The subject matter experts from WNS will give insight on the ways to solve staffing challenges underpinned by global talent supply and accelerated digital transformation.
The speakers will discuss the following points:
- Social media platform recruiting – making insurance a sought-after profession for millennials, attracting the digital-savvy talent you need
- Creating innovative ecosystems for your team to handle a balanced “return to the office” and work from home
- Training programs/ courses designed to build skills and careers – adding/ upskilling your retained talent
- Outsourcing talent globally – multi-geographical solutions to provide rapid access to the talent or skills at a greater scale and a lower cost
Alex Kloubek: (
So thank you everyone for, taking the time today at dig into, listen to us about in the talent trenches. So WNS is, is a business process management company. And we focus on bringing in a lot of digital domain expertise and data together from an analytics perspective. And so this is digging conference, right? So we think digital, but we're gonna talk about another side that really, is really quite relevant today. And particularly for the insurance carriers, startups and a lot of insurance techs that we do business with, and it really is the search for talent. just given the aging workforce in the insurance marketplace, the supply side has gone down, but the demand side has continually increased year over year in the U.S. And that's what we wanted to talk about today and kind of share with you, how we've leveraged more of a global model to help our partners and our carriers beyond just the digitization that we bring in an operating service model, but really helping to identify, call home, train, create careers for folks, and really create a model that continues to provide the value that carriers, inure techs and others in the insurance industry are truly looking for from a customer experience and a service perspective.
Alex Kloubek: (
So just I'll give you 30 seconds about myself and then I'll let the panel introduce themselves as well. So I, I'm Alex Kloubek, I run strategic growth for WNS focusing on a few verticals, insurance is our largest vertical at WNS. So we spend a lot of time there. And my colleagues here are all part of the insurance business. I spent the bulk of my career in transformation analytics, and really focusing on bringing together the people domain, the data and the digital together. So this is kind of just a natural way to look at it and where you really wanna fill in gaps to provide value for your overall customers and policyholders. So with that I'll have the panel introduce themselves.
Kush Shah: (
All right. Thanks Alex. hi, this is Kush Shah. I lead the data analytics and artificial intelligence practice for WNS in North America, with focus on insurance and financial services 21 years in this space. and my focus has always been on how do we create business impact with help of data and analytics?
Alex Kloubek: (
Mohit.
Mohit: (
Hi I am Mohit, I'm part of the insurance sales team in WNS. I've spent close to 20 plus years in the insurance industry, both in the sales side, as well as in software product management. Happy to be here. Thanks.
Sandeep Bradoo: (
Good evening. So my name is Sandeep Braudu. I'm actually just about a month old in the firm. I, come with 16 years of experience in the insurance space. I've run very large operations, about 2000 FTEs globally. I've done very complex insurance transitions, with a global model, run transformation agendas for insurance carriers and I'm now responsible for insurance growth at WNS, within north America.
Alex Kloubek: (
Thanks Sandy. And so everyone I have on the panel today has, has really built, grown and seen the model for talent and digital evolve over the last 20 years each respectively. So I thought this would be a good group to discuss this with, and I'm gonna probably spends the next 15, 18 minutes just interviewing the panel, getting their perspective on the talent war and what's being done in the marketplace and to solve that. And then I'd like to open it up to the audience. So I want everyone here. You're investing the time to get your questions and get any value out of this that you're looking for. So with that I'll start. So, gentlemen, how has the market for talent been changing over the last few years domestically pre and post COVID cause you wanna start?
Kush Shah: (
Yeah, sure. So from an analytics and data science perspective, I mean, pre COVID, we were already seeing a lot of, kind of talent shortage in the market. The demand was always high. I mean, ever since the industry has started talking about big data machine learning, artificial intelligence, kind of tools to solve problems the demand for this roles have been higher and the cost also has been going up continuously for this resources. so I mean, post COVID, dynamics have changed a little bit. I mean, pre COVID, the demand was higher post COVID. The demand is even more high, than pre COVID. but then the dynamics have changed because the talent market has opened up for people who are ready to work remotely. So the whole relocation aspect for people for talent, right. migration of talent from one city to another one state to another that's gone out of the door and that has actually opened up a wider pool that's available. Yeah.
Alex Kloubek: (
And why don't you guys add a little perspective on kind of the complexity yeah. Of talent and how that's changed just given how many years you guys have spent in this industry and right. And what's how has that evolved in terms of the complexity spectrum?
