're great at accuracy. They're great at speed. They're great at asking questions."
The teams don't work on phones with customers but provide support through projects such as document remediation. In one case a project in South Australia budgeted for three weeks was completed in three days.
Jigsaw General Manager Valerie Richards (pictured below) agrees skills matching was key to the program’s success.
“Inclusion in a workplace doesn't come with good intent. It only is successful by design. And so you can have the best intentions … but it's only successful if it's properly designed,” she said.
“I think with Allianz, we've proven that our people create a real business outcome. It's not just a good thing.
“It comes down to recognizing what people can do rather than what they can't and that's a key learning,
“Our overall partnership with Allianz has been just incredible. It's given our people at Jigsaw across the country real opportunity. And what really excites me is that Allianz are really keen to work on career progression as well.”
Allianz also worked with its managers to understand the needs of the new trainees and working with neurodiverse employees. “Trigger packs” where created so managers understood the needs of individuals, from needing breaks at certain times to the impact of noisy environments.
Slater said an unintended but powerful benefit of the program was the number of staff who have disclosed they have ADHD or been recently diagnosed as neurodiverse.
“There's such a stigma with hidden disabilities that people bottle it all up and they don't feel safe. It's more inclusive because people feel safe to share because we are role modelling and we're spotlighting this program. And we can't put a price on that” he said.
Torpy said the program had also expanded the understanding and empathy across the business and to customers.
“Working with people who aren't necessarily like you or have different lived experiences means that we then become more open to the differences in people and what they need,” she said.
“So our people become more empathetic and more understanding of our customers and when that happens that's where the magic happens.
“That's when our customers feel that they've been heard and valued and supported through what is often the worst times in their life.”
