How Insurance Company Ollis is Taking Care of Their Team and Their Clients During COVID-19

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the JMARK Business Innovation Technology Experience.

Todd:

Okay. Well, thank you for joining me today. Why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about Ollis/Akers/Arney and we’ll go from there.

Joe:

Yeah. Well, my name is Joe Gaunt. I’m the director of operations for Ollis/Akers/Arney. We are insurance and business advisors, so we work with companies in the community to provide risk advisement and insurance and consulting on their businesses. And so we are in the midst of quite an interesting time providing additional care to our clients.

Todd:

So how has the current situation affected the organization?

Joe:

Yeah, it’s affected us in a similar way to a lot of others. Obviously, we’ve been working to practice social distancing. Our company went… We’ve been working from home. We’re at about the end of our third week. So we’ve taken our staff home and are able to fully function that way. So it’s been impactful, but frankly we’ve been able to function quite well from our homes., so.

Todd:

Okay. Tell us a little bit about how you made that transition? Was it gradual? Did you just all of a sudden, “Okay, everybody get out of here, go home.” What was the process to get it going?

Joe:

Yeah, so a couple of things were happening for us, Todd. We had been planning to frankly to work through a flexible work arrangement for our company. So our company has been preparing the ability for our staff to at least partially work from home for some time now. So we’ve been prepared with laptops for all of our staff so they can take home their computers, and we prepared last year, actually, we implemented a voiceover IP phone system that allows us to communicate, basically call handle and take our calls through our computers and apps on our phones, and basically you wouldn’t know if we were in the office or not. So some of those things that really positioned us well to do this.

Joe:

And so we were in the planning process of finding a test day to send everyone home, and as we were doing that, things really rapidly changed in our environment, and we met as a management team almost three weeks ago and made the decision that it was in our staff’s best interest to send everyone home. And we just pulled the trigger and we sent home and got them in a safer place as possible and fortunately, again, with the setup able to continue to service our clients.

Todd:

How has everybody handled it?

Joe:

They’ve handled it quite well. We’re really fortunate. I think part of having some success in this is having a team that’s willing to say, “Okay, I appreciate what you’re doing, and let’s pack up and go home.” They’ve handled it really well. We have spent tirelessly amount of time just trying to focus our efforts on communication with our team. We talk and communicate and connect probably as much or more now than we ever did before, and so that’s actually been a really, really positive outcome for our company so far.

Todd:

And is that positive outcome something that you’ve worked through through this last year or so that as you’ve been transitioning to, or is it just suddenly had to happen?

Joe:

Yeah. We always communicate pretty well in our company. Our management team tries to communicate well across our organization, but we’ve been meeting three times a week as we’ve gone through this, our management team usually once a week. So we’re meeting three days a week. And as we meet and discuss things about our company and how we continue to move forward and where we’re at, we cascade that out to our whole organization and share everybody with the notes from our meetings. And just so everybody’s up to speed and knows what’s going on, and they feel comfortable with how our company is doing. But to be honest, our team is using our technology a lot more effectively now than we ever have. And I think, like some things, it requires a little bit of force and that this has naturally put us in that position where we are forced to utilize some of the technology, at least across the organization, more so than we have in the past.

Todd:

Tell me a little bit about the tools. You mentioned voiceover IP, what are some of the technology tools that have allowed you to improve the communication and teamwork?

Joe:

Yeah, that’s been a big one. We use the RingCentral product and that was something that we did work with JMARK and D3 on to help get implemented with our company last year. And to be honest, if we hadn’t gotten that last year, I’m not sure that this would have been the transition than it has been. There’s several tools with inside that. Obviously, we use the phone system and voiceover IP through our computer system. We can transfer calls across our company with people sitting at home. Our receptionist can do that as well and call handle just like we were if we were in the office.

Joe:

And we’ve been utilizing some of the other tools. The RingCentral app with the messaging functionality. It’s really helped, I think, reduce some of our emails, but also continue to create a little bit of collaboration with our teams. That over the wall stuff that you get when you’re in the office with people is hard to recreate, but having these chat rooms that we’ve kind of built for our teams, they’re able to do that a little bit with each other, still catch up with each other and communicate that way.

Todd:

Okay, wonderful. It’s amazing how many people we’ve talked to that didn’t have any type of a phone system in place where they can transfer. So a lot of people that our sales have talked to, they will call an office and there’ll be a loan person sitting in the office with no ability to transfer to anybody else at home. And that’s really sad and unfortunate.

