How LEADx Helped IAT Insurance Group Sustain Leadership and Employee Engagement With a Rapidly Deployed Mobile Leadership Tool

The Challenge: Strengthening employee engagement with an executive-approved leadership tool

IAT Insurance Group is a privately owned, specialty insurance company providing property, casualty, and surety products for niche markets.

IAT harnesses the power of being a privately held company and uses that independence to drive innovation, foster stability and create profitable growth.

A commitment to employee engagement comes from the top down. As IAT Insurance Group CEO Bill Cunningham said in Insurance Thought Leadership:

“After three decades working in this competitive industry, I have come to understand the very significant role that employee engagement plays in the success of any insurance company. No matter the size of your company or the lines you deal in, having an engaged team makes all the difference.”

To drive strong engagement scores even higher, IAT Insurance Group sought to give all managers access to industry-leading leadership development.

The Solution: Leadership nudge and coaching tool that integrates with existing training and development efforts

IAT’s training and development offerings are incredibly comprehensive, and the company wanted to avoid any tools that created redundancies or information conflicts. IAT chose to partner with LEADx to launch Coach Amanda, an AI-powered app-based leadership coach, which could be customized to meet IAT’s needs.

The LEADx platform is highly configurable with available options, including:

• Behavioral nudge support for a variety of personality assessments (Big 5, DiSC, EQ-i, CliftonStrengths)
• Action plans that are tailored to match leadership competencies and employee engagement surveys (e.g., Gallup Q12)
• Over a thousand learning assets that can be assembled into personal learning paths

“The rollout happened as fast as we wanted it to go,” recalled Alisa Miller, IAT’s Chief Human Resources Officer. “The LEADx team ensured we were very well supported with good communication for the roll-out– we could focus our efforts on assembling the right group to test it.”

Results: Strong usage and satisfaction, along with self-reported behavior change

The LEADx evaluation ended with positive quantitative results:

• Net Promoter Score = 71
• 86% of managers asked to keep the app
• Average usage among all users: 8.1 times per month
• Average amount of micro-learning videos viewed: 1 hour per month

Leadership behaviors showing increased frequency included: giving feedback and two-way communication. There were also modest improvements in productivity and reductions in stress.

“We’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback,” says Miller. “Once people try it and get into it a little bit, given the chance, I think it’s a little addicting to them.” This feedback included:

• “I love the phone app.“
• “The regular reminders and tips were nice. I enjoyed listening to the various podcasts/webinars, and I found the information to be current, relevant, and easy to follow.“
• “Coaching and new ideas you can put to work each day.“

After promising results from an initial pilot, the executive team still needed to give their seal of approval. Coach Amanda passed the test with flying colors, getting kudos from IAT’s executives for ease of use and the leadership development offerings.

“We have quite a few other leadership training and development offerings, but this is different in terms of the artificial intelligence aspect,” Miller added. “Our leaders feel fully supported when we can give them a tool like this that takes what they’re already doing to the next level. It’s a compliment to what we already offer and a very on-demand, in-the-moment solution.”

Following the successful pilot and executive approval, IAT has expanded the program to give more managers access to Coach Amanda.