As COVID-19 began its worldwide spread almost two years ago, the insurance industry was among those forced to make an abrupt shift to remote work, taking many businesses by surprise. While the transition turned out smoother than some feared, it was full of uncertainty as it unfolded, and one insurance leader credits his team’s resilience and care for each other in pulling it off.
On the IB Talk podcast, Mark Lingafelter (pictured above), president of Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance in Australasia, recounted how the company navigated the early days of the pandemic as well as when Australia entered its second lockdown in the second half of 2021.
“Any success we had has been entirely driven by switched-on teammates that generally care about how other folk on the team are doing, as opposed to a leader cascading a set of behaviours into the organisation,” Lingafelter said. “We were surprised at how quickly we could pivot to work from home.”
According to Lingafelter, the company stepped into a new structure and set a different cadence of meetings in response to the new situation. Aside from discussing purely business agendas, the teams would make time to connect with each other virtually and look out for each other.
“Ninety-nine percent of this was all driven by the team, and it all comes from the set of values that I spoke about – respect for customers, brokers and co-workers,” he said.
One major change that Lingafelter noted was children having to be schooled at home during lockdowns. This added an extra layer of responsibility for parents, as they had to oversee their children’s learning on top of their own jobs.
“We made sure we were giving enough flexibility to the teams so that they could take care of unexpected demands that these lockdowns bring,” Lingafelter said. “Everybody’s trying their best.”
Moving forward, Berkshire Hathaway will adopt a “four plus one” working schedule, with employees working four days a week at the office and one day at home. He said that this setup will enable a deeper sense of collaboration that cannot be replicated by an online call.
“We care about the training we can provide younger teammates that are coming up through our business,” Lingafelter said. “We believe that there is no better way to mentor them than to sit shoulder-to-shoulder, when it is safe to do so, and work together as a team.”