Sandeep Bradoo: (
Yeah. Interesting question, Alex, I'll take that, look, well I think, you know the outsourcing industry sort of started with basic sort of data entry noncore customer contact center sort of work, right. That's how the industry started and what it's evolved to now is having functional experts, domain experts doing end to end work. Right. So I'll give you a few examples. about 10 years back, we were talking about, can you actually, data enter claims, can you do level one basic customer service work? I think now the conversations with carriers are very different. Can you pick up my billing function and actually transform it completely? and that's using op operations management, that's using technology, that's using analytics and other components of digital, right? So I think that's where the conversations have evolved.
Sandeep Bradoo: (
And all of this has been accelerated by the pandemic. So, now I think the conversations are, Hey what take my function end to end, give me a TPA model, right? Bring in the platform, billing, bring in a system integrator, run my service, and gimme an end to end experience for the customer. Right, So I think that's where it's evolved. And in terms of sort of building that talent globally there's a lot of investment firms like WNS has done. Right. So bringing in insurance academies, offshore training talent to sort of certified nurses to be U.S Nurse certifications. Right. So I think so all of that investments have been done by firms like WNS
Alex Kloubek: (
Mohit do you want anything about?
Mohit: (
Yeah, I mean the fundamental shift is, it's moved from a pure cost arbitrage model through a productivity based model because earlier routine work like simple claims entry, new business, data entry, document management, document scanning, new business scanning these standard tasks, people are looking to outsource and they were happy to pay. I wouldn't say happy, nobody pays happily, but they were okay to pay a FT, Based fee that has completely changed to the, Hey, listen I have this process, just take it over, give me a 10% year on year productivity gain. I don't care how you do it. that's one part, secondly, is a multi tower approach to transformation with meaning that digital is taken for granted that you have digital capability that brings in additional skills, next gen skills that you need to bring into the marketplace.
Mohit: (
And more than that if you look at the insurance industry and sorry, I'm a bit biased because of the time I've spent there. There is tons and tons of legacy in the industry. I mean there is mainframe that assembler I don't think other than probably travel you won't find so much of legacy in this industry, so people are modernizing, but they are not migrating because quite a few CIOs or CEOs have told me that, Hey, listen in a lifetime, I'll just do one migration. I won't migrate again. So very few people don't want to migrate, or rather most people don't want to migrate, but still they want to take advantage of a modern infrastructure, which is going into the cloud a SAS based model. So the entire dynamics has changed completely. And it's, a result based productivity, commitments, SLA commitments, service line service, credit commitments, and more than anything else digital skills, which everybody is doing.
Mohit: (
Just to give you a small example. I mean I think all of us are insurers here, actuarial. That is something that all insurers held close to the heart for a very long time saying that this is specialized work only we will do it, but now, we run an actual practice and we probably have the biggest actual practice outside the career industrial almost 500 plus actuaries. So a lot of actuarial work itself is being, farmed out based on service line service credits based on SLA. So that itself means that it's hitting the heart of the industry and it's, accelerating the industry transformation in a big way.
Alex Kloubek: (
So somehow Mohit you and Sandy bring up good points where you're tangentially really referring to risk in that the risk appetite has become, more open if you will, right? The willingness to, entrust a third party vendor to be able to deliver directly to their customers on the front end and on the back end. what do you think has really driven that shift? How much of it would you say is from a need to transform? How much would you say is from the supply side constraints that exist domestically and the supply capacity globally? I mean, you guys have been in this industry for a while. How would you kind of categorize what those fundamental shifts would be? And if there was any one inflection point or not really, it's a combination of multiple factors.
Mohit: (
I would say it's a combination of multiple factors. Number one is the willingness of procurement in insurance companies to take a risk or a willingness for shadow I.T, to influence procurement, to take a risk and bring inure tech into the ecosystem earlier, if you could a lot of these insure techs had to work through the, larger size or the big four or big five to get into the insurance company ecosystem that has changed. So automatically procurement is willing to take risks. Number one, number two is the huge, I would say huge issues were there earlier with integration now with the new API economy coming in, those integration concerns have reduced. And third, what has played a big part is this concept of remote working and because of remote working, a lot of business process improvements, a lot of automation has come into the ecosystem, which is people, I mean, it's difficult to find people.
Mohit: (
So how, but you do your work, how do you do that? You have to automate, how do you automate? We start with the simple things, start with forms, start with new business entry, try to make the process as seamless as possible and that's one second part is millennials have come big time into the economy. So a millennial like our children will never, talk to an agent and fill a 32 page insurance application form. They will possibly get feedback from social media, go in and try to buy D to C direct to consumer model. So these business process changes and these adjustments are these refinements and have had to be done otherwise you don't survive.
