March 19, 2025
Kimberly George, Global Chief Brand Officer, spoke with Kathy Tazic, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Learning and Development, about new strategies, opportunities, and solutions to support colleague training, development, skills, and more in 2025.
The conversation focused on strategies for talent development at a global level, and the importance of understanding what colleagues need in terms of support for both short-term and long-term growth. As claims management teams continue to evolve, so do training and development programs, and this will require forward-thinking ideas to meet the needs of colleagues, clients, and customers.
Key insights from the conversation include:
- The evolution of training and development
- The business world is shifting dramatically, and ensuring colleague s are well prepared and developed is key. Critical to this is an understanding that training and development are two different things and require two different strategies. Training should focus on the short-term; what will benefit a colleague most in their current role and how can it drive success for them and the company. Development is a long-term outlook; what will be most important for their career path, growth, and value-add to an organization for years to come. Training and development programs should vary in scope, focus, and goals, depending on the audience. However, these programs in 2025 must be nuanced and designed to support leadership, mid-level management, junior colleagues, and new hires in new and diverse ways. Finally, providing colleague s with the opportunity to learn about other areas of business in an organization, speak and meet with colleagues from these verticals, and promoting cross-disciplinary collaboration will encourage development. This will also drive colleagues to have a more comprehensive sense of what kind of work they are most passionate about, improve their sense of career mobility, and create a more adaptable and talented workforce.
- The rapidly growing role of AI and technology
- With colleagues operating in in-person, hybrid, and remote roles, it’s key to adapt technology along with changes to the workforce. Leveraging a broad spectrum of products and services is key, and it’s imperative to implement these technologies into leadership development and training.
- Development of younger colleagues and new hires in regard to AI should begin right away. Programs can be enhanced, and companies can look to create new educational materials around AI and other technologies that vary depending on position, level, experience, and age, to meet the needs of all colleagues.
- Speed is everything these days. Clients, residents, and companies want prompt response times on data, support, and more, and colleague training is emphasizing this throughout their development. Through training, colleagues can have the ability to leverage AI and tech to expedite processes, operations, and response-times to deliver more value to customers and create new efficiencies in their workflows.
- Real-World training and experiential learning
- A key strategy for development and training is providing experiential learning opportunities. Colleagues can now see in action what a proposal looks like, what the life cycle of a client claim looks like, how AI and technology is actually used in operations, and more. As colleague and client needs change, ensuring that colleague have a real-world understanding of how Sedgwick delivers value will be key for their growth.
- These opportunities also provide colleagues with the chance to learn the basics of the role, learn more about themselves and what they’re passionate about, and if they’re a good match for the job. Moreover, workers get a sense of what the workload is for a position, how the work is accomplished, while also getting to see seasoned colleague in action, network with colleagues and leadership, and more.
The full episode can be found here.
