Collaboration of convenience? It is an issue many insurance carriers—and just about any American business—has to ask itself when contemplating the value of remote workers to the enterprise.
Much was made of Yahoo's decision to return remote workers to the office and in CEO Marissa Mayer's own work experience this has proven to be the best way to operate. There isn't much doubt that face-to-face connection is the preferred way to collaborate on ideas that could benefit the company.
As our own columnist Paul Rolich writes: "As much as I have enjoyed working from home at different times in my career I think that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer got it right. Google also gets it. They design their campuses and building so that their employees can easily collaborate and work together. Software engineers work best in small groups. And that doesn't mean work from home. Creative solutions require collaboration."
There are viable arguments on both sides, but the insurance industry has relied on remote workers from its very beginning. Many of these people were insurance agents and technically were not employees of the company, but whether they were on the payroll or independent contractors, agents were and are an integral part of the business and often knew more about what was best for the enterprise.
So no matter what areas of the company are viewed as prime positions for a remote workforce, an insurance carrier that hasn't figured out how to bring its employees together to share ideas is probably never going to figure it out.
Another issue involves the Celina Insurance Groups of the world and the thousands of other companies in small towns across this country that have virtually nothing in common with Yahoo and other Silicon Valley companies.
Since the majority of the insurance companies in this country are mid-tier and smaller, there are different pressures that they have to face than those insurers that operate within the top tier. For one thing, many of these companies find it difficult to attract good employees to rural areas, particularly those with the technical knowledge needed in IT.
This is where remote workers can offer a huge benefit. In an interview with Rob Shoenfelt, CIO of Celina Insurance Group, he made it clear that the option to hire remote workers was one of the most valuable tools in the company's HR belt.
Celina would prefer to hire employees who wished to move to smaller communities like Celina, Ohio, but are they willing to accept employees that are less talented than others simply because one is willing to relocate and the other—maybe the more talented of the candidates—would prefer to remain in another—possibly larger—city?
Decisions like these need to be made by each individual company and that is why all options—not some hard and fast rule—can spell the difference between a company's success or failure.
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