Bonus Episode: How Allianz Is Building a Workforce Ready for Constant Change (With Bettina Dietsche)
Should workforce transformation belong to HR? Bettina Dietsche, Group Chief People and Culture Officer at Allianz, doesn't think so.
Bettina leads the people agenda for around 156,000 employees at Allianz. She came to HR after 25 years in IT and digital transformation, picking up the people function while serving as COO of Allianz Commercial during a company turnaround. That background shapes her view that HR's job is to challenge and push transformation onto the business agenda - not to own it.
In this episode, David and Bettina discuss:
Why she believes HR should challenge and nudge workforce transformation, while ownership sits with the business
How 25 years leading IT and digital transformation, including a COO turnaround, shaped her approach to the CPO role
Why she runs regular sessions with more than 60 CEOs across Allianz, and what that partnership actually looks like in practice
Her test for a healthy culture - what people do when no one's watching - and why she calls culture "the hardest currency"
How Allianz builds daily AI habits into leadership, from "AI gem sessions" to asking each morning what AI can help with first
Why she sees AI creating as many new early-career roles as it displaces, and how Allianz is reshaping graduate hiring around that
This episode is sponsored by Valence.
Nadia, Valence's AI coaching platform, connects talent strategy to the work employees are actually doing — offering coaching from the frontline to the boardroom, and surfacing organisational insights that weren't visible before.
As the most widely deployed coach in the Fortune 500, Nadia is already helping global leaders like Nestlé, Delta, CVS, and Kraft Heinz transform talent at scale.
Learn more at valence.co/insight222
This episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast is brought to you by Valence.
[00:08] David Green: I always find it interesting when someone comes into a senior HR role from outside the function, which is why I'm absolutely delighted to welcome to the show today Bettina Dietsche, who spent most of her career on the technology and business side before stepping into people leadership. For the past four years, Bettina has been the Group Chief People and Culture Officer at one of the biggest financial services companies in the world, Allianz. I'm thrilled to speak with Bettina as not only do we get to dig into how her career outside the people function has impacted the way she approaches HR at Allianz, but I'm also keen to learn more on how Bettina is approaching bringing Allianz's people along the journey through business and workforce transformation. We'll talk about how to connect HR to the business; we'll explore leadership and what it takes to lead in today's fast-paced world of constant change; we'll get into culture; and we'll also spend some time on early careers too, one of Bettina's passion subjects, and why these need to be reimagined rather than deprioritised. We have lots to cover, so without further ado, let's welcome Bettina to the show.
Bettina, welcome to the Digital HR Leaders Podcast. Before we get going, can you provide listeners with a quick sense of your background, who you are, and the work you do at Allianz?
[01:38] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, happy to do. Thanks, David, having me. I look forward to our chat. Yeah, as you said, I'm responsible for the people all over Allianz Group. That means I look after 156,000 people, roughly 17,000 leaders. And obviously, I do this not only from Munich alone, but I do this with many people offices in our countries and our companies. And my background is actually IT. I've been 25 years in digital and transformation and always been in between business and IT, and I guess that's a great opportunity these days to bring the technological acumen together with the people and the human acumen and hopefully make us even more successful than as we are.
[02:19] David Green: Yeah, let's dig into that now, Bettina, because as I said when we spoke a week or so ago, it's not a natural path into HR. We have people that develop their careers through HR and elevate themselves up to the Chief People Officer, and also we have people that come in from other areas of the business. It's particularly interesting your IT background and your digital transformation background, given where we are in the world at the moment. Before stepping into the Chief People Officer role, you've had those senior roles in IT and digital transformation. I'd love to know, tell me a little bit about that transition and what prompted you to move over to HR?
[02:57] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, absolutely. It was not because I was looking for it, I have to say. But as you rightly said, in my former role, I was the Chief Operating Officer for a large global entity. It was Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty. It's one of our big commercial roles. And as the COO in there, we went through a pretty tough change, 'turnaround', I would even call it. And in that digital ownership I had, I also had the people function with me, because obviously with every turnaround change, you have a lot of discussion on restructuring, on reorganising the company. And this combination with people was very close because we have workers council in Europe, so it became pretty natural that you had the digital discussion, but equally the people and structural discussions.
So, I got used to having these two. And the more I got used to it, I felt like this is really super-powerful because ultimately, it's not about technology, it's about how people can continue their career, can contribute, can grow to really make a difference. And by doing so, obviously this was noticed that this is a nice way of combining it, so that Oliver and Renate both asked me whether I would be actually considering even to take the bigger role for the group because of this combination. And while it was always a great step to bring technology and people coming closer, the last two years, if I see the speed of AI and the transformation, it even more brings this human side and the technological side closer. So, I think it's not planned for, but clearly I'd see it's a big asset to have both of these backgrounds to really shape the culture of where people can be really growing further in this tumult, in this world of change and speed and adoption and everything which comes with it.
