News & Insights

By David Corry, Senior Vice President, Head of Argo Environmental

Hybrid or entirely work-from-home scenarios have introduced new challenges to professional teams around the world. With that in mind, it’s important to make sure employees understand what’s expected of them and what they should expect from their managers.

This was always the case, but in this COVID era, it’s critical because we’re so rarely communicating these expectations face to face.

Because I manage a business unit that covers the entire U.S., my team is operating in different time zones and careful planning is crucial. I make sure to clearly communicate in writing the financial metrics by which my team will be evaluated.

By defining and coming together around both personal and team goals, everyone can encourage each other to learn, grow and succeed.

Professional development at the core

Early career insurance professionals must be mentored in a different way because they’re not coming into an office, and it can be a challenge to do traditional mentoring over Microsoft Teams.

As a manager, I hold daily check-ins, which are important for junior-level staffers, where we speak more casually and ensure each team member is communicating their needs and finding success and fulfillment in their roles.

In addition, I schedule bi-weekly one-on-ones on specific work-related topics, such as how to price business and how to underwrite certain products better. The team generates these topics, and the conversations help to facilitate professional growth, which can go ignored if not addressed directly in hybrid work situations.

Unexpected benefits

We’ve also seen recruitment benefits based on our workplace approach: Argo has successfully recruited employees who had been forced to go back to the office at their previous employers.

Learn more about Life at Argo and working at Argo Group.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about remote work, however. I have a team member in New York who is eager to return to the office. He thrives on big city energy and the office environment. I made sure to respect how he best works and made our New York offices available to him. Providing your employees with the best possible working conditions for their working style goes a long way toward doing the best possible work for your clients.

Hybrid work is here to stay, and the best companies in the world are leading from the front and finding solutions that empower hybrid teams to work even better than they did in the office.

Managers must step up and find new paradigms for work that drive their teams to succeed. It’s not enough to build patchwork networks in the hopes of surviving until the pandemic is over – no one can predict when that will be.

Learn more about Life at Argo and working at Argo Group.