From the impact of AI to hybrid vs. in-office debates to intergenerational differences, creating a functional and harmonious workplace culture today means leaping a few hurdles. Such multifaceted challenges call for a multifaceted solution.
As executive vice president, chief people officer at Liberty Mutual Insurance, Jen Ughetta makes creating a high-performance culture a holistic endeavor: “We support this by creating an environment where there is a strong sense of belonging and where people can bring their full selves to work.” Ughetta shares her experience and a few tips for other HR leaders navigating the current talent climate.
Many of today’s HR leaders are talking about creating and sustaining high-performance cultures. Does that term resonate with you and how do you define the culture at Liberty Mutual?
I define our high-performance culture at Liberty Mutual as an environment where employees are engaged, inspired and feel like they’re doing meaningful work to support strong company performance.
My team and I are focused on supporting our culture and investing in the capabilities needed for sustained success—from building and maintaining an equitable and inclusive talent pipeline, to competitive compensation and holistic wellbeing benefits, to ongoing growth and development opportunities to keep employees engaged and aligned to our company’s goals.
We support this by creating an environment where there is a strong sense of belonging and where people can bring their full selves to work. It’s also through our tools, processes and systems, which ensure we’re driving the right business outcomes and incentivizing the right behaviors.
At Liberty Mutual, that meant retooling our talent performance system, putting greater rigor around leader check-ins to create deeper, more meaningful conversations and feedback and creating greater alignment between employees’ goals and company goals so they could see how their work makes an impact and drives the company forward.
Generative AI is already playing a transformational role within companies and departments of all sizes—including talent and HR functions. What are you doing today to embrace the technology?
Gen AI is a topic of conversation at nearly every executive leadership table—and for good reason. Companies, including ours, are already seeing a variety of strong use cases, and HR is no exception.
At Liberty Mutual, our use case orientation is centered on employee experience, and we’ve seen a few early wins in the talent space including summarization of employee sentiment to identify trends and themes that often inform changes to benefits, programs or policies. The other area that we are focused on is how HR supports our business as Gen AI changes roles and the skills required to be successful as roles evolve.
While we are excited like many others about the potential benefits of Gen AI, we’re committed to the responsible use of AI through our internal Responsible AI Committee, which helps us identify and mitigate risks. Moving forward, HR will continue to play an outsized role in partnering across organizations to ensure companies evolve and adapt to these technologies to keep people at the center.
Over the past several years, talent leaders have grappled with virtual, hybrid or in-office work arrangements. What’s Liberty Mutual’s approach and how are you keeping employees engaged?
I think it’s safe to say this is something leaders across all industries have been grappling with over the past few years. At Liberty Mutual, we’re focused on delivering on our promises to our customers while continuing to drive strong business results. For us, that’s meant embracing a truly hybrid model to offer flexible ways of working for our employees, while still achieving strong business outcomes.
We also provide a range of work arrangements, including hybrid, compressed workweeks, flex time and part time. Given the size of the company, we see value in both in-person and virtual work and believe a hybrid environment helps create stronger connection and collaboration while providing flexibility. One way we’ve been able to offer greater flexibility for our employees this year is through seven virtual first weeks for hybrid employees whose typical schedule includes two in-office days a week.
With five different generations represented in today’s workforce, what can organizations do to retain employees?
It’s important to recognize and understand the similarities and differences, and how we can best support our employee population. We use benchmarking and employee feedback to give us insights to remain competitive and meet employees—and future employees—where they are.
For instance, with younger generations, we’re seeing that they prioritize mental health and look to us as an employer to provide resources and benefits that help them overcome day-to-day stressors. We also know that some generations favor in-person time together. It’s important for us to offer and continue to evolve our strategies and offerings to appeal to our broad employee population.
For us, that means leaning into our values-based and inclusive culture, offering mental, physical and financial wellbeing benefits and programs to support employees holistically and throughout various stages of life. We’re creating career mobility and development opportunities for continuous growth and meaningful careers, offering flexible ways of working, connecting employees to our purpose by empowering them to volunteer in the communities around us and give back to causes they care most about, and hosting internal communities to create deeper connection and belonging across the company.
