“A lot of businesses talk about it, but do they really analyse what they need to do to build it? We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what high performance looks and feels like within the context of a turnaround”, says Karen.
“When I joined the business, I prioritized improving the culture, establishing values that really mean something, as well as working with Scott Egan (CEO) to ensure we’ve got the right leaders at every level that exude those values.
We’ve created a really strong accountability culture. I think the key to making sure culture change sticks is integrity.”
On the Insurance Coffee House Podcast this week, Karen shares her 30-year HR career journey.
Starting in insurance, she has moved through some of the most recognizable brands in insurance, financial services, hospitality and media, before returning to insurance with roles at Saga Plc and RSA. She joined SiriusPoint in November 2022.
Karen discusses working across a wide variety of sectors, and how she has found transitioning back in to insurance.
“When I started my career, for many insurers, there wasn’t a big focus on culture and values. People talked about it, but I don’t think they did it as well as we did it in hospitality and retail.
I think in the past, in in financial services, technical skills have tended to be rewarded with bigger and bigger roles, and I felt that the leadership aspects were secondary.
What I found in retail, hospitality and also media, is because the customer is just so central and critical, there’s just much more focus on leadership of the people, the values and the culture within the business.
It’s just such a heartbeat of the business at every level in those industries. I’m a massive believer in values and culture, and I love being part of businesses where these are really central.
I think that’s become true, probably now more so in the insurance industry than it was when I started. That’s certainly true for SiriusPoint.”
Karen explains how some of her best experiences have come through the tough times and the importance of HR’s relationship with the CEO.
“The relationship I have with Scott and other bosses I’ve worked really well with, are where you’ve got mutual respect but sometimes differences of opinion.
That’s where the real spark comes. Sometimes we come at things with different opinions and we’ll explain them to each other.
But we’ll end up in a different place, and it’s a better place than either of us had thought of.
That ability to challenge with mutual respect and actually stand your ground is so important.”
Headquartered in Bermuda, with offices in New York, Liege, London, Stockholm and Zurich, Karen gives insight in to SiriusPoint and the ambition to be a best-in-class insurance business.
“We’re a global underwriter of insurance and reinsurance. With over $3billion capital, our business lines include accident and health, aviation, space, casualty, credit, energy, marine, property and life insurance.
Our global headcount is around 1000. In terms of growth, we really want to become a top performing reinsurance and insurance company in the coming years. Our aim is really to be among the names who consistently outperform the market year on year.”
Karen emphasizes how creating a high-performance culture is more than an HR task, as well as the role integrity plays.
“From day one, our CEO has made building a high-performance culture, one of our executive leader leadership team’s top priorities.
We’ve created real integrity around what we say we’re going to do and what we’re actually doing. If there’s any mismatch there, people see through the cracks and they just lose trust very, very quickly.
My strong belief is that culture can be built. But culture can also be damaged in a nanosecond. If you don’t have integrity, you can just lose trust so quickly.”
Karen shares how SiriusPoint are bringing culture to life and making it real across the entire organization.
“We’ve given all our teams a lot of time to immerse themselves in it. Workshops at team level and across our sites. We’ve got a big recognition scheme.
We get people to call out when they see people living our values. But we also encourage people to call out when they see things that are not living our values.
It’s so important that we hold ourselves and our leadership team to account for the way that we behave.
Karen highlights the impact in terms of measurable outcomes.
“The results speak for themselves. 2022, we made a loss of $400million. We’ve turned that around in 2023 and knocked the ball out of the park in terms of performance.
A number of things have helped that. We’ve looked at our global footprint, reduced costs but the most important thing is we’ve created a real culture of accountability.
We’ve set some goals that are really clear. We changed our bonus structure to support those goals. It gets people laser focused on the results that really matter. The outcome of that has been a much more engaged workforce.”
Karen describes the effect SiriusPoint’s turnaround financial results have had on talent attraction.
“We’re building real pride in our business and working with individuals who really need to be at the top of their game. When I joined the business in ’22 it was more difficult to attract them. But now, as our success story is becoming more widely known, it’s much easier to attract people.
If you look at our trajectory over the last 12 months, we’ve actually put a billion dollars’ worth of value on the business in a year. People can see the opportunities here and the opportunities of being part of something really special.”
Karen highlights the key selling points of being part of the team.
“We’ve turned over every bit of our business, reshaped our footprints. We’ve overhauled our philosophy and structures, and delivered a fantastic profit.
The next phase is becoming a best-in-class insurer and reinsurer and being recognised as such by our peers.
We want a team who are working together to deliver that next phase
You’ve really got the ability to make a massive difference really quickly here.”
Connect with Karen Caddick on LinkedIn or find out more about SiriusPoint
The Insurance Coffee House Podcast is hosted by Nick Hoadley, CEO of Insurance Search.
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