[04:55] David Green: That's really interesting, Bettina, because I've interviewed a few people on the podcast recently, Chief People Officers like you in large organisations. We had Sharon Doherty from Lloyds Banking Group on a couple of months ago, and she talked about how she partners very closely now with the CIO on the transformation down to AI. We also had Sandra Surth, one of the senior partners at McKinsey, on the show at the start of the year, and we were talking about, and I just heard you pretty much say the same thing there, that this isn't a technology transformation. It's easy to think that because it's AI and it's technology, it's a technology transformation. Ultimately, it's a people and a culture transformation. And if you don't get those elements right, then you won't get the value that you get from AI. And I imagine with your background in technology, digital transformation, and now people together, you can see that probably even clearer than others.
[05:51] Bettina Dietsche: Absolutely. As I said, and it's the same on my side or on our side, I work super closely with my former CIO colleagues or COO colleagues. So, I would say we're partners in crime every day, right? Like, what do we do? How do you get the tools out? How do you get people to learn and adopt? How do they get trust into this? So, this is a really a super-close collaboration. And I believe that that's actually what really makes success later on. Do you get the people on the journey without fear, rather than actually just throwing tools at someone, where people are just lost, right, and how to use it, what makes a difference for them? So, the combination, I really truly believe, is the asset. And if I look at the market, I feel more and more companies even bring the people function, IT and data under one roof. And I see more and more colleagues, when I talk to people officers, that they come with a production or business background, because I truly believe, and that's what served me very well, you have a seat at the table, right? Because I'm not talking of HR back-office thinking, I'm talking about what generates value for the company, for the customer, for the shareholder, for the stakeholder. And this comes from people, because people drive the success.
So, I think this combination, I find, is very rich to be really being in the front of leading the transformation, because that's equally, obviously, you can imagine what I pray and preach to 156,000 people, I want to eat my dog food, the first one. So, I'm actually the one who lives and breathes it in my function, because I truly believe you need to be role-modelling to really help people to see that if we can do it, you can do it, so come and join the bus.
[07:34] David Green: What advice would you give to maybe Chief People Officers listening or aspiring Chief People Officers listening who've maybe grown up in HR, on how best to partner with their CIO counterpart?
[07:46] Bettina Dietsche: I mean, that's obviously dependent on backgrounds very much. But I believe you need to have a good feel for if the business respects you as the transformation partner and not just as they throw things at you to do. So, and this is for me, for instance, I have regular sessions with all of our 60 CEOs. So, my partners are actually the CEOs, because I believe HR cannot do something which is not owned and lived and breathed and authentically driven by the top of the house. So, I truly believe that if this is the partnership, everything in the back can be supported by the people function obviously. But you need to be respected as the one not just who also challenges, who also sets the bar high for how we want to attract talents, how we want to develop our people. So, I think this role has been working very nicely for me because all my CEO colleagues, they know me from the past, from different roles of driving transformation. So, clearly for me, this seat at the table is exactly what I need to feel. If I wouldn't have that feeling, you end up being someone who takes commands to do things. But I believe the People Officer needs to shape it. He or she needs to be this challenging body also to see, are we really taking the right effort to take our people on the journey going forwards?
If you ask me today, this is even more important because the speed of change is so rapid that it's not falling into natural cycles we had in the past decades. You need to adopt basically weekly, monthly; you need to always be able to challenge yourself, is my thinking still adequate, or am I actually maybe becoming complacent? Or, I think we're doing good, but actually the pace of the market is going so fast. So, I believe my advice would only be to have a healthy view on, do you have a seat at the table and are you respected for your challenging power and your delivery power; or are you more the recipient of taking things and you just need to do it? I feel the latter one is very dangerous.
[10:03] David Green: And just again, thinking about your background coming in from other parts of the business, Bettina, has it changed how the rest of the organisation sees HR?
[10:14] Bettina Dietsche: I'd say so, because I think I annoyed many people in the beginning that every second question was like, "But why are we doing this? Why is this serving the business? Are we making the customer more happy?" So, I think I annoyed many people by constantly asking that. Now that they got used to me in this thing, I think it has actually given them an elevation, because they're seen as this partner and not as the one who is just taking topics to solve in the back. So, that's why I believe this very diligent, maybe even provoking, constant challenging us, am I delivering a value for a customer or for our company; that is, I think, a very healthy one. And it changed certainly the perception on the people function, I'd say.
[11:03] David Green: So, through the work we do here at Insight222 and the conversations that I've had on the podcast over the last over seven years now, I'm always curious to hear how each organisation is approaching workforce transformation. You talked about how you partner with the over 50 CEOs, I think you've got, across the Allianz group. So, obviously, given that scale, 156,000 employees, 50 CEOs, how are you thinking about keeping people? Are your employees on the journey with you?
