Fortune Staff

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

Fortune 500

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This financial services company, established in 1860, provides life, disability, and dental insurance as well as employee benefits plans.

Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America Company Profile, News, Rankings | Fortune

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Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America

guardian life ins. co. of america

 SUSIE GHARIB: Deanna, thank you so much for joining us to talk about the big issue facing the workplace and a topic that you covered in your new book. It's called Hire Purpose. And you say that businesses will need to reskill and retrain workers on a massive scale over the next 10 years. Make a case why business leaders need to do this now and the downside risk if they don't. DEANNA MULLIGAN: Well, thanks, Susie. It's great to be here with you today. Yes, in my new book, I talk about the fact that over the next 10 years, it's estimated by research that 85 million jobs will go unfilled because the skilled people are not available. The COVID-19 environment has really pushed more companies to become more digital in many ways, and it's pushed consumers to continue to want digital services. And right now, there aren't enough trained people in the digital arena for companies to keep up. So they really need to start training their own. SUSIE GHARIB: Do you think that this pandemic actually has motivated companies to take this reskilling and retraining more seriously? DEANNA MULLIGAN: I do because I think companies see that everyone working from home, everyone has to become their own technology expert. You know, we've all experienced that. And they see the value of having employees who have basic technology and digital skills because it gives them a lot more flexibility in this environment. It also really improves customer service. So I think companies do see the value of reskilling. They do see the value of having a flexible technology-enabled workforce. SUSIE GHARIB: I think business leaders do realize that this is important, but it is such an overwhelming task. What do you say is the best way to just get started on this? DEANNA MULLIGAN: Well, people often ask me about that. And first of all, I say three things. Start small. You don't need to retrain everybody in the company right away. Pick a problem that's challenging and think about how the solution to your problem might be different if you had different skills in your environment, and start there. So start small. Secondly, don't give up. Oftentimes the first attempt to reskill people or to get them to think about a problem in a new way fails. And we've had plenty of failures at Guardian, but we've had far more success. So start small. Don't be afraid to fail. And finally, develop a learning culture inside the organization. If you can get to the point where you have a learning culture, employees will be seeking out new ways to do things, and you won't have to push it so much top-down. SUSIE GHARIB: How do you suggest that companies develop this learning culture, and you also call it continuous learning, like there's no expiration date on that. How should companies create that mindset? DEANNA MULLIGAN: Well, I think to develop a culture of continuous learning, it really needs to be both a top-down and bottom-up initiative. So what we have done at Guardian, for example, is we started a couple of years ago with leader learning day where we took everybody who manages anyone offline for a whole day. Our executive team fanned out across the country and went and led learning sessions for people leaders and talked about the importance of learning new things, managing one's career, thinking about new skills that would be needed to help Guardian achieve its goals. And it was wildly popular, and we got requests to spread it throughout the organization. A lot of our research shows that on-the-job-training is really the most effective for many skills. People like learning during the workday. They like to do it in small bites. And they like to be able to use their skills right away in their job. So having training and courses that are very relevant to what's going on in the day-to-day is really a way to make this effective for everybody. SUSIE GHARIB: Well, you actually did something along those lines at Guardian. I understand that your company needed to hire a whole bunch of data scientists. And you could have gone to the outside and just done the hiring, but instead, you decided to retrain your actuaries. You were successful in turning them into top-notch data scientists. Tell us about the process, and why did that work for Guardian? DEANNA MULLIGAN: Yes, at Guardian, we have, like many companies, we have a data analytics unit that's populated by PhDs. But they're hard to find, and when they come to us, they often don't know our business. So we went to our actuaries, who make rates and make judgments for us about how much reserve we're to hold and so on. Actuaries are really core to all insurance companies. But the way actuaries are trained is to do data sampling. And now, with all the computing power that's available, they don't need to sample. They can use all the data. So we went to General Assembly, a startup that's now owned by a bigger company, and they did a custom program for us. It was 10 hours a week on-site and 10 hours a week of study for a year. So 20 actuaries were very dedicated, finished that program. Some of them have joined our PhD group, even though they don't have PhDs. And many of the rest stayed in their current role, and this is something that you often find with retraining. They were able to expand their role and add more value to their business partners because they had this data analytics training. SUSIE GHARIB: I know that you have interviewed and talked with so many CEOs as you were writing your book, and you researched so many companies that are doing things in this retraining area. Is there any company that you think that we can learn from, that's sort of a role model about how to go about all of this successfully? Who would you single out? DEANNA MULLIGAN: I think IBM, in their original development of the P-TECH high school, was very innovative. But it's been several years now. But they spend a lot of time working with high schools in their area to come up with a five-year program whereby the graduates of that program could go to work directly at IBM. And that is a trend that we are jumping on at Guardian is we are not requiring college degrees now for a lot of jobs that used to require college degrees. We will hire people from high school and put them through the training once they arrive on our doorstep. So I think IBM was the original innovator of that, and a lot of companies have jumped on that bandwagon. SUSIE GHARIB: Just to wrap it up, Deanna, you've talked about a lot of advice that you would give on doing this whole thing. But if you would single out one piece of advice to get a CEO or business leader jump-starting into all of this, what would it be? DEANNA MULLIGAN: Well, I have a lot of conversations with CEOs and senior leaders in organizations, and they often ask me that question, well, what if I do all of this training and people take the training, and then they leave? And I say, what if you don't train them, and they stay? I don't think you can afford not to do this would be my biggest piece of advice. 

