Innovation at Work

In today’s fast-paced business environment, staying competitive requires ongoing innovation. It means introducing new ideas, products, services or approaches that add value and drive growth within an organization. At WTW, we believe in the transformative power of innovation to propel success. We support innovation within our own organization and help empower others to innovate through people and risk strategies that improve employee culture, governance, wellbeing and resilience.

Key elements of innovation at work include:

• Open-mindedness: Encouraging employees to think creatively and explore new possibilities. This involves embracing different perspectives, appreciating different types of intelligence and valuing novel ideas
• Collaboration: Promoting teamwork and cross-functional cooperation to generate inventive solutions. By uniting individuals with different skill sets, backgrounds and ways of thinking, you gain collective intelligence to create breakthroughs
• Experimentation: Embracing a culture of experimentation and risk-taking. This involves allowing employees to test new ideas, learn from failures and re-examine their approaches
• Employee empowerment: Giving employees the power to make their own decisions to help them think creatively and feel a sense of ownership of their work
• Continuous learning programs: Offering opportunities for employees to develop new skills, stay current with industry trends and expand their knowledge base

The benefits of a culture of innovation

Innovation in the workplace offers many benefits that can transform organizations, driving success and productivity. Key advantages include:

• Increased productivity and efficiency: New solutions and technologies can streamline processes, automate repetitive tasks and improve overall efficiency. Embracing innovation helps your organization improve operations, productivity and ultimately the bottom line
• Competitive advantage and business growth: Innovation is crucial for gaining a competitive edge. Companies that prioritize innovation are more likely to differentiate themselves through their brands, products and services while sustaining growth by attracting customers and finding new market opportunities
• Improved employee engagement and satisfaction: Employees are more engaged and satisfied when they can be creative and when they’re encouraged to share new ideas and improve

Creating a culture of innovation

To create, foster and encourage a culture of experimentation, consider these strategies:

1. Build multifaceted teams: Research has shown that teams that include individuals from different backgrounds and ethnicities tend to generate more innovative solutions. Diversity of skill sets and thought creates an environment where different perspectives and "outside the box" ideas are heard.
   
   By assembling a multifaceted team, you enable nonlinear, novel thinking. This brings together various ways of thinking needed for every project. It also creates an atmosphere where strategic, empathetic and forward-thinking approaches can thrive, further driving innovation.
2. Empower employees: Empowering and trusting employees is crucial for fostering innovation. Employees who feel trusted and valued are more likely to contribute breakthrough ideas and take initiative. By flattening hierarchies, employees have the freedom to make decisions quickly and effectively. This empowerment accelerates the innovation process and boosts employee morale and engagement. Such an approach requires a supportive environment where risks are allowed and learning from failures is encouraged.
3. Engage stakeholders early and often: Involving key stakeholders from the beginning of an innovation project is crucial. Keeping all stakeholders informed and aligned on goals, progress and expectations from beginning to end builds trust and fosters collaboration. Early and ongoing engagement can offer valuable insights, build support and align the project with strategic goals. This approach fosters a sense of ownership and helps mitigate potential roadblocks.
4. Cultivate client-centric innovation: Engaging with potential clients and prospects early in the innovation process is essential. It helps innovators understand client needs, preferences and challenges, allowing them to refine ideas and tailor solutions to meet customer.
5. Encourage agility and adaptability: Discovery requires flexibility to adapt to new information and challenges. Being agile and ready to pivot in response to changing circumstances promotes progress and efficiency.
6. Embrace failure as a steppingstone: Setbacks in innovation should be viewed as opportunities for learning and growth. Failure must be accepted as part of the development process. Giving colleagues the freedom to fail enables them to learn from their mistakes and make the needed adjustments. Many successful ideas have come from multiple attempts and failures.
7. Assess impact continuously: Continuously measuring the success of a project against initial objectives is crucial. Evaluating impact using metrics and key performance indicators ensures that the solution meets client needs and helps colleagues target areas for further refinement.