Alex Kloubek: (
So I just want to, before you add to that, Sandy, let me just put a little bit more directions that so, Mohit was just referring to the talent, right? And the young talent that we're bringing in, and obviously that you, that insurers need to refresh just because of the aging population and insurance carriers. So as you guys have built operations, even built operations, what is necessary today? We've all changed right over the last two and a half years, but obviously the millennial workforce has kind of already had a different perspective than many of us that have been established in the workplace. So what is a recruiter need to do today? Yeah. To be able to recruit effectively to interest, qualified talent, and then to be effectively retaining them for the longer term, what needs to be done in that kind of in those ingredients to make that work today.
Sandeep Bradoo: (
Yeah. Interesting question, I'll tell you, I mean, I've been hiring as part of running op large operations, I've been hiring candidates it's been for 15, 16 years. Right. And if you look at the hiring funnel, typically 5 to 6% of who come in actually get hired. right. But I think what's, happened after the pandemic is it's sort of reversed now you have to go out and give them a reason as to why they should join a firm like WNS, and that's a big shift, right? Because the talent pool that you're trying to acquire now from the market wants a reason, wants to understand why this firm is a cultural fit for me. Do you actually have a good, nice facility that I can go and work in?
Sandeep Bradoo: (
Right. And what are the benefits that you offer to me? I think these are the conversations that are happening with the prospective candidates incumbents, and I don't think that was, that was the case five years back, six years back. I mean, so it's the supply demand equation that's changed. So I think that's, the biggest shift. The second thing I think, running a global operation, right? So you are, so for example we have operations in from an onshore perspective here in the U.S, Then there's nearshore operations, whether it's central America, south America then it's Europe, then it's Africa and South Africa, then India, Philippines and every geography is different. So you really need to understand what's happening in that particular geography, the talent that you the way you wanna hire talent in India is going to be different than the way you wanna hire talent in let's say, Eastern Europe or the U.S. but I think one thing is very common across all geographies, which is the purpose, what the organization is doing, what the organization believes in, and if they can provide a career. Right. So that's what market is looking at. That's what the challenge
Alex Kloubek: (
Is. Thank you, Sandy Kush, you wanna elaborate a little bit around the importance of building the career as well as diversity and inclusion yeah. In this marketplace.
Kush Shah: (
Yeah, sure. So from a data and analytics perspective or data science roles perspective, right? I mean the five Years, or seven years ago when I used to interview people I mean, their focus was always on, immediate tasks. What kind of technologies I'm gonna use? what are the new programming languages I'm gonna learn as part of my job today, that whole dynamics has changed completely. So people, I mean, especially the millennial talent that we're looking at is asking more purpose driven questions. So how is my work actually gonna create an impact? That's the question that comes more often, right. So in insurance industry, I mean, there's a whole lot of examples where they can create impact. so that's what is driving a lot of millennial talent to come to insurance industry, but then there are kind of three different segments of people within the data science industry, the talent within the data science industry.
Kush Shah: (
So first one is pure research and development talent, which works, which typically likes to work in a lab, kind of an environment, develop new machine learning algorithms, develop new, new kind of prototypes for models, et cetera, data models, et cetera and there are a lot of insurance companies and insure tech companies who are hiring that talent to develop new products, new services. The second landscape is more about the execution talent, which is all the people who are gonna run the reports on a day to day basis. They're gonna cleanse the data they're gonna kind of look at the models and maintain the models. and then there is a third set of people who are asking that more purpose driven question, and their focus is more on how do I actually deliver business impact. So if I'm working on a fraud analytics example or case study for my employer, then how do I actually reduce my fraud?
Kush Shah: (
I mean my claims payouts for fraudulent claims, right? That's, the kind of motivators they're looking at. So that's, that's a very different kind of dynamic and from a diversity and inclusion perspective again, I mean, it's, playing a big role now, especially in the post pandemic world where a whole lot of work from home concept that has come in and more as a permanent concept for a large part of the industry talent that was not easily available to insurance industry has suddenly become available talent, like working, I mean, mothers who were, who were probably on maternity and wanted to come back to the industry, but they probably didn't have a chance to do that. Now they have an opportunity because they can work remotely, they can manage their babies and they can still continue to work and leverage their expertise. Right. So, I mean there are number of such examples. So I think that dynamics is changing a lot. And if you have to address the challenges, in the industry, we have to probably tap into that. And that's, that's probably what we are doing. I think across the industry,
Alex Kloubek: (
You guys have anything to add? No,
Sandeep Bradoo: (
No, I think, I think Kush covered it well you had nothing to add, but I'll tell you very interesting question that I was asked about couple months back, I was hiring a line line of business manager and, so, the conversation was almost over and it's customary to ask the candidate, right. So do you have any questions for me? Right. We all do that. And, the question the gentleman asked me was, so what's your company's take on carbon footprint. Like how how's your company reducing carbon footprint. And I completely got stumped. I actually had no answer to that. And so I the point I'm making is that, just to sort of add to what Christ was saying, I think you really have to be prepared and you really have to be prepared with the purpose, of the organization, what it stands for, whether it's, diversity inclusion, sustainability, I think all those conversations are on the table right now.