Joe:

Yeah, it’s really been a neat tool. And again, I think all of this has put a little bit of pressure on some of… As with any kind of technology, I think there’s often some resistance sometimes from people. And this has really put the pressure on our whole organization, not just me and a few others that like these things and think they’re beneficial to jump in. And the video conferencing, obviously, that’s something that everybody has gotten far more comfortable with. And we’ve been really focused about continuing to make sure that we use video conferencing and we’re not just calling each other. When I have one on ones with staff, we do a video conference and there’s just a lot more connection when you can look at somebody and have a conversation, so.

Todd:

Absolutely agree. Tell me what else are you doing with the video? So you said one on ones. Are you doing group meetings with video?

Joe:

Yeah. So anybody that has staff, we continue to do our one on ones. We’re doing those through video conference. All of our management meetings, we’re doing those through video conference. So there’s eight of us on the management team and we’re all up and doing that three days a week together. Whenever our clients are wanting to meet, if they’re open to that option, we have the ability to meet with our clients in the same way and we can do that. A lot of our clients are taking the precautions, which they should be, of the social distancing and all of that. So we’re able to have video conference that way, and we’ve even taken this opportunity to use, we can record through RingCentral meetings, and we’ve provided some training to our team on some of the technology that we’re trying to use. So we’ve held a RingCentral meeting, screen shared, recorded that, and then cast that out to the organization. So it’s kind of a personal training video. So using it in a lot of different ways and pretty much any meeting we’re having, we’re doing through video conference right now.

Todd:

Have you had any resistance to anybody not wanting to turn on their video when working at home?

Joe:

I’ve had a handful of people that have said, “Oh, don’t make me do that.” But I think as we’ve gotten through it and gone through it the last week or two folks realize that that’s how we’re going to meet, and so if you’re not feeling good about your appearance at home or whatever, they’re taking those things into account. And that’s one of the things as we transition home, that we’ve talked a lot about. It’s important to get up at your regular time and get ready to work and get yourself put together to go to work. And it does help your mindset at home. So we get a little resistance once in a while, but most of the adopted it pretty well, so.

Todd:

Good. Yeah. I’ve found such a huge value. I mean, I work remotely all the time, not just now, and all of our meetings on the marketing team, you have to use your video because there’s a connection that you can get. And a lot of people, when they’re not used to working remotely, they think that you can’t connect with people that way, but you really can. You can see their expressions, you can look into their eyes, and you can have just as good of a connection.

Joe:

Yeah, it’s a big deal. And I think too Todd, one of the things that I’ve noticed that helps is, a conference call, it’s really hard for people to not talk over each other. So we’ve been working really hard as a company to go window by window. We call it the Brady Bunch, when you’ve got a bunch of people. [crosstalk 00:10:27] Check in with each person. And then if you have something to add in the middle of the conversation, we just raise our hand and then whoever’s leading the meeting will call on people. That way we’re not all talking over each other. That can be frustrating and hard to get anything out of it. So I think it adds some value from that standpoint too.

Todd:

Absolutely.

Joe:

[crosstalk 00:10:47] are very hard to not talk over each other, so.

Todd:

Yeah, there’s enough stress in the world right now with everybody that just talking over someone, you don’t want people to think that you’re being rude when you’re [crosstalk 00:10:59].

Joe:

Right.

Todd:

So videos, it’s huge on that. So as you’ve been working remotely over the last year, what are some of the challenges you’ve had? What things did you need to overcome and make better? How did you overcome them?

Joe:

Yeah. I think some of the challenges, again, frankly, were figuring those out along the way here. Again, we were preparing to do this with our company, but we hadn’t done it, frankly, full on. So I think a lot of the things that we’re experiencing that we’re working through are the office functions, right? Mail, because you’re talking about, we don’t have… We’ve got about one person in each office and those are voluntary folks that said, “Hey, I’d like to still be there.” And so everyone else is at home. So you’re talking about mail functionality and just printing and general things that happen in the office that have become a little bit challenging. But again, I think, I know I personally, I’ve tried to be really forward with our team about just communicating together to work on a new process.

