Heather Hoyer (00:05):
We’re able to spend more time doing what we do best, which is putting care to work by connecting to our customers. And really, the key to our success has been that leadership. And the board has fully embraced AI and been big believers of what it could do for us from an efficiency perspective, and they’ve really encouraged us to move fast and think big.
Veronica Raulin (00:33):
Hello, everyone. You are listening to another episode of Cloud and Clear, SADA’s cloud transformation podcast. I’m your host today, Veronica Raulin, and we are pleased to welcome Heather Hoyer, Change Manager at Pinnacol Assurance to today’s show.
Before we get started, don’t forget to like and subscribe to our channel on your favorite listening platform to stay up to date with the latest Cloud and Clear episodes from SADA. Heather, welcome to the show.
Heather Hoyer (01:01):
Hey, everyone, and thanks for having me, Veronica.
Veronica Raulin (01:03):
We are so happy to have you here. Very rare that I get to interview someone who is in a change management role, which is my background as well, so we’ll get into that. But before we do, can you give us a little bit of an overview on Pinnacol Assurance and what you do there?
Heather Hoyer (01:19):
Absolutely. So Pinnacol is the leading workers’ compensation provider in Colorado, and we really focus on care and understanding, and that’s what really sets us apart from any other provider that’s serves Colorado. We’re not just an insurance provider, though. We’re a nonprofit partner who’s really invested in the success and well-being of Colorado businesses and their employees. Reflected in that is our proactive approach to worker safety, our compassionate claims handling, and our commitment to Colorado’s communities. That focus on caring is actually really reflected in my role as a change manager because, whenever there’s a change, my mission is to ensure that my team members feel respected, supported, informed, and prepared for the change that’s coming.
Veronica Raulin (02:10):
Excellent. I love the leading with values. We’ve seen that. SADA has been a partner of Pinnacol Assurance for over five years, and that spirit of fun and taking care of your employees has always been part of the relationship. And as the leader of the change management team here at SADA, it’s always empowering for us and fun to work with a company like yours who wants to take time out to really take care of the employees on a journey. And AI is certainly within a space where employees feel, “Yes!” and also, “Oh, my goodness.” So there’s a lot of emotions there. So I just totally respect what you do and really thrilled to talk about the journey that you’re taking people on.
So, a little bit about Pinnacol’s journey into Gemini for Workspace. So it’s really only been a year-plus of really AI, but very early on, Pinnacol decided to go all in, which is not typical for an insurance company. So can you share more about why Pinnacol made that decision and what that’s meant?
Heather Hoyer (03:16):
Happy to. Early on, our data sciences team and our leadership really got how transformational AI could be for the way we work. And so a couple things that immediately caught our eyes were maybe tasks that were not quite so enjoyable or tasks that are very time-consuming, and so that’s really where we decided to focus initially. And we all have these things in our day-to-day, our day-to-day work, our day-to-day life. And so it might be taking meeting notes. It might be trying to find that piece of information that’s buried in some document that you can’t seem to find. It might be analyzing data or filling out a form. And so imagine what you could do if you had something helping you, kind of magically, and all the sudden you’d have some time freed up.
And so for us, what that means is that we’re able to spend more time doing what we do best, which is putting care to work by connecting to our customers. And really, the key to our success has been that leadership. And the board has fully embraced AI and been big believers of what it could do for us from an efficiency perspective, and they’ve really encouraged us to move fast and think big.
Veronica Raulin (04:37):
Oh, I love that. So you touched on something around using AI to simplify some of the tasks you don’t want to do so you can focus on the people you’re caring about, right? You are in a service industry, taking care of companies and taking care of people, and AI is allowing you to do more of that and less of meeting notes or organizing structure. But on the flip side, you are in a very highly-regulated industry, insurance, and, even more so, workers’ comp. So how have you been able to balance that drive from your sponsor saying, “Let’s experiment and try,” with also your needs to be compliant with regulations and play within the guy-wires?
Heather Hoyer (05:21):
That’s a great question and something that we’re constantly focusing on. And when I hear compliance, I actually think of two areas of compliance within this world. One is AI compliance, and there’s really not a lot of regulations regarding AI right now. We’re, of course, committed as an organization to follow all laws and rules and regulations that we need to, but there’s just not a whole lot of them in the AI space right now, so what we’re really focusing on is using AI ethically and responsibly. And so really what that means for us is making sure that’s human-led and human-supervised.
