Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company: 2024 BEST Award Winner, #15

In 2020, Nationwide Insurance launched a five-year future-of-work strategy focused on career empowerment and building a culture of continuous learning. The strategy is moving the company to a skills-first approach in developing its 24,000-person workforce.

Change of that type takes time, and the team behind the strategy knew that for the organization to accomplish—and sustain—success, an intentional, year-by-year focus was necessary. Years one to three achieved several milestones:

• Raising expectations for all associates to plan and develop future capabilities and skills

• Connecting future capability development needs to business strategy

• Equipping leaders to activate upskilling and reskilling

The fourth year focused on expanding career empowerment to accelerate skills growth and agility. A key highlight included engaging associates and leaders in the company's new Career Hub platform, an artificial-intelligence-enabled, skills-based talent engine providing personalized insights on career development. Based on a person's abilities and future job interests, Career Hub identifies the required skills for that position. It suggests skills on which to focus and recommends pertinent learning options.

Those efforts are driving a skills-first mindset in talent acquisition, talent development, and talent evaluation. From as early as 2017, Nationwide Insurance developed the Future Capability Skills Model that equally emphasizes three soft skills (lead, innovate, and adapt) alongside two hard skills (digital and data). The model has been the foundation of the company's successful Future of Work Center, which achieved 99 percent associate engagement in 2023.

To continue to evolve its ability to nimbly respond to changing capability and skills needs in year five, Nationwide Insurance is expanding its research-focused, habit-based, future-ready associate sprints and future-ready leader sprints, which include self-paced learning, in-the-flow practice, and cohort discussions over a four-week period. Each sprint addresses a key skill such as courage, presence, and data-minded decisions. The organization is also increasing certificate options and expanding the mentoring program.

Nationwide Insurance is building a new learning engine to enable enterprise-wide deeper skills development for critical skills that will focus on business capabilities essential to future success. The talent management team will partner with business sponsors to provide foundational, comprehensive, and specialized learning for transformation related to each of the targeted capabilities.

With the Future of Work Center and Career Hub in place and a new emphasis on performance at the next level, the talent management team already has its sights set on the next five years, leaning into accelerating skill development in strategic areas.

"At Nationwide, we value people. Ensuring an environment where every associate can thrive, continuously learn, and prepare for the future of work is pivotal to our success," says Erin Pheister, senior vice president of talent management. Summing up the learning culture, she adds that "Through intentional and long-term investments in talent development, a holistic approach aligned to our business strategy, and technology-enabled learning best practices, we have fostered a strong culture of continuous learning that has accelerated both individual and collective success. This not only helps us to attract and retain exceptional talent but also contributes to Nationwide's success."

View the entire list of 2024 BEST Award winners.