Susan T. is a senior manager in the Program Management Office for Allstate Technology. She supports Agile teams working on Allstate’s new low-cost auto product. 

“We’re creating a new auto product on a new technology stack with a new customer experience. That’s a lot. It’s complicated. We need to be thinking not only about the results we need to achieve now, but what are the next things that we need to have an eye to so we can continue to refine that product? And there are additional products coming after auto. How do we ensure we’re ready for that as well?

It’s important to mentally disconnect. I didn’t do a lot of that in my first year working in this space. But I have recently picked up watercolor painting. I’m in no way an artist. But learning new things about something that is completely separate from work really does give your mind a rest, which is so important.

There are definitely no boring days. I’m proud to be part of this work. And I’m proud of the difference that it will make to consumers. I believe in what we’re trying to do. It’s not easy work, but if it were easy, then everybody would do it, right?”

Jess H. is a journey lead on the Customer Journeys team in Product and Experience Design. She’s been helping develop a new affordable, simple, connected property product — making sure customer insights are top of mind.

“One project I worked on was around roof coverage. To reduce surprises at claim time, we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to cover roofs differently than we do today. There’s an experience to that. What makes sense to the customer? When would they value having information about their roof? Those are things we haven’t always thought about in the past.

My team brings in the voice of the customer. We’re looking at customer comments through our surveys. We look at their claim experience. I got the privilege of doing focus groups with our claim adjusters. We were able to bring this topic to an agency group and talk about how they would solve this problem. That type of work really energizes me.”

Dan M. is a strategy and design director in Agency Sales. Some of the work he leads includes the new market sales associate (MSA) model — a role the company is looking to expand quickly over the next year. 

“We’re testing different types of hiring strategies for MSAs. For candidates that meet certain criteria, we can bypass the conventional interview process. After they have a quick conversation with a recruiter, they can be offered a position on the spot. That’s part of the fun stuff that we’re doing, really pushing conventional thinking.

The hardest thing is, when you’re dealing with a new model, everything could turn into a priority. You want this thing to be perfect right away. So, we’ve established Agile teams to really be specific and focus on the work that we feel is going to drive the most meaningful result for the program. Then we continuously update and refine our backlog to ensure as we’re thinking about the next project, it’s going to be the right thing to take on.

It’s not very common that you work for a Fortune 100 company and you’re involved with such an overhaul of the traditional way of doing the work. I tell my team all the time: Our work is visible. We need to be proud of that. With that comes some pressure, too, but it’s something that I’m comfortable with.”

Shari T. is a director in Marketing focused on acquiring and managing leads to potential customers. These days that work is all about building what’s known as the customer acquisition sophistication system.

“It started out with a marketing focus of how we source and distribute leads. Over the last year, it’s broadened much further beyond marketing, which has been exciting, to have everybody thinking towards the same end goal.

Reaching out to our technology partners about a year ago, it wasn’t about defining the specific requirements or the specific project. It was truly a partnership. We went down the path together, working very closely every day to define not only the problem we’re solving but how we want to go about it.

We’re really driving significant change in how we look at new customer opportunities. We’re using data and technology like we never have before. There’s a lot to be proud of. But there are also days when you feel like maybe you’re not getting to where you need to be fast enough. I say this a lot with my team. We’re working so hard towards the end goal, and we just have to pause between the Zoom meetings. Take a breath. Take a walk. Get a good night’s rest. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. We have to sustain the energy to keep moving forward.”

Does this exciting transformation sound like something you want to be a part of? Check out open opportunities today: allstate.jobs.