That actually also helps us with the compliance on the workers’ comp piece of it as well, because that is a highly-regulated industry. And so by making sure that we have the experts still in the loop, the experts being the human, we can make sure that we are following all of our compliance needs, and that it’s not just AI going off and being autonomous. We still are very much a part of that process. And how we phrase that is that we’re keeping the human in the loop.
Another way to think of this is that we’re still responsible for our final work product. So for example, many throughout Pinnacol use AI to draft emails or to draft documents. And so we find that that’s a really big time saver, especially if we’re trying to describe a tricky concept or if we’re really trying to consolidate a large amount of information, but it’s still important for us to review that to make sure we’re on board with what the output was, make any final tweaks or edits before we actually send it. So that’s how keeping a human in the loop or making sure we’re part of our final work product looks for us.
Veronica Raulin (07:18):
Okay, awesome. I want to go back to… We talked about being all-in. Well, let me explain a little bit for our listeners. What do I mean by that? When we prepped for this show, Gemini for Workspace was looking a little bit different. And at that time, when you made the decision to go with Gemini, you purchased, at that point, licenses for everyone. You said, “We’re not going to say, ‘This part of the business is using AI, but that part isn’t.'” Everyone got it. And now, we’re seeing, with some changes from Google, that is going to be the future for companies, which is really exciting, but it also means you’re jumping all the way in the deep end, right? And so you’re supporting and having those conversations with multiple types of business users to start helping them think about, what does AI mean in this role? What does AI mean in that role?
So you’ve been on this all-in journey, so can you tell us about, from a change management perspective, how have you managed this transition and engaging thousands of people with AI all at the same time?
Heather Hoyer (08:24):
Yeah, absolutely. So from day one, our leadership has been on board, and that has really been critical to our success. John O’Donnell, our president and CEO, he’s been a super strong and visible supporter of AI from the very beginning. And so because of that, we first rolled it out to our leadership, because we realized that the leaders were really going to be the ones to think about, initially, what could this mean for their teams, and the leaders are going to be the ones to support their teams as they’re going through this change. So we rolled it out to all the leaders first just to experiment, kick it around, learn about it, think about it, absorb it, and that really prepared the leaders to be strong supporters of AI for their teams.
After we gave the leaders a little time to get used to it, then we did go ahead and open it up to our entire org. It was on a requested basis. So somebody could write in and say, “Hey, I want to try this. I want to kick the tires on it.” And at that time, we were really focusing on experimentation, so not setting expectations on how it would be used for somebody’s job, just really saying, “Hey, go in, play with it.”
Because that is the hard thing about AI, and the exciting thing about AI, is that the sky’s the limit, right? And so it could be really hard to get our heads around what that means for me, but it could also be super exciting if you have somebody who thinks outside the box and is really keen on experimenting with something. So we just first said, “Hey, request it. Let us know if you want to try this. Let us know if you want to experiment with it.” And I, personally, was quite surprised to find that, in about two months, we had about 75% of our organization who had requested AI. So in my mind, that’s kind of like viral, right? It’s like everybody wants it, everybody wants to try to use it.
And at that time, we didn’t have any formal training, no formal learning, and so we really just tried to have it be very organic, where people were just sharing successes, sharing learnings, sharing what really worked for them, or how they were trying AI and maybe how it wasn’t working, just so we could get a really organic community going to showcase all of that.
And we did a survey, and the survey said, “Yeah, we really like this AI tool. It’s pretty nifty. And yeah, we could see how transformational it is. But you know what? I’m finding it a big struggle to find time to experiment and to learn with this.” And so from there we said, “Okay, we know time is an issue, that that’s actually hindering some of the learning that we’re trying to get. So what do we do with that?” Well, we said, “Let’s partner with SADA. Let’s see how SADA can help us.”
And so, from working with SADA, we decided to roll out a more formal program, where we engaged some Gemini super users, is what we called them. So think of them as ambassadors, supporters, whatever term you want to use, but we got a group of super users together throughout our organization to try this pilot with SADA, so that they’re getting the more formal education, they’re getting more formal support, and see, how does that go? Well, I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that it went really well. Our super users really appreciated having that dedicated rollout, that dedicated support, and that gave the super users the confidence to really hold the space for learning with their teams and to really encourage safe learning spaces, encourage adoption, and really help them feel that they were part of it, that they were owning a part of this, if you will.