Deanna Mulligan of Guardian Life Insurance discusses her new book and outlines how executives can jumpstart "continuous learning."

Digital re-skilling of workforce should be CEOs' top priority

Guardian Life Insurance Board Chair Deanna Mulligan

Leadership

Digital re-skilling should be CEOs' top priority

 Deanna, the markets are rallying. It looks like the Dow Jones Industrial Average will soon hit a new milestone, Dow, 20,000. That's what they say. So what does this momentum mean for the investment side of Guardian's business? Obviously, with interest rates going up, it does help our portfolio. You see the market going up. The market may be fully priced for now. It may not be. Who knows? We've had a lot of surprises this year, when you think what happened in June with Brexit, and then, again with the election. So we are cautiously optimistic. Everyone, from baby boomers to young investors, are trying to figure out what are the smart moves I should be making now. What are you telling your clients about what they should be doing with their portfolios, and maybe rebalancing them, given what's going on in the markets? We always advise our clients to be on the conservative side, to dollar cost average at times, and not to make too many bold moves at any given period in time. The other thing that probably makes us different is we do talk to clients about how they manage their money, about budgeting, about being conservative, about how you can find more room to save more and to invest more for the future. I'm sure a lot of your clients are asking you, what should I do about my retirement savings? The big worry always is, will I have enough money or am I going to outlive my savings. What does the rule of thumb that you tell them? That's absolutely true, and many of our clients have that fear. It is possible to outlive what you've put aside for retirement. Again, what we do for clients with our annuity products is we guarantee you an income for life, and that's the advice that we give clients. You've been talking a lot about interest rates going up. How does this impact your client portfolios that are basically fixed income and they are annuity investments? We try to be market neutral, and we try not to take big bets on interest rates because that's not why we're here. And our portfolio does rollover a certain amount every year, but it's 7% to 10%. It doesn't all roll over at once. So our portfolio has many generations of fixed income securities in it. One area that people are still feeling very uncertain about and uncomfortable is health care and the future of Obamacare. I know that this isn't, Guardian is more on the dental and vision, life insurance side of it. But a lot of people are worried about am I going to get the insurance that I need? Can I afford to pay for it in case I get sick? What are you expecting to happen with the future of Obamacare? Well, we really don't know at this point. But President-elect Trump has said on occasion that he would like to keep the part of Obamacare that provides for insurance for young adult children living at home and for people with preexisting conditions. So that should help soothe some of the fears of people about the availability of insurance. And I think that there are things that can be done actuarially to think about how to make this affordable at different levels and different ways. It's interesting that, despite all the bold talk of dramatically changing Obamacare, there hasn't been a single organization representing patients, physicians, or hospitals saying that they think that this plan would make things better. Are you expecting that whatever changes that are going to come to Obamacare that will improve the cost, the access, and quality of health care? Well, it's hard for me to imagine that the administration would want to change health care in such a way that it was a disadvantage to large numbers of American people. So I think the idea is to find a different way to achieve the goals of making health care more affordable and more accessible. 

Guardian Life Insurance's CEO Shares Some Investment Advice

Deanna Mulligan says being conservative is key.

