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As I stop to reflect on International Women’s Day and Gender Equality Month, I ask you to join me. Take time to learn about the people who are changing our perspectives on gender equality – and changing the world – today. The UN Women’s website (a branch of the United Nations) states that: “Equality does not mean that women and men will become the same but that women’s and men’s rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female […] Conversely, we see discrimination from the lack of adequate changing tables in men’s restrooms to the unfortunate stigma against male teachers, especially in early and primary education.

This new mindset, combined with changing customer and agent expectations and the desire to cover unknown risks with specialized products, will drive industry trends in 2021. The continued fragmentation of the industry Insurance companies are seeking out new technologies and innovative methods such as customer journey mapping, design thinking, lean process mapping and intelligent automation to make processes more efficient, reduce expenses and evolve with consumer expectations. As you continue to focus on what offerings, content and tools interest your target customers, you now have a collection of data that InsurTech makes more accessible, which in turn makes personalizing products and services for each customer (commercial and personal) more possible than ever. As cybersecurity, along with other emerging or new risks, continue to evolve, you must find new ways to offer products and services to customers while properly protecting information obtained from data collection to minimize the risk of fraud.

As companies evolve to a hybrid work model, commercial real estate will feel the effects, as office workspace requirements will trend downward for the foreseeable future. In a couple of recent meetings of mid-market CIOs that I hosted, all are planning for this hybrid approach and considering how best to accommodate staff’s physical needs as well as emotional needs. While those activities are rebounding somewhat, as vaccinations work their way through society, companies are finding themselves capable of conducting all phases of a transaction remotely, from sales efforts to fulfillment. I like to tell the story of a client we landed last year that quickly grew to a $2M annual relationship, and we never physically met any of their leadership, project sponsors or any other client team member.

In addition to highlighting the problems gig workers encounter, Dr. Haynes’s research also provided clarity on how businesses can better engage these workers and tap into their value: Just as you would onboard a full-time employee, it’s important to onboard gig workers. A lot of gig workers complained that they weren’t appreciated and recognized for what they do in the same way full-time workers were,” Dr. Haynes says, adding that companies need to learn how to adequately recognize the contributions of everyone. A lot of nomads said the job that they’re hired to do doesn’t reflect the work they end up doing,” she notes, sharing an example of a marketing manager who was hired to build a social media strategy but actually ended up doing virtual assistant work. By taking time to onboard your gig workers, setting them up for success, allowing them the flexibility to get work done in the way they prefer, recognizing their contributions and providing them with some security, you’ll tap into a resource that will help your business continue to succeed as the work world evolves into the 2020s.