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At Home With BIG I Interview with Director of Commercial Lines, Mark Whiteley - YouTube
Channel: Billyard Insurance Group
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Mark, thank you so much for
chatting with me today
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it's really great to get
an inside look of at home with BIG
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So, the first question, what does working from home look like for you?
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Well, I'm lucky enough to have already had a work from home set up
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When I started, just being that far away from the office.
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So for those who don't know, I actually lived in Burlington Ontario and that's about a
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45 to 50 minute drive from
head office in Welland
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So I still go down there several days a week when when it's not pandemic mode
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but having a work from home set up is something I had pre-pandemic so I'm one of the lucky
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ones that you know I already had a
comfortable spot kind of set away from
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the house away from everybody else that
had full capabilities from work from
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home so that part of it has been great
for me and then also I've got a wife who
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is also still working full-time so she
has a set up upstairs also with
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two monitors and a laptop so definitely
times where she's got a meeting
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and we end up unhooking our laptops switching spots and
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connecting at our other workstations in
the house but we're making do with with
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the situation. So what advice
would you provide to clients during this
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time? From a commercial standpoint,
obviously things have really impacted
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small businesses & medium business, really
anything that wasn't deemed essential
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service right from the beginning is
going to be impacted in some sort of way.
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So from an advice standpoint really the
thing about commercial is every type of
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business that's out there is unique and
everyone has unique needs. Depending
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on the business itself the
change to their commercial policy is
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going to be different. So really from an
advice standpoint, don't be
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afraid to contact us, your insurance
broker. Contact us and we'll work with
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you and the company that we've placed
you with to make sure that we come up
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with the right solution for you. So, it's
not a one-size-fits-all in commercial
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unfortunately but just having
that conversation with you, understanding
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the situation that you're, in is gonna
help us figure out what the best
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solution is moving forward. How do
you maintain a healthy work-life balance?
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It's difficult because a lot of
the day with work gets blended
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into home life and I've got two young kids
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I've got a three-year-old and a
one-year-old so I think I'm in the thick
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of it. Most of the time
when I am working from here the kids are
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in daycare so I have like a nice quiet
house. The work/life balance has
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been challenging I've been finding that
I'm signing on earlier because
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I'm not having to do that commute. So,
a lot of times typically when I get down
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to the office and while I may be around
8:30 I'm typically signing on now just
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my kids are up early at about 7:30 or
maybe 7 o'clock while they're
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having breakfast and getting some
cartoons in.
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So that part of it is has
changed. Where I used to take a
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lunch break at normal time, that's when
they're both hopefully napping and
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that's when I'm really now having to
power through. I'm getting
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some stuff done and then but really one
of the main things that's changed is
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working with my wife and coordinating
our schedules and asking you know when
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do you have a meeting? When do I
have a meeting? Let's figure
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something out. We've had times when we've both run
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into meetings at the same time and
you're just trying to kind of keep your
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head above water. Prepare the
kids with some snacks and something to
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entertain them and just pray that they
keep themselves occupied during the
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meeting! But in all we're
making do with the situation and there
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have been some positives. We're
spending a lot more time as a family
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the kids are certainly bonding a lot
more than they were before because
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they're kind of their only friend that
they've gone in the house. I
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think we're having a lot more time at
home to make meals and
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have those family meals together whereas
previously
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it was a little bit of a challenge to
getting home at different times
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and rushing to get food on the table so
there have been some positives
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but yeah the work/life
balance has been a tricky game to play
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but we're figuring it out as we go. For sure, they're definitely busy they're very
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young and need a lot of attention so a
challenge for sure
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A lot of people
are in kind of the same boat with kids
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at home and I think there's
more understanding if you're on a call
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with someone, and you hear kids in the
background, it is just what it is right.
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So everyone's trying to find that
balance.
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What are you most looking forward to
when things return to somewhat normal?
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Gosh I think just getting down to the
office and having everybody down
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there. I mean things certainly will be
different in our social
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distancing practices and that sort of
thing but we're lucky and you
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and I both know our office is a
fantastic place to be and it's such a
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large and open space that the social
distancing is going to be easier
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for us than it would be for some other
brokerages in the area so
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our office is such a beautiful
place and we've made it a place where
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everybody really does want to come and
work and there's certain things that I
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certainly miss. The energy that it gives
and just being around everybody there's
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such positive energy when people are running into each other
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at the coffee maker or at the
espresso machine or at our awesome Bevi
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machine that we have. You know it's just those unique times
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where you can collaborate with people
from different departments at any point
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in the day just by running into them and
having those kind of water-cooler chats
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so I think that's really what I'm
missing. I have my
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meetings every day with my own team and having sporadic meetings throughout the
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week with other departments but
you can't really
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replicate that that water-cooler type
chat that you would have when you
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in the office and like I said the energy
that we get and the collaboration just
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from from being down there is really
what I'm looking forward to having back
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when it's all said and done. Yeah
absolutely! I just actually want to touch
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a little bit as your meetings with your
team are a little bit more creative and
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you've really tried to replicate
that those water cooler
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chats. Can you talk a little bit about
that? Sure yeah! We kind of adopted the
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the video chats pretty early on and when
things got rolling with COVID-19
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and I was finding just being in
the position that I'm in, I found
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that I was the one that was
taking the lead on most of the meetings
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especially early on. So it took a few
days for me to realize
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it doesn't work the best when I'm the
one that's doing all the talking. It's
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best to to kind of put some
responsibility on the rest of the team
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to come up with ideas and topics to talk
about but you know the first we tend to
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take the first 5 to 10 minutes of the
the chat just to kind of connect with
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each other.One member of my team
just moved so she gave us a tour of
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her new place and just doing like
regular stuff that we would have on
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Fridays. We typically do a game and every
week it's someone else's responsibility
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to come up with some sort of game. So
we've done guess the
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movie by a certain number of emojis and
just stuff like that just to
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lighten it up. Sometimes a Friday
cocktail at 3 o'clock in the afternoon
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just to kind of help kick off the
weekend which is something we would
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normally do every now and again at the
office to celebrate going into the
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weekend of a casual drink and just
something like that to kind of try and
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replicate what we have at the office and
make things as normal as possible.
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That's awesome! I've heard very positive
things about it. So
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definitely taking some of those ideas
and using that. I like the Friday games I
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mean that's gonna have to come up. Definitely, the more
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you can make it a competition the more
fun it seems to get, because everyone I
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know on my team specifically are are
definitely competitive so it's nice to
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to kind of have that as part of it. Fantastic well thank you so much for
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taking the time to chat with me today! No
problem and for connecting with you in
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person.
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