Innovation at WTW

Innovation at WTW is intertwined with our business strategy to help ensure it’s part of everything we do. It involves creating value through better, faster or cheaper ways of getting work done and requires strong organizational alignment, capabilities and mindset. Examples of our innovation initiatives include Horizons, our Extended Innovation Network and our Innovation Masterclass Program.

1. Horizons: Horizons is WTW’s companywide innovation program. Open to our more than 40,000 employees worldwide, the program encourages colleagues to submit their ideas—fostering a culture of innovation and gathering diverse perspectives.
   
   Each year, colleagues submit ideas for new products and services. Panels of judges from across our business and geographies select ideas, eventually narrowing the list to a few teams. The teams can spend months, prototyping and testing their ideas and building business cases for ideas that can become new WTW offerings.
2. Extended Innovation Network: This network of nearly 1,000 colleagues helps raise awareness of our innovation initiatives through regular newsletters and other updates. They share new technologies and innovative practices and facilitate collaboration through regular webinars that are open to all colleagues. The network also regularly invites external speakers who share new technologies and ideas.
3. Innovation Masterclass Training Program: Through this program, more than 500 colleagues have been trained in innovation methodologies, equipping them with the skills to identify and solve client problems effectively and to apply innovation in their daily work for clients.

WTW: A history of innovation

Our history of innovation dates back to our founding in the 19th century when Henry Willis applied for membership at Lloyd’s in 1841 and started to broker insurance for commodities. This early venture laid the foundation for the company's future growth and innovation.

David Parks Fackler founded one of the first actuarial firms in North America in 1865, Fackler & Co, which was later acquired by the Wyatt Company, a predecessor WTW company. Fackler solidified the company's role in shaping the actuarial profession by co-founding the Actuarial Society of America in 1889.

Founded in 1878, R. Watson & Sons, another WTW predecessor company, became a lead advisor to the U.K. government on national insurance programs, following the National Insurance Act of 1911. The law created a system of health and unemployment insurance to protect workers.

In the early 20th century, WTW continued to innovate. In 1912, Willis brokered insurance for the Titanic, a high-profile and complex risk that required exceptional expertise. The company settled the $1 million hull claim in full within 30 days.

The mid-20th century saw WTW at the forefront of technological advancements. In 1953, the company was among the first actuarial consulting firms to use computers, which revolutionized actuarial and financial modeling. This early adoption of technology set a precedent for continuous innovation, enabling WTW to provide more precise and efficient services.

The latter half of the 20th century and the early 21st century were characterized by strategic mergers and acquisitions that further enhanced WTW's innovative capabilities. In 1976, Willis, Faber & Dumas listed on the London Stock Exchange, becoming the leading U.K. specialty broker. The 1995 alliance between R. Watson & Sons and The Wyatt Company consolidated global resources and expertise, while the acquisition of Tillinghast, Nelson & Warren in 1986 and a 33% stake in Gras Savoye in 1995 expanded the company's capabilities.

In 2006, WTW launched the Willis Research Network, creating the world's largest collaboration between academic institutions and the finance sector. This initiative has been pivotal in advancing research and development in areas such as climate risk and cyber risk management.

Today, WTW continues to innovate. We use cutting-edge technology and data analytics to provide comprehensive solutions in areas such as climate risk, cyber risk management and employee financial resilience. Recent examples of innovations include:

• Expert, the latest innovation to come out of our Horizons program, is an AI-enabled assistant that helps U.S. midsize businesses streamline and enhance HR, compensation and benefits
• Neuron, a digital insurance platform that enables underwriters and brokers to connect and trade more easily, improving the speed and cost of doing business through digitization, automation and better use of data
• Indigo Vault, a combination of cloud and local document management systems that protects against insider threats, AI system exposure and cyber theft by ensuring documents and assets such as Word, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs and Outlook messages are protected and controlled with minimal user disruption
• Connected Risk Intelligence, a software-as-a-service platform that enables organizations to make data-driven and fact-based risk financing decisions by to evaluating numerous risk strategies and weighing risk and return through analytics and risk quantification

At WTW, innovation, an ongoing process that occurs every day, and is embedded in everything we do, from our client interactions to key initiatives such as our Horizons program.