AXA XL Navigator Summit makes generative AI, the skills-based revolution and talent experience tangible for people leaders.
supported by subject matter expertise and interactive workshops from Randstad Advisory, AXA XL is driving education and change among its centers of excellence to unlock a better future for the company and its people
Industry leaders achieve their frontrunner status by continuously innovating for clients, but what happens when they’re the ones in need of reinvention? For insurance giant AXA XL, a bit of outside-in perspective was all it needed to reignite the imagination of its talent team.
As one of the largest specialty insurers in the world, AXA XL is known for managing the most complex risks. A division of AXA, the company helps enterprises of every kind and size navigate the unexpected, offering traditional and innovative solutions in more than 200 countries and territories. AXA XL has a long track record of servicing clients with truly unique insurance and reinsurance needs. Serving a broad spectrum of industries, ranging from aerospace to livestock to real estate, the company possesses an incredibly diverse portfolio.
That diversity of services also means its talent needs are broad and specialized. From master mariners to jazz musicians to chemical engineers, the breadth of expertise its clients require are truly unique. And as the global economy evolves, the risks that insurers must manage are also becoming more varied and complex, further requiring expert insights and specialization.
For instance, digital transformation is not only changing the nature of the insurance and reinsurance business, it’s also forcing a rethinking of work and the talent companies will need in the future. This realization is leading AXA XL, and others in the industry, to take a hard look at how their businesses must evolve and adapt to create more holistic and effective talent strategies.
unifying purpose and driving workforce collaboration
At a recent global meeting, company leaders concluded they needed to better align the organization’s people under the AXA XL brand, rather than teams identifying with the regions they serve, according to David Jones, the company’s global head of Talent and Employee Experience. By unifying purpose and bolstering workforce collaboration around the world under its Navigator initiative, business leaders believe they can change behaviors and unlock a better future for the company and its employees.
The initiative is part of the company’s growth effort in a new, strategic cycle, which began this year. To achieve its goals, the company is focusing on two key areas: aligning the senior leadership team behind the brand, and reinforcing the company’s purpose and value. These will serve as the guiding principles of AXA XL’s people strategy during the three-year cycle.
“This really brings together a very clear narrative about why we exist as an organization, what it is that we're here to do, and how we want people to show up within the organization,” Jones says.
gaining outside-in expert perspectives
Having clear goals and a strategy is critical, but achieving those goals often requires significant change management and a shift in the way employees think and collaborate. To help drive the strategy forward, the AXA XL HR team plays a crucial role in enabling the change and supporting the business through inevitable challenges of something at this scale and across multiple geographies.
Part of this process was an off-site summit where 70 members from AXA XL’s HR Centers of Excellence (COEs) came together and mapped out how the company would embed its strategic drivers into ways of working and bring the vision that executives had developed for its business to life.
In preparing for the workshop, however, Jones says he and HR Chief of Staff Suzanne McArthur realized the workforce model for success needed a reset, and they sought to create an agenda that would “delight and excite” the team.
“We wanted to create a shift in thinking and set a different tone for the leadership group to operate with going forward. Suzanne and I spent many hours talking about this and wanted the workshop to be something that was also immersive,” he recalls.
McArthur adds that a key goal was to break down the silos separating COEs to drive collaboration on mutual interests. “There are interdependencies with some of these topics, so it doesn’t matter where you sit. We can still collaborate on thinking”, she explains.
They further realized outside guidance and subject matter expertise could accelerate reaching their goals. From the adoption of AI tools in HR to skilling and nurturing human potential, critical topics were identified as factors that could elevate workforce performance. Choosing the right advisory service was also critical to success. In the end, the company sought expertise from Randstad Advisory, an independent arm of Randstad Enterprise.
“We were intimately familiar with the vision that AXA XL had laid out, and its transformation goals were ambitious and exciting. However, changing mindsets and helping people to acclimate to change can be challenging for leadership, so our role was to facilitate new ways of thinking and collaboration so they can overcome the roadblocks in their journey,” says Nishma Aguado, the head of EMEA talent advisory at Randstad Enterprise.
making theory practical
Over several days, the Randstad Advisory team led workshops on a number of topics ranging from generative AI to skills-based organizations to the talent experience. Helping functional leaders better grasp the forces that are altering the nature of work and the sentiments of talent is a crucial step in improving performance among AXA XL’s teams. Randstad Advisory offered insights on the evolving role of technology for the company’s COEs, skilling, and the impact on attrition and career growth, talent attraction and more to facilitate change. One of the most well-received sessions was presented by industry-recognized AI and talent technology expert Glen Cathey. From its transformative impact on recruitment to everyday application in the flow of work, Cathey’s workshop outlined how AI is leading to unparalleled gains in productivity and innovation. For instance, Randstad has experienced a 10-fold improvement in job advertising creation using generative tools (from 22.5 minutes to 2.38 minutes).
These kinds of potential gains are why AXA XL leadership sought out expert insights on the topic, Jones says. He believes the interactive session is helping the AXA XL team fully comprehend the possibilities of AI. “I haven’t realized or embraced it in the way that I probably should have. There's a wealth of opportunities, so we spent a lot of time during the session looking at how it can impact processes,” he says.
McArthur added that interactive exercises conducted during the workshop also helped her colleagues prepare to adapt and thrive in a different future of work. “The generative AI session really resonated. Our people benefited from that workshop because they know the technology is something that’s here and imminent,” she adds.
challenging leaders to rethink their ways of doing business
The workshop also provided the COE leaders a look into the future of work in a number of ways, including the evolving and growing influence of human capital leaders on their businesses, helping people fulfill their potential and the skills-based revolution, leveraging talent experience as differentiator for employers and the disparate needs and sentiments of different generations in the workforce. Each discussion reframed how current world of work trends make it necessary to rethink the company’s way of doing business and executing its people strategy.
Beyond absorbing expert advice during the workshop, AXA XL leaders engaged in simulation exercises designed and facilitated by Randstad Advisory. In these exercises, five teams were each given a unique challenge, with two weeks to develop a new initiative aimed at improving people-related strategies. Each team then pitched their ideas to a panel of business and HR leaders.
The exercise, which fostered innovation and collaboration across a global group, resulted in five strong strategies. Ultimately, the leadership panel selected one winning proposal — a strategy focused on enhancing collaboration and innovation within the HR function — for its bold vision and potential for lasting impact. The value of such an exercise, Jones and McArthur point out, is in eliciting new ways of thinking and communicating. It also allowed workshop participants to convert the insights Randstad Advisory provided into practical solutions that can be activated after the summit.
“It challenged us massively. We have colleagues who have been in the insurance industry for many years in their roles, and others coming in completely fresh from different industries and backgrounds. We wanted to bring this diverse group of colleagues together from their respective fields of expertise to say: Hey, this is something we all need to work on collectively,” McArthur says. “It made us reflect on how we can build some of our thought leadership into these roles, and how we enable and utilize that.”
Jones adds that the best practices and deep industry insights of Randstad's Advisory consultants allows AXA XL to confirm its strategy and keep it aligned to business leaders’ vision during the current cycle. “By bringing in an external perspective, we gain further validity to a lot of initiatives we have been doing. And that potential reframing of the work also takes us two steps forward,” he adds. “Would we do this again? Absolutely.”