Alex Kloubek: (
Can you guys talk a little bit about the importance of engaging the new workforce to motivate them, from a retention perspective, as well as from a recognition point of view and really the importance of that and how that's changed. Anyone want to field.
Mohit: (
I'll take a shot at it. So, a couple of things and, there's something I got stamped a bit about a year back when there's a gentleman who we hired and he pulled out and we asked him what happened. They said, oh your office looks like a hospital. So I wouldn't like to come in. And, I said, but it's work from home. So how does it impact you? He said, no, but ultimately I might have to come. Even if I have to come once or twice a week, I still have to attend, but I don't like your place. I said, okay. So it just means that the ecosystem requirements are getting a lot more stringent, even though it is work from home. Still people know that for their personal networking, for their personal career growth to, understand office dynamics, they would need to probably visit the office probably once a week, twice a week or whatever they want, but still they want that place to be homely.
Mohit: (
They want that place to be exclusive. So that is an ecosystem thing. And that is something that, from an organization perspective that we have taken care of that, there should be innovation in the workplace, open spaces and all that stuff the typical, NextGen office that we see either in a Google or whatever so those, have been considered that's number one, number two, in terms of NextGen motivation. Well, there's a difference in expectations, money. Doesn't motivate them very much. That is very clear. I've seen with NextGen. It is a factor definitely, but it is not a very, high sort of a high percentage. It doesn't cater for a very high requirement. What really motivates them is in three years, what will I be doing? What are the value add that your organization will provide?
Mohit: (
Do you guys have a, sort of a compulsory value edition training that I can do offline? Do you have a sort of a virtue university in your organization using which I can get some additional, accredit predictions, I can get some additional qualifications online whatever it is it's, something to do with data science, something do with AI,ML. Whatever it is, but there needs to be this virtual university that they can go to. And what they prefer is from an organization perspective, do you have a plan by which I need to reserve a couple of hours a week for my self development and that is within the organization time, but that is my personal time. So one is reserve time for value. Add number two is of course is always been there job rotation, except that the rubber band is being stretched a bit earlier. They used to talk about a rotation probably every six months. Now they're talking of probably rotation every quarter, if possible. I know from our organization perspective, we do have constraints. We can't do that, but we need to have a plan. So plan to rotate, plan to value, add a good ecosystem in place, so these are the factors that have come in and I think they've become stronger, I would say over the last one and a half years.
Alex Kloubek: (
And I'll just share a little story on that point, and really what you're talking about is, establishing a local brand. Yeah, that, that talent in the marketplace recognizes and they can associate with and they want to be a part of, and so we had an event, we had a client, that was looking for us to expand their voice operations in South Africa, and they needed, they were expanding their business, and they needed 200 people within a week and a half. And we asked our associates, our existing associates to post on Facebook that we're having an open weekend of interviews. This was on a Friday and the client was looking to see what we can produce by early next week. So our, we have a workforce about 3000 people actually close to about 3,500 people in South Africa, and a good majority of them posted on Facebook.
Alex Kloubek: (
The next morning at 7:00 AM a joke. We had 2000 people lined up to interview at WNS and we're able to call down kind of the talent outfit best for our client by Monday to really desirable 200 that we were looking to recommend. So, but a lot of that had to do with the reference ability of that brand, that the word of mouth and the confidence that our talent had in referring the company that they work for, that they're happy to work for to others. So I'm gonna pause, we have about five minutes left, I'd like to open it up to any questions that people have. Is there a yeah. Is there mic? No, I'm loud. Oh, okay. Good. My wife tells me I'm Loud too.
Audience Member 1: (
So I just wanted to ask, and it somewhat follows what you just shared. How much do we need to use social media, whether it's fishbowl, Glassdoor. Yeah. Facebook, Twitter other things to help really recruit and retain. And what are some of your recommendations around that?
