'Tis the season! Time to lift our spirits and reflect on all that made the past year what it was. If you’re thinking about your upcoming holiday plans, at some point tradition will surely mandate binge-watching holiday classics new and old such as the famous 1990 film Home Alone. As we navigate through yet another year of the pandemic, Kevin McCallister is here again to teach us how to make the best out of a bad situation and thrive, not just survive. 

In 2020, coronavirus pushed us into a form of isolation that exerted a tremendous effect on our mental and physical well-being. Although the learning curve was steep, we proved to be good at adapting, just like Kevin. Covid-19 slowed down many areas of our lives as well as the global economy, but it accelerated other aspects, such as digitalization. 

It also set out to transform the world of work. 

The pandemic triggered a mass social experiment in working from home (WFH). According to the estimates provided by VoxEU using household survey data for 31 countries for the second quarter of 2020, 557 million workers worked from home, accounting for 17.4 percent of the world’s employment. This seismic shift in working arrangements attracted no shortage of opinions about WFH. 

However, regardless of the plethora of views concerning WFH, employees and companies had to make WFH work almost instantly. With Covid-19 and new pandemic waves still ongoing, companies, together with their employees, began shaping the future of working life that goes well beyond just remote working. One that looks at the nature of work itself. 

Widespread working from home started as an emergency measure that slowly transformed into a model companies kept developing as the pandemic persisted. Soon after the shift to working from home, Allianz laid the foundations of its New Work Model (NWM), with a mission to create a blueprint for the future of work at the Group and at the same time, accelerate its transformation. In August 2021, after having introduced the NWM in 2020, Allianz took a further step in the work model’s evolution and rolled out a set of Global Minimum Standards for its new Ways of Working (WOW) applicable to Allianz companies Group-wide. 

Flexibility, collaboration, and agility became the building blocks of the Allianz WOW standards that revolve around five key action points: 1) flexible work and reduced travel; 2) digital tools; 3) health and well-being; 4) lifelong learning; and 5) organization and culture. 

It is clear by now that working continuously from home comes with its own set of challenges. Human beings need real social interaction and the feeling of being part of a team can be harder to achieve while sitting alone in your office corner at home despite all the technological advancements. Team cohesion, innovation, and spontaneity are not impossible to achieve virtually, as we have proven so far, but they do require more intentionality. For this reason, Allianz has decided to establish hybrid work as the new normal, which combines the best of both worlds—work from home and in-office. 

With the new Group-wide standards, Allianz offers its employees the option to work remotely a minimum of 40 percent of the time. Additionally, in practice, each operating entity within Allianz may strengthen and expand all company offers according to their local needs. 

These efforts also go hand in hand with the sustainability goals the company has achieved so far. Allianz wants its employees to spend more time where it matters while protecting the environment. For that reason, the company has reduced non-essential business travel globally by 40 percent. The decrease in non-essential business travel and commuting will help Allianz further reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions.

As we take a closer look at the impact of the Allianz WOW, we begin with examples influencing the heartbeat of Allianz—its people.

A hybrid working model needs a  stable and secure infrastructure to make the switch from home to in-office work and vice versa seamless. The digital transformation that Allianz embarked on a decade ago gave it a head start, as the company implemented virtual workplaces with its Allianz Virtual Client (AVC) solution as early as 2011. Today, this core platform alone has more than 110,000 users globally, with more being added daily.

As for team collaboration and interaction, the company and its employees benefit by utilizing standard digital collaboration tools (Microsoft365, Slido, WebEx etc.). Far more customized are the new office concepts, with spaces equipped to support hybrid meetings.

Busy, isolated, and anxious could easily be the key words describing the pandemic experience­, especially while juggling home, work, and family. 

For these and similar reasons, Allianz employees have been given access to anonymous professional support hotlines, called Employee Assistance Programs (EAP). These hotlines are free of charge and can provide help and support for multiple challenging life situations, such as feelings of prolonged stress, anxiety, burnout, issues with one’s manager or peers, problems in relationships, families and more. 

The company also has invested in growing a large global community dedicated to mental health through mindfulness trainings, mental health podcasts, meditation sessions, resilience trainings and more. The WOW standards also introduced Three Work Effectiveness Rules about setting aside dedicated focus times (from half-day to full-day meeting-free periods), establishing an Allianz meeting etiquette for productive meeting habits, and respecting the employee’s time to disconnect.

Allianz has prioritized becoming a continuous learning organization as upskilling and reskilling are crucial for its workforce to remain future-oriented. The company endorses individual learning time and encourages employees to devote one hour of work time per week to learning as part of the new WOW standards. 

To support continuous learning, Allianz introduced the AllianzU learning platform, a state-of-the-art, digital learning platform available in 27 languages and powered by Degreed to all its employees. With the help of Degreed, Allianz employees can address their individual learning needs with a personalized learning offer. This is combined with further Allianz efforts to drive upskilling and reskilling to support its Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP).

Lifelong learning also applies, of course, to leadership. In 2020 Allianz initiated the leadership development program #lead. At the heart of the program is the Allianz Leadership Passport, the ‘license’ that people leaders must have to effectively manage teams. Over 18,000 managers, regardless of level, experience or location, have embarked on the journey to obtain this passport before the end of 2021. The skills gained throughout the program will be regularly refreshed to reflect the latest learnings and insights.

A team that works together stays together, goes the old adage. The culture a company encourages represents the shared values, attitudes, and behaviors of an organization and its employees. When properly aligned, it has the power to unleash energy toward a shared purpose and foster the organization’s capacity to thrive.

Allianz’s new WOW standards directly influence the organization and culture of the Group through cultural change programs that include: learning modules for all employees on how to work effectively in a hybrid set-up; needs-based learning sprints, practical exercises for leaders and teams on challenging situations in the hybrid set-up; and cultural team workshops focused on trust, empowerment, and  performance based on outcomes.

This transformation yielded favorable results in many aspects: from increased productivity to customer satisfaction. Allianz Turkey became a Loyalty Leader in all lines of business and employee engagement scores spiked. HEY! has been rewarded with seven awards from distinguished organizations such as Stevie, Sardis, and Prida. “With WOW, a meticulously prepared initiative has been launched that serves all our requirements,” added Ayşe İrem, a team member from Allianz Turkey.

In addition to increasing performance, WOW also proved to increase the company’s attractiveness as an employer: 

A company that is able to anticipate trends and developments will also be able to adjust to changes faster and cater to its customers’ needs even in the midst of a major disruption such as a pandemic. The pandemic proved just how important WOW is for the company’s business goals. The combination of technology, flexibility, and employee empowerment meant that Allianz was able to switch to remote work (now, hybrid work) almost overnight and offer its customers services from anywhere and at any time. 

This was also true for Wolfgang Schwarz, a loss adjuster for Motor, working at Allianz Germany. Wolfgang sits in Regensburg and works from home, as do his colleagues. Loss adjusters are stationed at different locations so they can assess car damages and see the customers in person.

For loss adjusters, WFH was already an established working mode prior to the pandemic, and Wolfgang has been settling small damages remotely. This reduced costs and increased efficiency.