There are countless benefits to taking breaks throughout your workday. Breaks help reduce or prevent stress, improve focus, enhance creativity, recharge your mind and body, and ultimately help you be more productive and maintain your performance throughout your day.
Here are 5 effective break ideas to inspire you!

5 effective breaks: The best ways to recover from stress

At Sovereign, we&rsquo;re passionate about protecting Canadian businesses and the communities they serve. We recognize that achieving this takes more than quality insurance products and risk solutions. It starts with living by our values and being driven by our purpose. It requires a team of smart and talented people. It&rsquo;s accomplished by building strong, trusted relationships with our partners.
At Sovereign, we put people at the heart of everything that we do. We treat you like a person, not a policy number. We see the people behind the policy.

We See the People Behind the Policy

It&rsquo;s hard to believe that just a year ago, <a href="https://www.sovereigninsurance.ca/our-team/toronto/colette-taylor" target="">Colette Taylor</a> took on the new role of VP Commercial Solutions and Specialty Lines Solutions, shifting her responsibilities from leading Sovereign&rsquo;s Specialty team to assuming leadership responsibility for the Commercial team as well. During this time, she&rsquo;s been faced with a hard market and a global pandemic, in addition to executing Sovereign&rsquo;s ambitious strategies for each channel of distribution. We checked in with Colette to get her thoughts and insights on leadership, learning, embracing change, and more, as she reflects on this unprecedented year. This year organizations needed to be incredibly agile and adapt to a lot of change. How did you lead effectively through change in 2020?&nbsp; Many initiatives this past year felt like they were moving at light speed &ndash; often because they simply had to &ndash; and that pushed people beyond their usual comfort level. As with any fast-paced initiatives, at times this led to failures in either delivery or communication. In those moments I leaned on members of the team whom I knew would give me clear and honest feedback about how initiatives were &ldquo;landing&rsquo; with the team. From there, I was either able to make decisions or work with key stakeholders to change direction quickly to support the effective execution on our plan. Looking back, it wasn&rsquo;t always perfect but that&rsquo;s ok. What was your biggest learning curve?&nbsp; The biggest learning curve was how to adapt to communicating in a virtual environment. So much of leadership is about connecting, listening, and talking to people. However, within six weeks of taking on a large new team I was only able to connect with them virtually and for the first few months, by voice only. This made me realize just how much we rely on non-verbal communication to ensure that key messaging is being received how we intend it to, and that people believe in the strategy you&rsquo;re presenting.&nbsp; Often, virtual communications can feel very formal and structured, we lose some of the social and personal element that is so important to our business. I had to purposefully create moments to create space for levity or sharing personal stories to try to capture some of those key connection points and build relationships with my new team. Describe a moment or experience that fulfilled you this past year. So often in the early days of this role I heard people say to me &ldquo;we have been working so hard, trying a lot of different ideas etc.&rdquo;. It was clear to me that this was a team that cared deeply about &ldquo;winning&rdquo; but had not had all the right tools at their fingertips to do so. After a few months of seeing the new strategy implemented and playing out through the results, it was great to see them feeling like their hard work was now paying off. How do you support a high-performance culture within your team? In many respects, embracing a culture of high performance is built into my DNA, as it is for many people. Often the complexities of business obstacles and competing priorities can slow progress down or worse still, result in people becoming disillusioned about the impact they can have. I&rsquo;ve found that an impactful way to mitigate this is through constant and constructive feedback, within our own team and with other teams too. This helps to generate clear accountabilities for everyone and ensure those inevitable obstacles can be met head on and moved out of the way.&nbsp; High performance doesn&rsquo;t just mean hitting financial targets. As a values-driven company grounded in co-operative roots, we&rsquo;re striving to win with purpose. In other words, we can (and do) still strive to achieve great performance in our teams and for our business, but we do it in such a way that feels considerate of our people, partners, and customers.&nbsp;&nbsp; Sovereign has placed a renewed focus on Diversity and Inclusion (D&amp;I) over the last year. As a female senior leader (in a largely male-dominated industry) who leads a diverse team, how do you actively champion and uphold D&amp;I principles? I&rsquo;m always inspired to &ldquo;pay it forward&rdquo; in any way that I can. In the past 23 years of my career in Insurance I have had the opportunity to be inspired and supported by many strong female leaders who freely and enthusiastically invested their time and energy in helping me navigate through my career. It always brings me happiness to be able to do the same for others in any small way that I can. I also believe that being a D&amp;I champion is an opportunity to constantly educate myself on ways that I can help any and all marginalized groups, not just the one I belong to. Taking the time to reflect helps us learn important lessons and gain new insights that can then be harnessed moving forward. While we&rsquo;re sure Colette&rsquo;s second year in her position will bring new challenges and opportunities &ndash; and likely some curveball surprises too &ndash; she has certainly set a strong foundation with her team to build upon.&nbsp;