And so through everything that SADA offered us, it was a month-long program, where it was weekly tips, weekly surveys, weekly videos. We said, “Okay, let’s roll that out to the entire organization.” So we did our own little month-long campaign that everybody was able to take a part in. And everybody was super excited about it. They said, “Yes, this was very helpful.” It filled in some of the blanks for people that felt that they needed that. And since then, almost our entire organization has opted in for Gemini. And again, of course, it’ll be live to everybody here very soon, which will be very exciting.
And so now really what we’re focusing on is, how do we reinforce that? How do we keep the learnings going? And so we’re doing things like having just short demos throughout a meeting or throughout a month, just to showcase some of the cool learnings. We’ve gone through and collected use cases and prompts for people who were willing to share, and we have them posted in a library. So if anybody is curious how to do something or just needs a little spark of inspiration, they could go to those resources and look at what others have done, and hopefully that will help them. And we continue to get feedback. Periodically, we survey our organization and say, “How’s it going?” And everybody still is really excited about this and just sees the power of AI and what it can do for us.
Veronica Raulin (13:58):
Okay. Heather, you’ve shared so many tips right now that I want to make sure our audience does not miss. So at the end, I would’ve asked you a question like, “What would you recommend?” You did a bunch. So any big nuggets, save for that question. But a couple of things that you mentioned I just jotted down.
Building in a super user community, right? Because as someone in maybe a change role, or an adoption role, or a rollout role, or training and development, we don’t know what everyone at our company does. And so having a power user in each of those departments or roles, they can help their team members say, “Oh, I used AI for that,” or, “I used AI for that.” We just don’t know what all the workflows are. So, such a powerful community.
You talked about this juxtaposition that we see. It’s like, “I really want to learn AI, but I’m too busy to learn, but I actually learn better when there’s structure.” So we think, “Oh, maybe we’re adding something. I don’t want to bother them. They’ll learn if they want to. I don’t want to add a training on their schedule.” But the reality is saying, “These are the times. Make the time. Here’s the video to watch. Here’s what you need to know.” It flips the light on, where I think a lot of people are walking around in a dark AI room being like, “Where am I going?” And the training just flips a light on, lets you see a little bit, and start to let that room take shape for you. And so that structure of having a program and monthly tips, or weekly tips over a month, anything like that really does help cut through the noise, and just enlightenment, really.
Two other things you talked about that I loved around creating a timeframe to learn and doing little challenges. We launched today, internally for my team, a little trial, and we’re calling it Gemini Boost. And we’re thinking about it as in like… You see those 70-day hard and 28-day juice challenge, or whatever it is, some kind of thing to get you hyper-focused, but for us, we’re tracking all the prompts, gamifying a little bit. But the whole point is to share, that knowledge sharing of like, “I didn’t even know you could do that, Heather. How did you just do that?” And then that library, which creates that shared knowledge base. Because the tools are changing so fast, we’re not even sure what we can do with them. But what you’ve created for your employees to go back to, or new hires to look at as they’re starting in their roles, are all these resources to meet people where they are. And I love that. I love it. I love it.
Okay, so what are you most proud of? You’ve done all of this work. It is paying off. You’re seeing happy employees and getting rid of menial tasks that nobody wanted to do anyway. So what are you most proud of in this journey?
Heather Hoyer (16:46):
There’s really two things, I think, that come to mind here. One is just the speed at which we moved and we adopted. In the highly-regulated industries, speed tends to not be a thing, right? We tend to be very conservative. We want to make sure we’re following the rules. And of course, we still want to make sure that we’re doing that, but this gave us an opportunity to really just try things out, kick it around, see how we could use it. And so I’m just super proud of how everybody just said, “Okay, let’s try it. We’re still going to keep human in the loop,” like I said earlier, “We’re still going to be responsible for our final work product. But because of that, let’s just try it. Let’s see what happens.” And our leadership, of course, was huge in this, encouraging us to think big and go fast. That’s really where it started from. So yeah, just the speed with which we moved.
To give you an example of this, it’s not Gemini-related, but AI-related, is we have now five custom AI tools that we rolled out in a matter of months. We were able to really iterate on them super quick, figure out what the need was, get them built, and get them out. Now, they’re not perfect, of course, as AI has to learn, right? Sometimes we get some hallucinations, I think they’re called. But we looked at, what sort of impact is this having on our teams? And so to give you an idea, we did a recent survey, and over 95% of those who use those tools find them useful. About 90% of them say that they’re saving at least some time with them. And because of these, the majority of our organization says, “Yeah, I get how transformative AI is for the way I work.” So, I love just those tidbits of just how we’re seeing that needle move with using technology to our advantage.