Deanna. The markets are rallying. It looks like the Dow Jones industrial out average will soon hit a new milestone. Dow 20,000. So what does this Momenta mean for the investment side of guardians? Obviously, with interest rates going up, it does help our portfolio. You see the market going up. The market may be fully priced for now. It may not be. Who knows? We've had a lot of surprises this year when you think what happened in June with Brexit and then again with the election. So we are cautiously optimistic. Everyone from baby boomers to young investors are trying to figure out what smart moves I should be making out. What are you telling your clients about what they should be doing with their portfolios and maybe re balancing them and given what's going on in the market? We always advise our clients to be on the conservative side $2 cost average at times, and you know not to make too many bold moves at any given period in time. The other thing that probably makes us different is we do talk to clients about how they manage their money about budgeting, about being conservative about how you can find more room to save more and to invest more for the future. I'm sure Ah, lot of your clients are asking you, you know, what should I do about my retirement savings? The big worry always is. Will I have enough money, or am I gonna outlive my savings? What is the rule of thumb that you tell them? That's absolutely true. And many of our clients have that fear. It is possible to outlive what you put aside for retirement again. What we do for clients with our annuity products is we guarantee you an income for life, and that's the advice that we get. Clients. You've been talking a lot about interest rates going up. How does this impact your client portfolios that are basically fixed income and they are annuity investments. We try to be market neutral. We try not to take big bets on interest rates. That's not why we're here. So and our portfolio does roll over a certain amount every year, but it's 7 to 10%. It doesn't all roll over at once, so our portfolio has many generations of fixed income securities in one area that people are still feeling very uncertain about an uncomfortable is health care and the future of Obama care. I know that this isn't a guardian, isn't here on the dental and vision life insurance outside of it, but a lot of people are worried about. Am I going to get the insurance that and you cannot afford to pay for it in case I get case I get it. What are you expecting to happen with the future of Obamacare? Well, we really don't know at this point. But President elect Trump has said on occasion that he would like to keep the part of Obamacare that provides for insurance for adults, young adult Children living at home and for people with pre existing conditions. So that should help soothe some of the fears of people about the availability of insurance. And I think that there are things that can be done, actually, really, to think about how to make this affordable a different levels in different ways. You know, it's interesting that despite all the bull talk of dramatically changing Obama care, there hasn't been a single organization representing patients, physicians or hospitals, saying that they think that this plan would make things better. Are you expecting that whatever changes that are going to come to Obama care that will improve the cost, the access and quality of healthcare? Well, it's hard for me to imagine that the administration would want to change healthcare in such a way that it was a disadvantage to large numbers of American people. So I think the idea is to find a different way to achieve the goals of making health care more affordable on dhe more accessible.

Deanna, President- Elect Donald Trump has said that the government needs to be more business- friendly. As the CEO of a major Fortune 500 company, what does business- friendly mean to you? Well, I think we'll see what business- friendly means. We're optimistic that with a new president and a new cabinet There is going to be some more focus on how we can get the economy growing again. And we certainly need to do that. We saw in this election that people on both sides, people from both parties, were concerned about their future and about how their family can live maybe live a better life than they did. So, There is optimism about the economy, about business, I think it's positive in the sense that we need to think about how to keep America growing. Well, trump calls himself a pro business president, what can Donald Trump do for american businesses. I think everyone has looked at tax code for a long now and say, is there a way to make it simple? Is there a way to make it easier? Is there a way to help companies repatriate foreign earnings which we don't have, but that's certainly an issue. So I think there is a lot that can be done. And as I said, I'm cautiously optimistic that we will be able to move forward with some pro growth initiatives in this administration. You know Diana we've seen how Trump has taken a strong position with some business decisions from companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin. A carrier. What do you think of this leadership approach? Well, you know, it's an interesting approach. The president engaging directly with companies and I, we don't see that very often. I think it's, it's to early to say how that might play out. But again, I think he's trying to act in the best interest of American workers, and we'll see. You know, we'll see what comes of that. Do you think that businesses, and CEO's like yourself need to take a more proactive approach with Trump? Well, i wouldn't say we need to take a proactive approach just because Mr. Trump is President elect. We try to be proactive about getting our story out, whoever, whomever's in Washington. Right, so We are proactive about that because no president, no cabinet member, no congress member can be an expert on everything. Have you talked to President- elect Trump? Not yet, no. But would you serve on any kind of business roundtable to advise? Look, the President of the United States is a very important person. And we need to do everything we can to help him. It's a big country, there are a lot of problems, he's one person, we're happy to help. Looking at what Trump has been saying and some of his actions, Do you think that the Trump presidency will mean more growth more profits maybe even more jobs for businesses including Guardian? It's certainly early to tell. But of course you see what's happened in the markets and there seems to be a sense of optimism in the economy which I think is always a good thing. A technical analyst would say there's no such thing, but people do talk about animal spirits moving the market. And I think the animal spirits are moving in a positive direction, so we're very hopeful. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Guardian Life Insurance of America CEO Deanna Mulligan explains.

Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America

Company Information

Key Financials (Last Fiscal Year)

Profit Ratios

Earnings Per Share (Last Fiscal Year)

Total Return