A year in review with Colette Taylor, Vice President Commercial Solutions & Specialty Lines Solutions

A year in review with Colette Taylor

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Celebrating community impact and sustainability with Sovereign in 2024!


Purpose And Impact

Team-building exercises in the workplace can help build trust among employees, improve camaraderie, and increase collaboration, innovation, and morale. These are many of the same goals that DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs aim to achieve, so it&rsquo;s well worth integrating DEI into your next team-building event.
In fact, when organizations incorporate DEI into team-building events, they can help to foster a greater understanding of the diverse backgrounds and experiences of employees, which in turn can cultivate greater empathy and respect.1
DEI team-building ideas
There are many ways to not only celebrate diversity at your organization, but also cultivate a better appreciation for and understanding of DEI within your organization. Here are some DEI themed ideas to consider incorporating into your next teambuilding event:
Guest speakers: Bring in guest speakers who specialize in DEI topics, such as cultural awareness, understanding stereotypes, and unconscious bias. Events can be held in person or online but be sure to leave time afterward for questions and discussion among employees.2
DEI book club: A fun way to explore different viewpoints is through a book club, where books are chosen based on DEI themes such as race, gender, disability, etc. Make sure the books selected are engaging (you don&rsquo;t want it to feel like homework) and give employees plenty of time to read the book (at least a month). Then hold an in-person or virtual meeting to discuss.3
Team-building games: Games aren&rsquo;t just fun; they can be educational. A trivia session, for example, can be done either in-person or with remote teams. By divvying employees up into teams and encouraging friendly competition, the event will be more engaging&mdash;helping employees retain what they learn. The idea is to highlight lesser-known facts about DEI to encourage discussion and learning.4
Celebrations: Year-round, organizations can honour observances such as Black History Month (February), Mental Health Awareness Month (May), Pride Month (June) and Women&rsquo;s History Month (October), as well as a diverse range of religious and cultural holidays.5 These could be ideal times to share educational resources, demonstrate allyship, and amplify the voice of non-profits or charitable organizations working in this space.
Volunteer: Another option is to offer volunteer opportunities for employees&mdash;as a team&mdash;in the community, such as serving food to the unhoused or helping at a charity event, which can create camaraderie while fostering greater understanding and empathy for others.
<h4>Sovereign: DEI in action</h4>
Sovereign Insurance put DEI into action during a team-building event at its 2023 Claims Conference in Calgary, which brought together 52 team members from across Canada. The conference&rsquo;s theme, &lsquo;The power of connection,&rsquo; emphasized the importance of building strong relationships with peers and with the community.
