Direct Line Group’s chief executive says she is proud of her staff managing the stresses of lockdown while serving customers throughout the pandemic
The success of home working to date and the appetite of Direct Line Group’s (DLG) staff to adopt a hybrid model of home and office working post-covid is a huge opportunity, according to the insurer’s chief executive Penny James.
This, she said, could help the insurer save on costs, as well as encourage a more collaborative way of working.
During a live video stream with journalists following the publication of the insurer’s preliminary 2020 financial results, James said: “In March last year, we were a business with virtually all our people working in the office full time that moved to [being] a business which had all our people working from home in the space of a week.
“Within the first month, we’d found new ways to work and communicate and had refocused keeping our transformation on track. Thanks to the commitment and energy of our people, despite the main Covid challenges, once again we have traded well though the year.
“The working model has changed forever. Even pre-pandemic, we were in discussion about how our working environment needed to change to support the cultural shift towards agility we are seeking.”
Going the extra mile
Furthermore, James is proud of her staff for going the extra mile during lockdown.
“Starting with our people, they wanted us to make sure they were safe and secure [by] making home working the norm [and] giving them confidence about their roles, as well as giving them practical support. In return, they went the extra mile to deliver for us. Achieving these results while managing the stresses and the strains of lockdown life has been nothing short of remarkable,” she said.
“Investing in your people always pays back. We know that happy people go the extra mile and that is what our customers have needed from us over the last year and nowhere has this been more crucial than in our travel business.
”Hundreds of people were diverted to the travel team and together they handled over 26,000 customer claims and repatriated over 900 customers stranded abroad,” she added.
Silver lining
Speaking about the “silver linings” of the pandemic, Neil Mansar, DLG’s deputy chief financial officer, agreed that seeing how well staff can deliver work from home was a positive.
He said: “Following the success of agile ways of working in commercial, we have restructured our trading and change areas to a fully agile operating model.
“By doing this, we can respond faster to changing customer demands, reduce the cost of change and therefore contribute to efficiency and growth.”
Direct Line also confirmed it has bought the lease to its biggest site, its head office in Bromley, with the view to restructure it. This will result in a restructuring cost of £85m for this year.
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