[11:34] Bettina Dietsche: We have been starting as a company fairly early, like eight years back already, to put strategic workforce planning as a key component, where we look at the demand side of what do we need, which skills do we need, and equally match it obviously with the supply side, in the sense of who's retiring, what's natural fluctuation, all these aspects. So, we've started that journey fairly early. If you ask me, I think in the first years it was really something driven by the people function, and it has changed luckily over the past two, three years already, but now even more, that the business owns their demand and their supply, which sets the tone completely different. Because as a claims officer or as a sales officer, he or she needs to know explicitly like, what's the type of role I need more of? Which one do I need less? And how do I actually use the natural changes of a workforce to shape my function? And I'd say this year, it has levelled up on the next level, which I'm very pleased, because we took it super-early to see that the way we have brought workforce transformation up to now, we now need to bring it into the AI era, where we clearly look at jobs completely different, because there's hardly any job which is not touched by AI. Some more, some less, some new ones are generated, and some jobs will clearly go away.
But in this magnitude, we have a discussion about how every role, and that means obviously how our people in the roles, how we need to touch them to bring them on the journey. And I think our secret of success, I really feel very strong about that and very proud, I also have to say, we have a super-rich learning culture, always. It's all about learning, people growing, and it's a two-way street, right? I keep saying to everyone, "Be your own CEO". The company offers things and the company also wants leaders to learn certain things, but obviously it's all on us individuals also to grab it and to take time into it. And if I compare us in the market, if I compare us with how much we have grown, we have really levelled up our learning hours. Last year was the highest one, 65 learning hours per person, which is super-high. But it gives you a bit of flavour of the DNA has really sank into us that we are only as good as we constantly adopt and learn and take new things on, and that helps us very much. So, our culture of learning, of lifelong learning, is a very rich one, explicitly now where speed will force us to learn faster and even more.
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So, as we talked about last week, and as you know, the leadership layer is ultimately what makes or breaks adoption more than the technology itself, and not just the adoption, but actually getting the value from the technology as well. What capabilities are you finding that leaders need now that maybe weren't as critical a few years ago?
[15:53] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, absolutely, I'm very passionate about that. I think you cannot expect people to follow you, to follow what you ask them to do, if you would have leaders in place who are not authentic leaders in the sense they take it serious, they are their best role models. I keep saying, "People watch you if you're a leader and they will mirror you". If you take it serious, they will be the first ones to mirror you and say, like, "If my boss is taking it serious, I better do it too". But it's the opposite also, if they see and notice that you're actually telling them to do something, but yourself, you're not taking it serious. So, that's why I believe leadership is key, and we also clearly see this now. If you look at statistics or data, if leaders are role-modelling, the adoption of AI is about four times higher. So, you can clearly see if you get that in place, your people, you take them on the journey a lot faster than if it's not happening. That's why leadership and development on leadership for us has also always been a super-high priority.
We have introduced, eight, nine years back, a so-called passport for leaders. We call it #LEAD. It's a passport, and this requires to be refreshed every year. So, this is not like, "I've done it once and now I'm done". It's really constantly every year. And I'd say the last three years, we have doubled-down explicitly on what do we want leaders to learn. And in the light of EQIQ, we have always found balances, because we want to have people who have obviously digital data and business acumen and knowledge, but we have strengthened over the past years the emotional part very significantly. Also, in the light of resilience, collaboration, how we work together, how we get the silos breaking up, how we actually get people into a more empathetic leadership. So, we have done that the past two years. And this year, as I said already, why this is now coming so strongly, we have even doubled-down in the sense of we want to see that more than 40% of all your learning goes clearly into AQ, which is AI, but which has a lot to do with adaptability.
I believe, if you ask me, that's the key mental and mindset I'd like to see from our leaders, that they stay adaptable with the constant set change. Why? Why stay healthy? Because the resilience piece I find is actually sometimes very much forgotten, because with the speed, this is also doing a lot to the leaders, right, "How do I stay adaptable?" So, putting focus on resilience, on mental health, is equally relevant. So, this year we have injected, I can give you an example, modules on, for instance, how do I get critical and analytical thinking matured? How do I get communication matured? Because this giving feedback in a fast way is also something which we think is natural, it's not natural, and it's not easy for every leader to do. And in addition, we have strengthened our cyber resilience. So, we want to state that leaders really understand what these days, with all these hacker attacks, also the negative things which come in place with AI and adoption, that people are really leading thoughtfully from this perspective.
So, we have mandatory courses where we really ask people, "You want to refresh your leadership passport? You can learn what you want, but there are three or four things we want you to be savvy, because you are the role model for our employees". And this is, as I said, going forward, we'll double-down even more, we will inject even more modules. So, also on the learning side, I have to say, the speed of how you curate learning capabilities, not in the sense that you go on learning sessions for a day or two. I think what we all see is you want to learn, you want to learn fast, you want to learn when it fits your schedule. And it's more shorter learning cycles, but something you repeat, where you learn and you apply it, you learn and you apply it. And this is what we've changed. But this leadership passport is actually a high value for us, because it keeps everyone honest to really do it, right? Because doing the day-to-day routines, you sometimes are so much tied to your operational craziness that you would sacrifice this. But we do not want it. We want that leaders take time to learn, and then obviously cascades down to all of our employees.
[20:27] David Green: Really good, and thanks for going in some of the detail now. I think it's really, really helpful. And you said that piece about role-modelling, it is so important. I mean, with some of the research that we've done at Insight222, specifically around people analytics, around building a data culture within HR, we found that HR professionals are three times more likely to invest the time and effort to improve their own capabilities if the HR leadership team have done it.