One of the highlights of the conference was a team-building activity that included participants simulating accessibility challenges. By experiencing first-hand the limitations of loss of sight, hearing, or touch, the team gained a better understanding of the widespread need for differently abled and disability accommodations.
The team also built wheelchairs for the Calgary Drop-in Centre, to create a meaningful and tangible impact for the community. As a result, nine wheelchairs were donated to those in need, and the team was proud to show their commitment to diversity and inclusion.
&ldquo;For our Claims Conference, we wanted to select an activity that allowed us to both collaborate as a team and reflect upon our commitment to making a positive impact in our communities,&rdquo; says Larissa Maclean, Assistant Vice-President of Claims at Sovereign Insurance.
&ldquo;The challenge activities supported our ongoing commitment to DEI, allowing us to gain insight into the challenges faced by those who are differently-abled, and resulted in the donation of nine wheelchairs to a local organization&mdash;a win-win!&rdquo;
These activities were organized through <a href="https://www.outbackteambuilding.com/">Outback Team Building &amp; Training</a>, a team building and employee training provider in North America that offers more than 60 team-building and training solutions endorsed by thousands of corporate groups across North America.6
&nbsp;
Sources:
1 &ldquo;15 Fun Diversity Team Building Activities&rdquo; (Teamland, accessed Jan. 16, 2024). <a href="https://www.teamland.com/post/fun-diversity-team-building-activities">15 Fun Diversity Team Building Activities (teamland.com)</a>
2 Angela Robinson; &ldquo;18 Virtual Diversity And Inclusion Activities For Workplaces&rdquo; (teambuilding.com, Oct. 24, 2022). <a href="https://www.teamland.com/post/fun-diversity-team-building-activities">15 Fun Diversity Team Building Activities (teamland.com)</a>
3 Collin Waldoch; &ldquo;Diversity and inclusion Team Building Activities (10 Options), (Water Cooler Trivia, Apr. 1, 2022). <a href="https://www.watercoolertrivia.com/blog/diversity-and-inclusion-team-building-activities">Diversity And Inclusion Team Building Activities (10 Options) (watercoolertrivia.com)</a>
4 &ldquo;15 Fun Diversity Team Building Activities&rdquo; (Teamland, accessed Jan. 16, 2024). <a href="https://www.teamland.com/post/fun-diversity-team-building-activities">15 Fun Diversity Team Building Activities (teamland.com)</a>
5 Grace He; &ldquo;Diversity and Inclusion Activities &amp; Ideas for the Office in 2024&rdquo; (teambuilding.com, Dec. 12, 2023). <a href="https://teambuilding.com/blog/diversity-and-inclusion-activities">Diversity and Inclusion Activities &amp; Ideas for the Office in 2024 (teambuilding.com)</a>
6 Outback Team Building, accessed Jan. 16, 2024. <a href="https://www.outbackteambuilding.com/">The #1 Corporate Team Building Company | Outback Team Building</a>

