Sedgwick debuted its webinar series, with the first installment focused on how companies and organizations can navigate risks and evolving trends in 2025.
Kimberly George, Global Chief Brand Officer hosted a roundtable that included: David Arick, Managing Director, Global Risk Management; Leah Cooper, Global Chief Digital Officer; Michelle Hay, Global Chief People Officer; Chris Harvey, Senior Vice President, Client Services; Steve Powell, President of EFI Global and EVP, Property Americas; and Scott Rogers, Chief Client Officer.
The panel touched on the key trends that businesses need to be aware of to be successful in 2025, specifically the future of the workplace, recalls and navigating the regulatory landscape and compliance, catastrophe planning and disaster recovery, AI, and planning for the unexpected.
Below you will find the key takeaways from Sedgwick’s team of experts:
The future of work: Michelle Hay spoke on the key trends that both employers and employees need to be aware of and most importantly, adaptable to in 2025. These include:
- The return to office mandates across the country have placed company culture and identity in the spotlight, and a renewed emphasis on productivity, collaboration, training, mentorship, and more.
- AI remains one of, if not the, highest priority for leadership and employees across industries. Yet, this technology is not about automation, but about augmentation. Per Michelle, priorities in 2025 will include:
- Ensuring employees company-wide are educated, trained, and adaptable to new AI tools to drive immediate success and new efficiencies in operations and workflows.
- A focus on reskilling for employes now via digital skills and AI training to enhance success and prepare for changing job roles.
- Leaders need to leverage AI-assisted leadership tools, and maximize a workforce’s ability to think critically, have emotional intelligence, and develop a work environment that fosters career growth, networking, development, and advancement.
Recalls: Chris Harvey spoke on the most vital preparatory and reactive tactics that companies need to have in place now in the event of a recall. This will be crucial in maintaining brand reputation and loyalty, as well as company standing among key audiences and stock price. Other key insights included:
- The ability of a company to successfully mitigate the chance of a recall, and respond accordingly in the event one occurs, begins with a company-wide understanding that having a robust product safety culture is paramount.
- As the recall landscape becomes more complicated with supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, higher regulatory scrutiny, and more, company leaders and employees need to be fully prepared and have undergone comprehensive trainings prior to a recall occurring.
- Other trends that Chris noted that company leaders should be aware of in 2025 include:
- Recalls are increasingly leading to referrals to the Department of Justice for both civil and criminal penalties, while law firms are aiming to identify opportunities for litigation, specifically around remediation for consumers. This further emphasizes the importance of having established best practices and safety guidelines in place.
- An understanding of how to reach different generational audiences through varied communication strategies is also a necessary part of any recall strategy. How each generation enjoys receiving updates and news from a company—whether that be by phone, text, email, social media, and more—should be part of a recall plan well before the event.
- Advancements in emerging technology, such as AI, are helping to identify hazards and defects in products much quicker. This makes the supply chain and consumer landscape safer as recalls are identified upfront and in a more efficient fashion. Companies should be looking to implement tools that will support these efforts in 2025.
Catastrophe planning and disaster recovery: Steve Powell explained how 2024 saw a high degree of frequency of catastrophic events which led to $310,000,000,000 in economic losses, and $135,000,000,000 in insured losses. Company leaders and residents around the world should expect that 2025 will be no different. Already, the United States has experienced devastating wildfires in California, polar vortexes across wide swaths of the country, and unprecedented snow fall in states like Louisiana and Florida. There is no more offseason for catastrophic weather events that impact people and companies. Other insights from the webinar included:
- Companies in 2025 who are considering the potential damages and costs from natural disasters and catastrophic events should have a comprehensive and well-written insurance policy and risk management plan in place. This should be a top priority for all company leaders.
- Steve highlighted three areas of forecast for leaders when preparing for the rest of 2025:
- Staying prepared: Leaders should plan to winterize facilities, have contingency plans in place, and ensure water supply and conservation measures are in place in the case of extreme heat or drought. Return-to-office mandates should also have contingencies built in if workers are unable to safely reach the office due to weather.
- Responding when disaster strikes: Leaders should have a claims team that can respond quickly and efficiently. An emphasis should be placed on communication with insurance brokers and providers and that claims partners are aligned with business goals and strategies and fully understand your specific industry and/or facilities. This will ensure that your company’s unique claims will be processed accurately, rapidly, and business operations will be interrupted for as short a timeframe as possible.
- Post-disaster recovery: Leaders should have recovery plans strategized before an event occurs to optimize property building repairs and have immediate responses ready to go. This can be supported by software to give transparency through the restoration and building process with a focus on safety, indemnity control, burn rate, and more. 2025 will see a much larger focus on managed repair and digital tools that support construction, billing, data management, and more, as AI continues to be integrated into every part of a company’s operations. Finally, there should be a continued emphasis on employee safety, physical and mental recovery, and a return to business-as-normal in an efficient manner.
AI and advancements in 2025: Leah Cooper spoke on how 2025 will see the merging of generative AI (Gen AI) and analytical AI, and the importance that this technology be used safely and transparently. She also noted that it should be leveraged to help humans make better decisions, rather than taking the decision-making out of their hands. She also elaborated on:
- Organizations in 2025 will continue to place emerging tech at the core of all business’ strategies. Ambitions will be accompanied by new risks and while leaders are strategizing to drive value, they need to have implemented guidelines, best practices. Additionally, guarding against improper installation or access, and the potential for a wider range of human errors, will be crucial.
- 2025 will be the advent of agentic AI across industries. The combination of learnings from data science programs with Gen AI will position companies to perform tasks autonomously, and address, assess, and advance workflows.
- As AI rapidly evolves, and is deployed, identify key use-cases, ensuring employees are well trained and educated, and that a company has a firm commitment to having judgement or decision-making remain in the hands of their workers is key to success moving forward.
- Sedgwick’s proprietary AI tool, Sidekick+, is a prime example of understanding the best use-cases for emerging technology and how it can improve workflows. This tool is being used for more than 100,000 medical documents to summarize and review. This is just the starting point, however, and 2025 will see the next step taken by AI in terms of supporting business value and goals.
Planning ahead: David Arick spoke on the uncertain year ahead amid global and local instability, increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, the introduction of AI into operations, and more, which creates new and unexpected risks on a daily basis. Risk managers, institutions, company leaders, and more, should be prepared for new and existing risks by being proactive, prepared, and planning for an increasingly volatile world.
- As the other speakers in the webinar explained, preparation will be key. David explained the need for preparation across supply chain operations, third party risk assessments, quality control assessments, professional liability concerns, and more.
- A key factor is understanding how risk is reviewed within a company and how to escalate concerns internally to ensure necessary updates to response strategies are made.
- Finally, mitigation plans should be in place now, which should be supported by employee awareness and training. This will support fewer periods of business interruption and maximize business continuity.
For more insights into the risks and evolving trends discussed in the webinar, please find Sedgwick’s forecasting 2025 report here: https://www.sedgwick.com/thoughtleadership/
Tags: AI, AI technology, Artificial Intelligence, leader, leadership, recall, Risk, thought leadership, Trends