[20:54] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, and I like that you said, maybe to compliment. I keep also here, I believe as a people function, we take care of others, right? That's our job. And you tend to forget that you need to take care of your own function as well. So, obviously, it's my highest priority that my people, I have 2,000 people globally, that we are always the front-runners when it comes to whatever I preach to others to do, that I can actually hold up my paper and say like, "I'm the first one who's done it and my teams are doing it". I really truly believe it's a good feeling for, if you take care of others, please start with yourself. It's like when you're flying in the airplane. I never gave it a thought, actually, over so many decades, when the steward or the stewardess tells you, "Put your oxygen mask on first before you help others". That's exactly what leadership is about. You need to be self-reflective yourself, you need to help yourself first so that you can help others. And that's, for me, a nice metaphor, a nice picture, which resonates I think very well to demonstrate why leadership is the most important element to get it right in the first place.
[22:04] David Green: How do you measure success? How do you measure that leaders are actually taking this on board and it's not just a stamp in the passport, if you pardon the analogy, but they're actually doing it? How do you measure success?
[22:16] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, I think we have a healthy check-in with our people throughout the year. So, we have an engagement survey, which is very rich when it comes to leadership capabilities to work well, to all the resilience topics, the mental health, how we take care of diversity and inclusion. So, all aspects are covered once a year for all the population, but we're not stopping there. We do two check-ins, one in January and the other one in May, where we really measure throughout the year, do we walk the talk, do our people see that we take their feedback serious to really improve? And that's, for me, the biggest, important element. All the things we do on learning, on adaptable, do they have the tools? Do they have access? Do they have the right speak-up culture? What's the failure culture? All these aspects, we really measure rigorously and keep us honest on if people give us feedback, and where we see we could be better than what the market is doing. It's our focus theme and we really work with all the leaders globally to say, "Colleagues, let's take this serious", because it's feedback we get.
People are not expecting magic sometimes. They expect that the feedback is heard, listened, and heard to and taken action upon. And that's how we actually go through the cycle through the year. And I found it very healthy because it keeps us honest, right? It keeps us also focused that it's not just once a year a check-in, it's really regularly checking in. And if we see that something we fall short, we bring it to the agenda. If we see that we're somewhere great, we also say like, "Okay, it seems like we're good on this one. So, let's focus on the rest". And that's also a culture of continuous adaptability, making sure that we're not getting either silent or ignorant or complaining or defensive, but much rather really taking us to beating the best thinking, which I really like, because I think it keeps us on the toes.
[24:20] David Green: And you mentioned a really important point actually in your previous answer around, it's actually quite hard to be a leader at the moment and a manager. There's so much change happening, there's a lot of expectation around learning AI and doing things differently, effectively, hopefully better. You talked about the speed, the way things are changing, and the amount that people are expected to learn generally, I'm not necessarily talking about Allianz here, but generally, the amount that people are expected to learn and obviously help their teams to thrive in that as well. And jobs are changing as well as certain tasks get automated through AI. Obviously, there's new tasks that get created, new jobs are being created as well. So, there's a lot on a leader and manager's mind, if we even forget about the stuff that they usually have to worry about around targets and stuff like that. How are you harnessing AI, for example, to help leaders cope with that and help them become better leaders and maybe to apply some of the EQ and AQ stuff that you talked about, so it becomes a habit effectively?
[25:23] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, and I think that's the secret word, making things becoming a habit. So, that obviously starts in the boardrooms, it starts on the top management layers. You need to find room also for them to really sit with your laptop, test the prompts, use LLMs where you could copy with pride, see how you can apply it in your own remit. And that's habit, really habit, and that means It's not just this Google replacement, it's really becoming part of your day-to-day routines. Whenever you do touch things, the thinking should be native in the sense of, "How would I do this with AI? Could AI help me to do this faster, better? Can I use it for comparisons? What do I use it for?" And that's in the boardroom. And for me, that's probably also what we need to demonstrate, that this is not a once-a-year training in the boardroom, but how do you generate sessions? I call it gem sessions, AI gem sessions. We do a lot where we have great use cases. We look into it and say, "Oh, that's cool. I could do this too". And for me, that is when habit kicks in, right? That it's not a do it once, but it's a regular routine.
Me personally, I've started to adjust my days by really thinking first about what's AI doing for me today, how can I use it, rather than just using it in the moment when I need a comparison or when I need to have a management summary of something. But I think this daily routine starting makes you better, makes you easier to deal with it, makes you actually learning with it, and that starts clearly from the top on a day-to-day basis.
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And you talked a little bit around this, so kind of underneath that leadership pace, underneath that role-modelling, under all the things that you're doing to help lead adapt and create good new habits, and I'm also asking this question because I've noticed that you don't just have the 'Chief People' in your title, you have 'Culture' as well. How are you thinking about culture as part of this, and again across the group perhaps as well?