DEI-themed ideas for your next team-building event

In a traditional industry like insurance, change can sometimes happen at a gradual pace. But there&rsquo;s one emerging technology many businesses might be wise to move quickly on: Generative AI.
Hailed as a transformative force in business, Generative AI (GenAI) refers to deep-learning models that can generate high-quality text, images and other content based on the data they were trained on.1 While GenAI&rsquo;s roots trace back to the early days of artificial intelligence in the 1950s, the technology burst on the public scene in 2022, when OpenAI launched a consumer-facing GenAI tool called ChatGPT.2
In the insurance sector, experts say GenAI is &ldquo;fundamentally reshaping everything from underwriting and risk assessment to claims processing and customer service.&rdquo; More specifically, GenAI tools &ldquo;have the potential to automate processes, enhance customer experiences and streamline claims management, ultimately driving efficiency and effectiveness across the industry.&rdquo;3
In the Canadian Underwriter 2024 National Broker Survey, sponsored by Sovereign Insurance, brokers were asked how beneficial certain changes or investments have been in their organizations. Just over a fifth (21%) of respondents said using artificial intelligence and machine learning tools such as ChatGPT have been highly beneficial to them. Brokers were also asked how beneficial certain investments and actions have been for strengthening their business. Twenty-two percent of brokers indicated AI and machine learning tools have been highly beneficial on that front.&nbsp;
While it&rsquo;s still early days for generative AI, there&rsquo;s no doubt brokers and carriers alike are thinking about how they can harness the power of GenAI across their operations. Here&rsquo;s a look at a few key areas where the sector can leverage AI.&nbsp;
Claims management: For carriers, one promising application is in claims management, says Ricky Chan, Senior Solution Architect at Sovereign Insurance. &ldquo;Generative AI can help automate claims processing and assessment, which in turn increases adjusters&rsquo; productivity, allowing them to focus their expertise on more complex claims,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp;
Underwriting: GenAI can also help inform underwriting decisions. As Accenture notes, the technology highlights risk control analysis insights to show loss prevention measures in place and the effectiveness of those controls. Generative AI can generate a comprehensive narrative of the overall risk and its alignment to the carrier&rsquo;s appetite and book, as well as identify and source missing data.4
Submissions: For brokers, GenAI has a variety of promising use cases, such as submission preparation and client Q&amp;As. According to Accenture, the effort required to identify adequate coverage and prepare submissions can be dramatically reduced through GenAI. Specifically, the technology can prompt the broker on the types of questions they should ask based on what is known about the insured, the industry the insured operates in, and the risk profile of the insured&rsquo;s company compared to others. In addition, GenAI could identify potentially overlooked up-sell or cross-sell opportunities.5
Information and knowledge: For any company, GenAI can make day-to-day work life easier by performing administrative tasks and knowledge gathering, an area that Sovereign is currently exploring. &ldquo;There are substantial positive impacts to day-to-day operations, such as summarizing information and meeting minutes, intelligent information search and ease of access of information,&rdquo; says Ricky.&nbsp;
Chad Hunter, Vice-President, Information Technology at Sovereign Insurance, adds that Sovereign &ndash; like many companies &ndash; uses a handful of different platforms and domains, including e-mail, OneDrive, SharePoint and Microsoft Teams. By using a natural language chatbot or co-pilot tool, the company&rsquo;s knowledge and data could be streamlined. For example, &ldquo;instead of underwriters having to go to several different spots looking for knowledge, they could use the chatbot&hellip; and behind the scenes, that generative AI model will go to all the different areas and provide real-time responses,&rdquo; explains Chad.&nbsp;
What&rsquo;s next for GenAI? Beyond just talking about the possibilities of the technology, many companies in the insurance space &ndash; Sovereign included &ndash; are now testing and learning. Looking ahead, Deloitte notes that as generative AI moves from possibilities to practicalities, choosing the right use cases, selecting appropriate tools, getting to scale, and accurately measuring progress will all be important steps.6

Sources&nbsp;
1 IBM, &ldquo;<a href="https://research.ibm.com/blog/what-is-generative-AI">What is generative AI?</a>&rdquo; April 20,2023 2 Medium, &ldquo;<a href="https://matthewdwhite.medium.com/a-brief-history-of-generative-ai-cb1837e67106">A Brief History of Generative AI</a>,&rdquo; Jan. 7, 2023 3 EY, &ldquo;<a href="https://www.ey.com/en_us/insights/insurance/how-insurers-can-leverage-the-power-of-generative-ai">How insurers can leverage the power of generative AI</a>,&rdquo; Aug. 28, 2023 4 Accenture, &ldquo;<a href="https://insuranceblog.accenture.com/3-ways-insurance-underwriters-gain-insights-generative-ai">3 ways insurance underwriters can gain insights from generative AI</a>,&rdquo; March 21, 2024 5 Accenture, &ldquo;<a href="https://insuranceblog.accenture.com/5-key-generative-ai-use-cases-in-insurance-distribution">5 key generative ai use cases in insurance distribution</a>,&rdquo; Feb. 13, 2024 6 Deloitte, &ldquo;<a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/consulting/us-state-of-gen-ai-report-q2.pdf">Now decides next: Getting real about Generative AI</a>,&rdquo; April 2024

5 effective breaks: The best ways to recover from stress

5 effective breaks: The best ways to recover from stress

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