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Technology Modernization for Talent Acquisition and Engagement

Alok Mehta, SVP, CIO Business Systems at Kemper and Emily Smyers, Director, Talent Acquisition at Kemper

Alok Mehta, SVP, CIO Business Systems at Kemper and Emily Smyers, Director, Talent Acquisition at Kemper

To stay competitive in the current environment, more industries are moving at the speed of light when it comes to adopting innovative technologies. These include cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, blockchain, digitization, telematics, wearables, and enhanced user experience.

Historically, the insurance industry had been slow to adopt new technologies, but that is rapidly changing. Having modernized technology enables seamless access to large amounts of data that were previously not as easily accessible and creates unique opportunities for both finding new and engaging current talent.

An example would be the partnership at Kemper between our HR Talent Acquisition (TA) and IT leadership teams. To enable the IT team’s next phase of growth, a dual focus on internal team development and the addition of external experts combine to create a balanced slate of operators that enable the team to excel. It is this woven partnership between the HR and IT leadership that reinforces the support and investment made towards the talent we have today and the talent that will join us tomorrow. We not only want to attract the right talent to our organization, but we also want to keep our talent engaged.

Attracting Talent

When it comes to attracting talent, Kemper recruiters actively engage with talent outside the organization in addition to organic applicants. Recruiters take the time to understand the skillset of an individual and where they may find the best career at Kemper. Kemper recruiters use technology-based tools such as LinkedIn, Indeed, 8Fold, and Workday to help find and assess the best candidates.

To further improve the approach and include aptitude and potential in searches for recruiting the best talent, Kemper invested in advanced customer relationship management (CRM) software that has an AI component to enhance the capabilities of the TA team for our business partners. Leveraging the AI tool, TA receives qualified talent who may not have been actively looking for a new role and so would not have otherwise been found. This CRM tool also helps shorten delivery time to fill openings, as well as mine existing data for past applicants to uncover hidden talent.

Talent Engagement Through Modernization

At Kemper, we take pride in providing the best working environment and tools for our employees. IT workers have expressed a preference to learn innovative technologies since they can offer efficiency to the business users.

A multi-year modernization program has enabled us to expose our IT workforce to advanced technology, keeping them fully engaged and challenged. Below are some of the tools and technologies Kemper is using:

Cloud: We are migrating our application and infrastructure to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. As we migrate our technology ecosystem, we are learning about recent technologies and new ways to implement business processes. For example, we are now automating deployment of application hosting environments that can scale to accommodate thousands of concurrent users on a system and scale down as, or if, needed. Modernizing our systems helps engage our engineers and developers, who in turn have new tools to provide robust, automated, and secure environments for our applications.

Artificial Intelligence, Big Data etc.: Another way we are using technology is AI-ops tools that analyze system logs to intercept a system outage prior to it impacting the business users. We also use grid computing, machine language and robotics to solve complex problems that help our various business processes including new business, policy processing, claims and customer service.

Data: We have been building the data warehouses for our various lines of businesses using Snowflake, which allows us to seamlessly integrate data using APIs to a variety of uses.

Using technology to find talent and then modernizing technology to keep employees engaged and make the businesses run more efficiently are critical.

And More: We also leverage tools like Telematics and master-data management systems to improve customer experience. We test our applications and infrastructure using tools like load-runner to simulate load on the application from a user’s standpoint. Our developers, actuaries and data scientists use modern Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), powerful laptops and high-powered virtual desktop infrastructure for their daily jobs. Finally, our technology integration framework allows us to seamlessly integrate internal and external applications via secured APIs on AWS cloud, creating an elevated user experience.

Here are some examples of how Kemper is using these above-mentioned technologies to create a meaningful career journey for IT employees:

• Professional Development - The IT team utilizes cloud platforms and online tools for training. We also conduct hands-on workshops led by experts for when we are implementing new technologies. For example, our developers use AWS tools to learn new ways to develop secured code.

• Hackathons – It is always great to engage employees by taking their ideas and bringing them to life. At Kemper, we do that via IT and business-driven Hackathons whereby employees can work on problems defined by the business. Small teams work with business partners and IT employees, enabling the teams to share their creative business solutions. As these ideas are approved by their peers at Kemper, the goal is to implement them for business needs. This is extremely rewarding and empowering to employees.

• Communities of Practice (CoP): One of the most powerful ways employees can share and learn is via the four CoPs at Kemper: Developer, QA, Business Systems Analysts, and Project Managers. CoPs meet regularly and share what they have learned. Some of the outcomes of the CoPs have been a project manager handbook and cloud migration best practices.

Change is inevitable. Using technology to find talent and then modernizing technology to keep employees engaged and make the businesses run more efficiently are critical. Increasingly, the use and upgrades of technology are helping to attract and retain talent.