[28:41] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, I need to go back, when I mentioned earlier on, in my former role as the COO when I had this turnaround situation, I realised that the cultural element is the hardest currency. And if you get that one in order, you can even sacrifice that certain technological or business topics are not perfect. But if culture is not in the right shape, it's actually the biggest limiter I've seen. So, it's funny, I kept saying, when I studied my business administration 10,000 years back, we had this session on culture, and I thought it was the most esoteric thing I could ever think of. So, I never thought that this would be really something I, in my career, see at a certain time. It's the more important element to have a culture where people speak up, where they dare to do failures, where they are daring to experiment, where they have a good risk-thinking, where they are, how should I say, engaged, where they're motivated, where they're respected, where they can come to work as the person they are. And this is for me all culture. And typically, when someone asks me about, "What's culture for you?" I keep answering, for me, it's when you see people behaving when they're not watched, right? What do they do if they're not watched? And that's when it comes through if it's a good culture, because people do, because they believe in things and they do it, whether the boss is in the room or not in the room, they just do the right things. Or whether you have a toxic culture, where people are friendly nodding while you're in the room and then they leave the room and they behave differently. So, this doing things without being watched in the right way, that's how I look at it.
For me, in this transformation and this speedy change where life is tough, we have wars all over, we have governments with different ways of doing things, I believe this North Star of having a good, value-driven culture for me is the utmost importance. Why? Even in our purpose, we talk about trust; and trust, for me, is the element of everything, right? If you don't trust your people, if you don't trust your neighbour, if you don't trust your boss, if you don't trust that the company is doing good things, it's actually a very difficult setup to be sustainably successful. And that's why trust and culture, for me, is the foundation of really having a healthy workplace where people enjoy to come, where it's not always easy and it's very much performance-driven. Don't get confused that good culture is something where it's a fluffy performance culture; it's not. And it goes nicely hand-in-hand at the end to serve a best customer experience and to have, hopefully, also a sustainable business model, not as what we see now in the world, that some industries are struggling so much.
If you look at the automotive industry, what a change! And I can talk on the German side explicitly for so many long-lasting companies who struggle so much. And I believe culture is foundational, because it shapes the foundation for being successful and a trusted company, a trusted partner, a trusted employer.
[32:07] David Green: I think you're right, and think a lot of the research would bear that out, that having that solid foundation of trust and culture allows you to transform the organisation successfully and take your people with you. If you don't have that, the danger is that this house, if you don't have the foundations, the house can fall down.
[32:32] Bettina Dietsche: Exactly. That's why culture for me is a natural one. And as I said, I believe it's the hardest currency of success. And sometimes people still think it's a soft factor. For me, it's not. It's the hardest measurable thing where you need to be honest about, do I have a culture where people can thrive for the best experience, which serves the customer, which serves the financial success ultimately?
[33:00] David Green: Yeah, very good, and I can see the passion that comes out when you're talking about that. And one of the topics that we talked about last week that really I could see the passion there as well was around early careers. And obviously, there's been lots of stuff in the press around the impact of AI on early careers, not all of it true, to be fair. I think there's a little bit of hype around it. But I want to dig into that now about what AI does mean for early careers and graduate hiring. How are you approaching early career recruitment at Allianz and how are you thinking about the growth path in this environment? Because I'm presuming you must be one of Germany's biggest employers. So, you have an impact, I guess, on early careers hiring in the country.
[33:47] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, that is very true. And as you rightly say, I think the discussion, as with every topic currently in the press, I find is not always helpful, right? It's black/white, it's more threatening than it is inviting to take people on the journey. and the same is for early careers. I find the messaging that young careers, young colleagues will not be able to make a career because these jobs will go away, I find that equally black/white and wrong. I think if you don't do anything, that's true, you might end up in that situation. But I think an early career role has such a benefit at the moment because if I look at our world, we will see, I don't know, at least at the moment, it might change over time, but at the moment, I see 7% to 10% of new jobs will be generated in jobs which we haven't had in the past because they were not necessary. But with agents, AI agents being orchestrated together with humans, you need someone who can orchestrate that. Or in the cyber area, this forensic work, we will need to have many more who are actually savvy on this.
So, it's new jobs, and where I believe colleagues coming from university or young colleagues in their first careers, they are AI natives. They think like this, they have grown up with this. Why not use their brain, their innovation power, their global thinking into exactly shaping new roles where they can add a benefit, and actually again here, pair it together with a wisdom-worker, the experienced one my age, right, who actually benefits strongly from getting the younger views on topics together with the experience. And I think if we manage to do this, it's a win-win, because we still want to have colleagues coming in, learning, growing, and then can take their career. But the job maybe, it would be right to have this black/white discussion, like jobs will go away if you don't do something. But for me, it's an invitation to look at exactly these early career jobs and reframe them and shape them for where we need them. And then, I find that that is something which is firstly motivating for young colleagues to join us, but secondly also, there is a career for them to grow into an organisation.
This is how we look at it. And I find that is the more motivating journey I would love to get us into rather than having this, "Oh my God, things will go away, it's all a drama". It's not. Let's get into it and shape roles, shape careers, shape new functions. And I think then, there is a journey for people to still come and join us and feel valued.
