Human Capital Management: Learning & Development

Our commitment to learning and career development is rooted in our belief that for us to be successful, we must provide our employees with the skills and capabilities to enable them to be successful.

Our leadership framework of “Leading Self, Leading Others and Leading the Business” outlines the skills and behaviors expected of our leaders. It supports the culture we’ve established at Travelers and serves as the underpinning for our leadership training, which includes several components:

• Coaching for performance excellence provides leaders with an understanding of the principles of good coaching, to help them in the day-to-day leadership of individuals on their teams.
• Leading world-class teams helps those who lead people or projects learn how to more effectively facilitate and engage teams.
• Leadership principles is a cohort program for first-time leaders of people that provides practical tools and approaches that can immediately be applied to managing people at Travelers.

Travelers is committed to empowering employees to build the career they want at the company by deepening their expertise, moving across different roles and business groups, and seeking leadership opportunities. Employees are encouraged to have career development conversations with their managers, and resources and tools are provided to both managers and employees to help guide the discussion. Ongoing conversations and check-ins between employees and their managers can help employees identify skills they want to develop, goals they want to set for themselves or action steps they want to take. We continue to roll out new tools and resources that support employees’ career development; these include, for example, learning plans designed to help employees understand the breadth of jobs and professions across the company and identify development opportunities, as well as training designed to help employees expand their knowledge and learn new skills.

Our learning experience platform (LXP) is a centralized hub for all learning resources at the company, where content is both curated and aggregated on a regular basis for a personalized learning experience. This platform, which houses videos, articles and courses – both Travelers-created resources and content from third-party providers – provides an immersive and customized experience to meet our employees’ learning needs. Employees can use the platform to assess their skills, rate and comment on courses and lessons, and learn from subject matter experts across Travelers. During 2023, more than 88% of Travelers employees engaged with the platform and accessed more than one million learning resources, including articles, videos and courses.

As part of our commitment to fostering a more inclusive workplace, employees are expected to complete the Conscious Inclusion Virtual Workshop. This program explores biases and their impact in the workplace and how we can change our behaviors to be more intentionally inclusive in our day-to-day interactions.

We encourage and support employee development through our Educational Assistance Program. Through the program, Travelers helps eligible employees – salaried employees who work at least 20 hours per week – pay for eligible education classes and professional designation and certification programs, including for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Associate in Risk Management (ARM) and Associate in Claims (AIC). In 2023, more than 500 employees received educational reimbursement. To reinforce the importance of underwriting as a core discipline, Travelers recognizes employees who successfully pass all eight CPCU exams and earn the professional designation by paying for eligible employees to attend their conferment ceremony, which is held each year for new CPCU graduates.

Additionally, Travelers offers various career mentorship and development programs for both entry-level and experienced professionals. For example, our multiyear Leadership Development Programs provide entry-level employees with an opportunity to progress through a steady career path in a specific discipline such as Actuarial, Business Insights & Analytics, Data Science, Finance, Human Resources and Operations. Participants complete assignments and rotations designed to help them build upon their technical, strategic thinking and leadership skills and strengthen their business acumen. These programs also include mentorship and networking opportunities, including with senior leaders, as well as speaker forums designed to keep participants up to date on industry trends and company initiatives.

In addition, our one- to two-year Development Programs – in Engineering (Technology), Investment Analyst, Underwriting and Product Management – provide the foundational knowledge and technical skills necessary for success at Travelers and include on-the-job training, classroom instruction, self-study materials and independent work in an assigned business area. These programs also provide mentorship opportunities and exposure to Travelers leaders. Participants in both our Leadership Development Programs and Development Programs are invited to compete in the company’s annual hackathon-style Innovation Jam. These programs have been a part of our talent strategy for many years. Many participants have gone on to hold senior roles at Travelers.