A recent study revealed that “over the last 15 years, the amount of procedures, vertical layers, coordination bodies, and decision approvals needed…has increased by anywhere from 50 percent to 350 percent.” What’s more, in the most complicated organizations, “managers spend 40 percent of their time writing reports and 30 to 60 percent of their time in meetings.”
Sometimes, innovation is defined as eliminating the things that are holding us back from creating the exceptional, effortless experiences for our consumers. In an effort to simplify so it can focus on innovation and creating an exceptional customer experience, The Guardian Life Insurance Company partnered with Lisa Bodell, author of “Kill the Company,” and ran simplification workshops and a corresponding simplification challenge across the Guardian enterprise.
Program Details
Leveraging Guardian’s IdeaHub platform, organizations and teams participated in simplification workshops and then submitted their best ideas through the IdeaHub platform. All colleagues then had the opportunity to “like” and vote on simplification ideas. More than 4,000 employees participated in the workshops and challenge, and 500-plus simplification ideas were surfaced. Within eight weeks, 20 projects were launched to simplify how Guardian does business.
The company is tracking all 500 ideas and reporting out on their implementation, as well as continuing to collect more ideas to simplify and deliver the experiences its consumers expect and deserve. Executive leaders have participated in the workshops, the video updates, and ongoing corporate communications on the initiative.
The simplification initiative kicked off at Guardian’s Senior Leadership Meeting, and the top 220 senior leaders in the organization (including the CEO, CFO, CIO, executive VPs, senior VPs, etc.) participated in the first simplification workshop. Then they led workshops with their organizations and teams. The chief financial officer reviews the results of this initiative in all employee town halls on a quarterly basis.
Results
One of the projects that emerged from the workshop responses was the simplification of Guardian’s performance management process (PMP). Last June, the company reduced its PMP templates from 11 to 1 and streamlined the workflows. Guardian estimates it saved 5,000 hours of employee time normally spent on documentation and process that was repurposed into meaningful feedback conversations.
One example of the 20 simplification projects that were launched based upon workshop responses was the simplification and enhancement of Guardian’s Tuition Assistance Benefit. Within the first month of launching the new benefit, the company had more than 800 inquiries into the benefit (8 times the entire previous year’s results) and a 20 percent increase in college enrollments. Guardian anticipates approximately a 30 percent ROI on its new benefit over time based on retention of talent.