[36:34] David Green: Yeah, as you said, it's a redesign of entry-level jobs.
[36:38] Bettina Dietsche: Exactly.
[36:39] David Green: And it's a reimagining of them. It's being a little bit braver, using some of the technology and the data to help us reimagine what the roles are. And obviously, for a large organisation like Allianz, you need early-careers people coming into the organisation because of culture and innovation, succession planning, all those things that companies operate on and flow effectively, effectively work. And I'm not just talking about Allianz here, I'm talking about all large employees, we have a social responsibility as well to create early careers and career paths and opportunities for people, don't we?
[37:18] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, I could not agree more. And not to forget, these are the customers of the future, right? So, they come in with what they learn, what they expect, what they want to do, how they want to purchase an insurance. So, it would be super-stupid to ignore that these are the foundation of the success, because they are also the ones who purchase our products going forward. And they certainly will not purchase it the way I purchased it, or maybe other generations do. So, you need to be able to respond to how they want to go and look for coverage, for trust, a trusted partner.
[37:58] David Green: Yeah, it's interesting, because I've got a 17- and 16-year-old. So obviously, this is a topic of great importance to me at the moment. And the advice that I give to them is to say, "Look, think about the things that you want to do, but try and understand what those jobs are effectively, or those careers are, and the impact of AI on those jobs and careers. And think about the skills that are on the rise that you particularly want to acquire". But it must be a really challenging time to be someone between the ages of 16 and 25, where you're either coming into the jobs market or you will be in the next few years, and you're thinking about what you might do at university or further education. They've got to make some tough decisions and important decisions that's going to help them in the future.
[38:52] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, and I think it applies obviously not just to leaders staying adaptable. I'm very much sure that generations to come, this constant change of what's happening, how can I adopt, how can I learn, is the job I do the job I do tomorrow? Maybe not. And I think that is a difference to past decades, right, that maybe what they learn and get trained now is not what they end up with. So, I think this adaptability is obviously not something only for leaders. It's, I think, a healthy balance for everyone to just get yourself on what's happening now and what do I enjoy. And hopefully, most people can do things they enjoy. Not always, it's very clear, we know that. It's not to romanticise all the things. It's also that sometimes, you just need to do something to survive. But I think if you have a chance, I would say, stay curious, stay bold, take decisions, try things. If it doesn't work, move on. That's a mindset which I believe is certainly healthier than it was already in the past. But I think it will carry them more into staying flexible on how things evolve.
[40:02] David Green: And you're so right, that adaptability. And you talked earlier about continuous learning, creating that culture of continuous learning is so important. Actually, in next week's episode, so I recorded it last week before this one, but actually coming out the week after this episode goes live, Bettina, with Lynda Gratton from London Business School, and she's got a new book coming out called Living the 100-Year Life. She did a book with Andrew Scott about ten years ago now about the 100-year life. And she made a really good point. We're living longer which means our careers are longer. So, the likelihood is many of us are going to be working into our 70s. So, that's potentially a 50-year career, maybe more for some people as well. So, you're not going to be doing the same thing all that time. So, that adaptability, that curiosity, that kind of continuous learning is so important from an individual perspective. But as you're doing at Allianz, providing the climate and the basis for people to actually do that is obviously a responsibility to your employees. But it also actually makes sense for the company as well. I mean, not everyone's going to be with you for 50 years, of course, but you will have some people that choose to do that. You can create really adaptable careers for them by providing that basis for them.
[41:15] Bettina Dietsche: I agree. Also, some of the myths of the past, I'd say, luckily we have overcome that, but I still think it was there. People said, "You're coming to an employer. Once you leave an employer, you're gone forever". I find that really also old-fashioned thinking. What a great asset if someone comes, explores, then leaves, makes different experiences and returns. If you return in a good notion, in a good culture, in a good mindset, it's such an asset to get people back when they have been going out exploring different industries, different careers, and then they return because they still know you. It's a lot easier for them to click and glue and become a part of the company again. So, this is all changing. It's the same on generations. I'm so passionate. I believe, as you said, we will all be working longer. How can we not explore the wisdom-workers, the colleagues with super-long experience? If they stay adaptable, it's not an age topic staying adaptable, right, it's a mindset topic. And I think if this comes in, it's such a nice asset as a company to have five generations which work together, which benefit from each other, where the younger ones push more on innovation, the other ones give more on experience and judgment. If you elevate this to be a healthy place, a healthy culture, I believe as an employer, this is the best thing you can get out of it.
[42:41] David Green: Yeah. We could probably talk about this topic for a long time. And as you said, if you could create that environment where people can work, be alumni, and then come back, I mean they're ultimately potential customers as well. For most organisations that have a strong B2C or B2B business, your employees are your best customers and your best advocates as well.
[43:03] Bettina Dietsche: Absolutely. The best multipliers are if you go out and talk about family, friends, and can talk respectfully and good about your employer, even if you're gone. I think not everyone is leaving because you're not happy. It's just there's a new episode, there's a new life. What a great way of then bringing it back. I really think it's an asset on this alumni thinking, more than it was in the past.