Joe:

We got everybody signed up with DocuSign. We had a few people using that, but as a company, we weren’t fully using that, right? And so now that’s become even more important, right? So we can get our clients and get things to them to sign and create less paper. So I think there’s a lot of things, Todd, that we’re doing that we’re going to find are really beneficial and efficient and things that may carry over, frankly, after we come out of this time here in a few months, so.

Todd:

Yeah. What are some of the things you’ve seen, or what is Ollis/Akers/Arney doing in the community? And what are some of the ways that your employees are pulling together to help improve the community and even the culture of the business?

Joe:

Yeah. I think, Todd, one of the big things that we’ve been doing is our team… So our whole company, our management team, and some of those members in particular are working tirelessly to bring relevant, easy to understand and digest information to our clients. So everybody’s getting hit with things every day, right? There’s new changes, new legislation. There’s all these different things coming at these companies and small businesses. And so we’ve put in a lot of effort to try to bring just valuable information, how to help people easily understand and digest all of that from an insurance standpoint, how they’re impacted, right? From a coverage standpoint, or billing and things like that that are going on with our carrier.

Joe:

So just trying to bring relevant information, communicate, and we’ve been talking a lot in our organization about empathy and grace, right? We have to know that our clients are dealing with so much. Our community’s dealing with so much, right? This is such a unique thing that stretches across everybody, right? No one is relieved from dealing with this, right? It impacts everyone. And so I think a lot of empathy and grace as we work through things with our clients and just be really understanding about what we’re going through as a country and a world, frankly, so.

Todd:

Very true. The sentiment out in the community is changing almost on a daily basis. And so it’s really challenging to keep up that empathy and in the different ways that you have to do it throughout the week and as things change. What would you say to a business that’s on this precipice of needing to go remote, and what advice would you give to them?

Joe:

I would say you can’t make that a decision soon enough to make the investment in getting your company ready to work from home. Again, obviously some are in a position they may or may not be able to do that right now, as we’re dealing with this. But we look at it now in hindsight, what a great investment to get everybody on laptops, get a phone system in place that allows us to make this transition. And to be honest, Todd, we haven’t had a lot of hiccups. Our team went home, they got set up, we had them take pictures of their setups. That was one of my initial concerns. Is, “Hey, is everybody going to be able to set this up?” Well, it’s not that hard, really. You take pictures and we help each other through it, right?

Joe:

I think we’ve spent plenty of time on the phone with JMARK as we’ve navigated through things. But we haven’t had a lot of hiccups and it’s just invaluable for our company. I think our employees, as we get feedback from them, feel cared for, frankly, that we’ve said, “Hey, go home. Let’s work from home. We want everybody to be safe.” And so I think you can’t do that soon enough. You can’t start putting those things in place soon enough because you just never know when the opportunity would arise. And frankly, outside of the pandemic, from a disaster recovery and business continuity standpoint, if you have different office locations, this allows you to stay up and going [inaudible 00:16:19] seeing your clients outside of just this advance, so.

Todd:

What support has JMARK provided in helping this transition over the last year or so?

Joe:

Yeah. So again, we meet, obviously, with our JMARK team quarterly and talk about strategic planning. I think that’s one of the parts that JMARK brings in that’s really valuable, is the strategic side of how to prepare your company for things like this. And obviously we never saw this coming, but other events. And then people have had issues at home, right? The networks and everything are so bogged down with things like we’re doing right now that it’s not used to dealing with. We spent a lot of time. Our staff is able to call JMARK and our team and get them in to help us right away. So it’s been invaluable. And frankly, the advice getting us on the phone system that we’re on and all of those things has helped position us to pretty seamlessly transition our whole company to working from home, so.

Todd:

That’s great. Well, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me today, and I appreciate everything that you and Ollis/Akers/Arney is doing to help the community in Springfield and beyond. And I think it’s wonderful the… I mean, you guys provide an essential service for a lot of… Well, essential has taken on a new meaning nowadays, I guess, for a lot of essential businesses, transportation and healthcare and otherwise, so keep up the great work and stay safe. Thanks for everything.

Joe:

Yeah. Thank you, Todd. I appreciate it.

Todd:

Take care.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for attending this podcast. We hope it has been informative and helps convey that at JMARK, we are a people first and technology second. To learn more and discover additional content relevant to your business, please visit us online at jmark.com or at LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You may also call us at 844 44 JMARK. Thank you for your time, and we look forward to seeing you again.