Alex Kloubek: (
I think, all those sources of media are extremely important. I think when this example is a perfect illustration of that and the reference ability is absolutely critical. Yeah. Because it's, very difficult to find the talent in this marketplace because there's so much demand that exists out there that you need to have that indirect point of reference that gives you an edge up. So, 2000 people that came in overnight, if we had posted something on LinkedIn or otherwise, we would've had similar results that you would expect, right. They would've kind of filtered in and tweaked in over time. And we continued to maintain a pool. Absolutely. We would've called on those folks, but we wouldn't have that same level of turnout. So I would definitely encourage those types of activities to continue to provide interest in your brand and show the perspective, talent really what you represent. And it's the point of the panel where, where they'll benefit or what value they're gonna deliver right. Over the long term, not just for themselves, but kind of for the environment and the marketplace.
Sandeep Bradoo: (
Yeah. I think just to just sort of just one small nugget I wanna add there, I don't think in today's day and age, there's a choice of whether we should be using social media or not. Right. I think we all know we have to use it. I think the question is how well can you manage it? and that becomes really, really broad and the messaging that goes, in some of those sites that you mentioned and LinkedIn, I think that really creates your marketing brand and it's extremely powerful and it has wide reach. So it's inevitable. It has to be done. Thanks
Audience Member 2: (
Question. So I have a question. One of the things that used to be always said was that insurance was boring and tech talent wants to go to work for Google and Microsoft and so on and so forth yet, they're seeing really high, despite having environments that are free beer and free popcorn and all that sort of stuff. Right. they're seeing really, really high turnover rate, people go to work, they get Google on their resume for six months, 12 months or whatever. And then it's just a matter of salary escalation every six to 12 months. How do you, how do you resolve that in our Industry?
Alex Kloubek: (
It's a great question. Kush, why don't you answer that from an analytics perspective? Yeah, sure. We'll probably booking a comparable talent from what your example.
Kush Shah: (
Sure. So yeah, as I mentioned earlier, like one of the the key things that we face is what are, what is the value I'm gonna create, right. When you give that experience to this new age talent. Right, so when you go out, I mean one of my data scientists, for example, created a model, a statistical model or machine learning model that actually helped a carrier improve their subrogated recovery by 10% in a year on a particular portfolio of $600 million and the way we communicated that to him was we went back and we appreciated that work. And we said, see, it's not about the model. It's not about the machine learning model that you created. It's not about the Python code. You wrote it's about this 10%. That is the business value that you've created.
Kush Shah: (
And what does that transpire into that basically transpires into people getting lower premium on their auto insurance, right? So that's the impact you're creating now. We don't have to then market it when we start recognizing, we change the narrative, right? That's the, I mean, we're not now talking about what pay we are gonna give you what bonus we are gonna give you, because you performed very well. Your model performed very well. That's not the narrative anymore. The narrative is what impact you created. It's not about the popcorns or the coffee, or the gym in the office. I mean, it's about what big value you are bringing to the industry in insurance. And there are so many such problems that you can solve for the industry. That's what really, what matters to these generation, so when we did that, he actually went out and posted it on social media platforms that I got recognized, because this is the impact I created and that actually attracted a lot more talent for us. So that's, that's the changing dynamics, right? I mean,
Alex Kloubek: (
The other thing I would add to what you were saying Kush was that when you think about historically how people would look to manage and run their careers, you're gonna start as right. An analyst, an associate, a manager, senior manager, get to a VP. And that's, we looked at those as trajectories. Now, what we are doing differently is providing a transparency in terms of that, what you can do. So these are good cases when we bring 'em in it's you're solving this problem today. This is what your peers are doing, that have been working with us for a year and two years and three years. And that's much more powerful providing that transparency and visibility because through media, they all interact. Everyone interacts today anyway, and my kids interact much more than I do. Right and when you look at it from that perspective, that is a much more powerful motivator to create interest and retention within your organization, as well as attract talent than you were able to before. And it's the best way to do it that we've found
Sandeep Bradoo: (
Not, not all attrition is bad, by the way. It is good attrition too. Sometimes you gotta embrace it as well. Right.
Alex Kloubek: (
I think we're at time. I really appreciate everyone's questions. I hope if there's other questions anyone has we're gonna get kicked off the stage and might have to arm wrestle people, but we are, we do have a booth here 107, you can find us the team will be here through the week through Friday. So please come up and we'd love to talk. Thank you. Thank you very much for your time.