[43:27] David Green: So, we talked about leadership culture, trust being the real foundations on this. How do you communicate the shift in working across the org, especially such a large organisation like Allianz and 50-plus CEOs as well? I can only imagine that you've got to strike that balance between excitement and fear about what AI means for people's jobs as well.
[43:51] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, I think my North Star has always been, be honest and clear and straight and predictable. And that's, I think, what it is, right? I think it's not about telling great stories, everything is great and everything will be fine. Nor is it about threatening people. It's about telling the truth, "Yes, this is disruptive, life, periods we have". We put all these efforts in, we know that jobs will go away, we know that new jobs will come, we put every effort to take people on the journey. If you want to be on the journey, we take care of you. But I think it's again here, treat employees as adults, because they are adults, right? And I would say, if you take it on that lens, it's an honest statement and none of us knows what's in three months, in six months. I think there's also being very transparent about we will constantly revisit what we see, how we deal with it. For me, that worked always well, and I think it's the only thing I would want to be that people treat me, and I would want to treat them on exactly this transparent, honest way of talking about what we see as change.
[44:56] David Green: And you mentioned employee engagement and the regular check-ins that you're doing to understand are you on the right track and readjusting if necessary. What are some of the other things you're doing to measure the impact of the transformation, whether it's adoption or tying it back to business outcomes and stuff? And I appreciate sometimes, when you're early in a transformation, it's difficult to tie it back to business outcomes.
[45:19] Bettina Dietsche: Exactly, but absolutely, we do this. Actually, at Allianz, we love to measure, so we are the company with the most KPIs on world, I think, but rightly so because it gives you this fever temperature, right, where we're good, where we're not good. So, obviously, we do technical adoption, we measure business impact where we can in terms of time reduction, higher productivity, higher growth. Obviously, our growth numbers go very much along with it. So, we have obviously different business KPIs we measure very strongly, and I underpin it with the people side in the sense of the learning hours, have we upskilled, how many thousands of people have we upskilled, on the health parameters, on the AI trust. We measured very rigidly this year, do people tell us that they have trust in AI, and the correlation obviously is very strong to adoption. So, we measure this in order to really see, are we taking the company and the people forward. So, it's not one KPI, it's a measurement set where we can really feel like, is it healthy what we see.
[46:27] David Green: And from that, and maybe some of the other topics we discussed, what's giving you the most confidence that you're heading in the right direction?
[46:36] Bettina Dietsche: Well, confidence, I think, up to now is that the people give us feedback, which actually reassures us that the things we put focus on are valued, are seen, are noted, and obviously led to the business success we have up to now. I think that that's my temperature which I get into, that I clearly see the feedback is always so clear that we exactly know what to do more of, what to not do more of, what to stop maybe also. So, I feel that up to now, with our results, our engagement results, our customer loyalty, which we see obviously, that's for me the temperature. It's very interesting that I can tell you the companies who have a high NPS, a customer loyalty, if they are high, also the people are happy in their shops. So, this happy people, happy customer, it's such a simple message, but it really is true. So, we can measure this along this very clearly, and that's what gives me confidence that we are.
[47:43] David Green: There's that line I can't remember, I will misquote Richard Branson, so I apologise, Sir Richard, but he talks about, "If you look after your employees, and you've got happy employees, they look after your customers, they have happy customers. You've got happy customers, you've happy shareholders", and that's kind of those three areas. If you can get those three areas right, then you've got a successful organisation as well.
[48:04] Bettina Dietsche: Exactly. And what I'm most proud of is also in our capital markets day and when investors talk to us, I can clearly see that the element of talking about people has become a lot more visible from an investor perspective, which I believe is exactly as you say. I mean, obviously, it is about a shareholder, but that doesn't fall from heaven, right? It's people who produce outcome. And so, the factor of people and this triangle, as you said, is, I think, a very healthy one to see if your company is in a healthy state.
[48:38] David Green: And we've definitely seen that over the last 10, 15 years, that boards and shareholders are looking at now employees, they're looking at customers, obviously, they're looking at shareholder value, they're looking at your impact on the environment, all those sorts of things. But what's really interesting, the employee thing seems to have really increased in visibility. And I wonder, and this is just a hypothesis, that we've seen HR over the last 10, 15 years kind of move from being the traditional support function of the past to being more of a strategic partner to the business. As I said, the seat at the table that you talked about, and creating real value. I'm going to ask a question about workforce transformation in a minute, but being either the lead or a strong contributor to the AI and workforce transformation as well. And obviously, in HR, we naturally will bring the people lens with us. So, it's good that we are making progress in some areas as a human race.
So, Bettina, this is the last question. It's a question we've asked a number of other leaders recently, and I'm interested in your perspective on this, obviously coming into HR from other parts of the business. How can HR own workforce transformation in the AI era?
