What impact has colleagues working from home had on training to ensure high levels of customer service continue to be delivered remotely?

2 minute read

Our Head of Insurance Services, Sam Nicholson, recently spoke to Modern Insurance Magazine about what impact colleagues working from home has had on training and how we ensure high levels of customer service continue to be delivered remotely.

"Similar to most businesses across the last 18 months, Carpenters Group have had to adapt our business model to home working on a full time basis progressing to agile working, being part office/part home based. Obviously, our focus has been the wellbeing of our colleagues as well as ensuring that our customers have a seamless journey regardless of our location at the time of their contact.

However, we have all experienced the change moving from the support and camaraderie of the office to the isolation of home working. Our traditional methods of face-to-face coaching and support were no longer appropriate, so we had to work quickly to ensure assistance continued for individuals and that they could easily ask for help when required.

Fortunately, we have been able to take advantage of the digital innovation that has been accelerated because of the increase in home working due to the pandemic, as well as advances in online learning tools. This has made accessibility and flexibility much easier allowing colleagues to access from multiple platforms where and when they want. They can complete training at their own pace and can recap elements as many times as necessary. We have the ability to cater for many learning styles now rather than classroom based one size fits all. The progress in this area with the creation of virtual classrooms ensures that participants have the same interaction and discussions as they would in the classroom with the additional benefits of online learning.

Ensuring we have an evaluation at the end of each course so our training team can assess understanding is vital, and ensures they can provide any additional one to one support as required and requested. This flexibility works day to day as well as during formal training sessions. We have also completely overhauled our induction process utilising face-to-face and online learning tools, the feedback from our colleagues on this change has been fantastic and they appreciate the different options.

The pandemic has completely changed how we now work, traditionally the only option was full time office based and all training was in person, classroom based. We have been taken out of our comfort zone and had to look at other options in a fairly short space of time, introducing new methods which will benefit our customers and us now and in the future."

Sam Nicholson
Head of Insurance Services, Carpenters Group

Credit: Modern Insurance Magazine