The other thing that I am super proud of during this, and I shouldn’t be, I joined Pinnacol for a reason, and this is one of them, is that throughout this I was really able to see how our leaders embody putting care to work by supporting their teams. Our leaders did this first. They were the ones who got into Gemini first and started to play around. They’re the ones who have been supporting our teams. And so in that survey we asked, “How supported do you feel by your manager?” And almost 98% said that they feel that their manager supports their use of Gemini. So just all of that just makes my heart all warm and fuzzy.
Veronica Raulin (19:31):
Oh my gosh, this is so great. I love that. What’s next? What’s next in the future of AI for Pinnacol Assurance?
Heather Hoyer (19:39):
Well, we’ll, of course, continue to explore how it can help. Really, how it will help our injured workers get the tools they need so that they could get as whole and healthy as they can as fast as they can. We’re going to continue to see how we can reduce costs for our policyholders using these tools. And really, it’s going to help us continue to provide the best-in-class care that we do for our customers and our customer satisfaction.
Veronica Raulin (20:12):
Okay. This is fabulous. So on our way out, two questions for you. One, big picture, what advice would you have for other businesses who maybe are stepping slowly in or are not sure where to get started, haven’t flipped that light switch on, essentially? How would you help them to get started, number one? And number two, where has Gemini made your life easier?
Heather Hoyer (20:36):
So to get started, I’d say just start. That’s the biggest thing that we found is just start with something. It could be something small. Figure out some low-stakes way to just start to play around with it and see the power. And that’s actually one of the things that I use Gemini for the most is some of those low-stakes things like drafting emails or documents. I have found that it has been a huge time saver for me. I could just jot down a few notes and say, “Hey, spit this out for me,” and it does a pretty good job. I still review it. I still change it to make it my voice and add maybe things I forgot. So I still have control over it, but it just takes so much time away from that task by being able to have a draft that I’m reacting to rather than trying to think it through.
Another thing that I love to use Gemini for is those surveys that I mentioned, right? We do a lot of surveys, which is amazing. We hear a lot from our teams, and that means somebody has to analyze all that data. We have to get the sentiment out of them. We have to say, “What are they telling us?” I use Gemini for that to do a trial run. I say, “Hey, analyze what the trends are to this question.” And it’ll spit it out in, what, 30 seconds? I then, of course, look at all the responses, say, “Hey, is this jiving with what I’m hearing here?” And the vast majority of the time, of course it is. So something that would take me days, maybe even weeks to analyze, all the sudden I’m getting it done in a day or two, at that, so it’s drastically cut down my time. So those are just a couple low-stakes ways, but the bottom line is just start doing it. Figure out something, just something to dip your toe into it.
Another thing I’d say, though, is just remember that it does take time to learn. And as we were saying earlier, people use it in so many different ways, depending upon who they are, depending upon what their role is, depending upon how they think about it, and so really finding a way to uplift those who are using it. Uplift their successes. Uplift their learnings. Not everything is a success, but those learnings can be just as powerful. So figure out a way to uplift those who are embracing it, and I think you’ll get a really big bang for your buck.
And then just, of course, set expectations. Keep that human in the loop with whatever you’re doing. Set expectations. Are we just thinking that you’re going to experiment to just play around with it or are we going so far as to say this is part of a process that you’re now doing? How do we get that human in the loop to make sure that we’re still being accurate, being authentic, being responsible?
Veronica Raulin (23:28):
Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much, Heather. As anyone who’s listening can tell, Pinnacol Assurance, just such a great company, really fun, takes care of their employees, really cares about who they’re working for as well. So if anyone wants to know more about Pinnacol Assurance, where do they go, Heather?
Heather Hoyer (23:47):
Well, the first thing I want to point out is that we spell our name a little bit different. We are a Colorado company, and so we wanted to give a nod to that. So Pinnacol is spelled P-I-N-N-A-C-O-L. So, would love to see you online. You could go to pinnacol.com to learn all about us. We’d love to hear you on the social media channels. We’ve got various connections, LinkedIn, and all of those. And so, yes, just come in and learn more about us.
Veronica Raulin (24:17):
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Heather, for joining us today. Thank you for all of you who are listening to our podcast. You won’t want to miss more exclusive insights from leaders like Heather, and we will see you next time on Cloud and Clear.
Heather Hoyer (24:50):
Thanks.