[50:01] Bettina Dietsche: Yeah, as I said earlier on, on our side, I think actually I would even phrase it differently. I think HR has been the owner. If a company has done it, it was mostly done by HR only, which I completely think is wrong. So, I think HR needs to be the person or the function who challenges this, who actually brings it constantly on the table of the business. But the actual owner, for me, is the business, right? If you don't have an interest in your function, in your development, then it's actually wrong that it's only with HR. So, for me, it's more like the more the CEO, the more the COO, the more the Chief Sales Officer owns his or her area of how people will need to evolve, the better it is, because then we are the enablers. We challenge them on recruiting, on learning, on what's needed, but not as the one who actually needs to drive it. And that's, for me, what we have managed over the past years really, that more and more business is actually the ones who come to me and say, "Hey, can we do this? Can we do this again? I don't feel comfortable". That is the nice signal for me.
So, that's how I would phrase it, because if it's owned by HR, it is a numbers exercise where you look at demand and supply. I don't think that this is helpful. You need to really think it through like, which development areas do I need? Which jobs will go away? Which are the new ones? Where do I need strong, strong augmentation upskilling in certain functions? And where does AI help you on certain personal productivity? And this thinking, I think, HR can be the nudging, the ones who actually challenge the function, but the ownership should be with the function.
[51:46] David Green: Very good. And, to play that role successfully, what are some of the kind of new or growing capabilities you see that HR leaders, HR professionals need? And I ask you this, to add on to that, Bettina, partly because you come from a sort of technology background, do you see HR becoming more of a product function in terms of developing products that people, employees use, and they use them because it drives value for them and it drives value for the organisation?
[52:23] Bettina Dietsche: Yes and no. I think the product obviously, or the solutions, I would call it, solutions is what I think we should have in mind in the first place, so that it's not this fragmented individual, everything is done differently, kind of thing. But I believe the more technology kicks in, the more the human side makes a difference. And I believe this touch, where you can spend time with people, help them, grow them, have these critical discussions. If you have more time on the human side, I actually think it's a win-win. So, for me, it's really very clear. The more technology takes over things which are repetitive, automated, not adding value, the more the human time spent makes a difference, and that's how I look at it. And then obviously, solutions or products help you to be fast and scale. For me, it's about, can I scale fast? As you can imagine, I cannot pilot or mushroom 10,000 great ideas. I want to have two, three things which are big bets, which I can go out to 156,000 in a week, right, because time is so critical. So, that's a bit how I look at it, and that's how I judge every solution we do, every product we develop, and every human element, which I believe we need to strengthen and can strengthen.
It's the differentiator, right? That's a great differentiation because we're humans. We love, we pray, we feel, we are angry. We have all these elements, and I think that is what actually makes us unique and hopefully also staying unique as this human empathetic person or leader. That is when we make a difference. Also, to customers. In the moment a customer has a problem, it's the human who can really make a big difference in experience.
[54:09] David Green: Well, I think that's a great place to leave it. I really enjoyed our conversation, Bettina, and I know our listeners will get a lot of value from it. And obviously, thank you for sharing the work that you're leading at Allianz. Where can people follow you? And is there anything coming up that you'd like listeners to know about? And how can people find out more about Allianz? Maybe there's some early careers out there who have been inspired by what you've heard.
[54:34] Bettina Dietsche: Absolutely. Actually, if you want to, guys, go on allianz.com. We have the best recruiting setup you could think of. So, we look after every talent, come and reach out, drop me a note on LinkedIn. I'm trying to respond to everyone who reaches out to me and I can help with. So, I think the social media is a good way of actually also staying in touch and make this informal and fluent and fast. So, that's where you can watch me a bit with my thoughts, my beliefs. And obviously, as I said, come and join Allianz. It's a cool company, guys. We are actually here for 136 years. We have the intention to stay at least another 136 years. And that's why actually being a cool company while still being a secure, good company, sustainable company really matters the most for us.
[55:26] David Green: Well, thank you very much, Bettina. And hopefully, I hope to meet you at an event soon. Maybe, I don't know if you're going to UNLEASH in Paris in a few weeks' time, but if so, I hope to meet you there.
[55:36] Bettina Dietsche: And for sure we will. Thanks, David, thanks for the time. It was very interesting.
[55:41] David Green: Bettina, thank you so much for coming on the show and being so generous with how you're thinking about leadership, culture, and workforce transformation at scale. I learned a lot, and I'm sure our listeners will too. So, thank you again. Turning to our listeners, thank you for spending some of your time with us. I'd love to hear your take on how HR can own workforce transformation in the AI era. Head over to LinkedIn and let me know what stood out to you from my conversation with Bettina, or where you're at in your own journey. And if you enjoyed this episode, please do share it with a colleague. And if you haven't already, hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. One last thing before we go. For those who would like to keep up with what we're working on at Insight222, that's people analytics, HR transformation, and assessing the impact of AI on HR, follow us on LinkedIn or head to insight222.com. You can also sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter at myHRfuture.com to get the latest thinking on HR, people analytics, and everything shaping our field.
Right, that's us for the day. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week with another episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, where I'll be speaking with Lynda Gratton about her new book, Living the 100-Year Life. Until then, take care and stay well.