S4 EP45: Driving your career progression in a culturally sensitive insurtech - with Jason Marsh, Global Talent Acquisition Lead, Prima

The Insurance Coffee House - A podcast by Insurance Search - Tuesdays

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“Flexibility has become increasingly important. Not just working from home, but being able to work remotely and work the hours that suit you“, says Jason. “No one's expected to work late into the night or weekends unless they want to. Unless that's a rhythm that suits them.”On the podcast this week, Jason discusses his background in tech and digital recruitment, before moving to an in-house talent acquisition role. He gives insight in to the fast-paced growth of Italian auto insurtech, Prima, as well as the impact of Goldman Sachs and Blackstone investment in 2018. “We offer primarily digital motor insurance products. In Italy, we now have home and family insurance products as well, diversifying that product range.In Italy, we now have over 2.5 million customers. The plan is to consolidate that market leadership whilst also establishing ourselves as a brand in the UK and Spanish markets.”As part of driving its presence in the UK and Spain, Jason outlines the business objectives, distribution models and future plans.  “We're going to first and foremost continue to establish our brand here, but in a very sustainable and controlled way. Especially with recent economic conditions, making UK and Spain profitable businesses in their own right is the most important thing. We'll also be looking to perhaps diversify the product range over the next 3-4 years.  Jason highlights the importance of Prima’s global EVP and being culturally sensitive to wide range of nationalities in the business.“To add consistency to all of our employees in multiple countries, it's a hybrid / remote working environment here.  We wanted to define that in detail and make sure people were aware of the flexibility. We have a working from abroad policy. 30 days per year in which you can work from other countries. With 33 nationalities at Prima, that's quite a popular policy. We want to make sure that people are aware they can travel too. Whether it's to Milan our headquarters or London or Madrid. Making sure they get that face time with their colleagues.”Jason discusses the outcomes of the EVP on attracting the best insurance talent. “Obviously, we’ve got to get the salary right but Prima has a real focus on work life balance, a respectful culture. But that's been a positive conversation to have with candidates in how much flexibility there is here.You're in the driving seat over your own career progression and the direction you want to take. You have the support of the company and managers.”Jason shares his interview advice for high-performing insurance talent coming for interview. “Being tech driven and data driven in your mindset is key. Our leaders here really voice the importance of using data to make key decisions. Interviewing for senior level roles means that you're going to be asked about decisions you've made based on data. How you made those decisions. The technologies you've used and the engineering or technical teams that you've worked closely with.” As well as sharing some of the tech tools, Prima use to support hiring, Jason encourages his fellow insurance talent acquisition leaders to have a competency and values-based interview process.  “It’s allowed us to take a lot of the ambiguity out of interviewing, to make sure we get the right fit of candidates and they align with the values of Prima.Trying to take the biases out, making sure that interview panels know the content they're covering at each stage and what they should be interviewing about, that's really helped us identify and hire really top talent across a multitude of domains.”Connect with Jason Marsh on LinkedIn or find out more about Prima...