Reimagining the Office

Jessica Malagisi, Shauna Durant, & Kevin Yania, from Grange Insurance, were recently featured in COE's webinar series. Their session called "Using a Continuous Improvement Mindset to Reimagine the Office & Hybrid Culture" was so popular that we asked them to address some of the unanswered questions. Here's a continuation of that session's discussion.

How did you help ensure best practices with communication and transparency around the results of your coffee chats, listen sessions, focus groups, etc.; the results of all of these conversations that led to the culture playbooks. Did you share specifics, themes, trends, etc., and did you share results overall and/or unit specific? 

We utilize an approach we call our Listening Strategy, which is a collaboration between our Change Management team, Human Resources and Talent & Training. The initial strategy consisted of multiple types of feedback. We held focus groups with our Change Champions,  working sessions with our officers, and round tables with our managers. We compiled and categorized the information we received in these sessions to present associates and leaders with key themes and trends. The initial feedback was used to help create the first version of our Culture Playbook, but our listening didn’t stop there. We continue to hold monthly and quarterly forums for associates at all levels to share and discuss the way we work and collaborate. This allows us to keep a pulse on the sentiment of the organization and to iterate on our playbook accordingly. Results continue to be shared at an overall organization level. Additionally, with more departments implementing team charters, we are beginning to capture department level data so we can report on a full picture and begin to target specific areas if needed. This strategy is key to our overall cohesion and sense of community. We truly believe our culture will continue to thrive in the hybrid environment with associate-focused strategies like these in place.

Do associates still have the option of working fully remote? 

Our hybrid and remote work profiles are based on the work being done at each role and within each working team.  Leaders work with their teams to decide on the best approach to remote work and in-office collaboration time.  Almost 40% of our workforce was working remotely prior to the pandemic, taking care of our customers and agent partners, and several other teams have begun working remotely, with the option to collaborate in the office whenever necessary.  We continue to listen to associates on the best way to be productive and collaborate with their teams, and leaders are choosing the hybrid and/or remote approaches alongside their teams to determine the most effective way to sustain our positive business outcomes. 

How did you develop a culture of openness and psychological safety - how do you know staff feel safe to provide feedback and how do you develop trust with staff/leadership/management? 

Candor, open dialogue and psychological safety are foundational to the culture at Grange. One of our core values is Communicate Openly. We have always tried to foster an environment of responsible transparency and it starts with leading by example. Our leaders do not shy away from getting in front of associates and answering tough questions. We hold monthly coffee talks with our senior leadership team in which associates can ask any questions they wish.  We also have quarterly all-associate meetings where the senior leadership team often takes an hour’s worth of questions. We also utilize additional tactics that help our associates feel safe providing feedback, like our annual engagement survey and our shorter associate pulse surveys, both of which capture feedback on multiple satisfaction and sentiment drivers.  These  surveys are always anonymous and we see very high response rates.  In addition to our surveys, we rely heavily on our change champion network of over 220 associates representing 19 different departments. Our change champions span all levels and are tasked with listening to their teams and providing candid feedback to our Change Management Team. This information is compiled and provided to our senior leadership and strategy group so we can pivot and make decisions accordingly, if needed. We have developed trust within our organization and change networks with our feedback mechanisms and structured approach to listening to our associates.  Associates understand that actions are taken based on feedback from surveys, coffee talks, town halls, and change champion feedback sessions, and this reinforces our culture of open communication. Our entire return to office strategy has been and will continue to be guided by the voices of our associates. Our Culture Playbook is now on its second iteration, because associates felt safe and empowered to give feedback.