ISG helps a household-name insurance company and its new managed service provider execute an exemplary organizational change management (OCM) and outreach program, resulting in a stellar 97% rebadging acceptance for valued employees.
Opportunity
A well-known insurance company was outsourcing to a managed service provider (MSP) for the first time at a very significant level, affecting about 1,000 employees across multiple U.S. hubs. The goals were to enable the firm’s long-term IT strategy, drive efficiencies, improve services, refocus on its primary mission of insurance (rather than IT), set the stage for further digital transformation, widen its talent pool to include global opportunities, and cushion the blow of many tenured IT workers reaching retirement age. About 85% of those in affected jobs would receive rebadging offers to work for the new MSP.
The insurance company brought in an ISG organizational change management (OCM) team to help with the transition. Despite the insurance giant’s employee-centric culture, leadership was falling into an all-too-typical trap of “shutting off emotions” as the layoffs approached. ISG effectively advised client resources on how to coach their key executives about balancing empathy with the need to achieve timely results. ISG also guided the client’s OCM team to design a customized, comprehensive outreach program for both the insurance firm and the new provider to lead affected employees through the difficult time and retain critical resources through the rebadging opportunity.
Imagining IT Differently
ISG consulted with leaders to help them understand that speeding up the transition to a proposed, tight, two-week period would only prompt the loss of key employees. A still lean, but more appropriate timeline was developed in which comprehensive OCM and communications were designed and delivered, and a series of crucial meetings were held to reassure and assist affected stakeholders, including:
- Announcements and preparatory materials (toolkit, talking points and more) to guide in-scope directors and managers through one-on-ones with their employees
- Deep involvement and sessions featuring key managers, HR representatives from the MSP, and other known leaders
- Town halls for rebadge candidates and “personal journey” sessions that featured previously rebadged employees
- Welcome meetings and benefits discussions held by the MSP
- Wider announcements as appropriate to the rest of the enterprise and the public
Future Made Possible
- The 97% acceptance rate resulted in the MSP saying, “This is the best outreach program we’ve ever had.”
- The insurance firm underwent an efficient transition with continued access to critical resources, now working for the provider. (This includes the most marketable employees with the most desirable skills, who otherwise could have sought other jobs in a competitive marketplace.)
- The insurance giant also gained deep OCM-for-sourcing expertise from ISG, including announcement and transition strategies and playbooks, leadership alignment, process documentation, change communications and other deliverables that will be leveraged to help with additional transformational efforts at the firm.
- Leaders at both the insurance firm and the MSP were refocused on the importance of empathy and outreach in a transition effort like this, helping to build trust with all of their employees.
- Rebadged employees received a transparent, caring transition to their new jobs, including welcoming education about the provider before joining and a feeling of being taken care of, with a comfortable place to land.
