MetLife

Last year, our goal was to have 600 employees compete to “Hack the Future of Customer Care” and we wound up with 2,700 signups—from all lines of business and functions across the company and around the world. The teams developed 300+ unique, tech-forward solutions that have the power to drive business initiatives and increase efficiency.  

But only one team could win. The team that took the top spot proposed a real-time disability claim tracker to show customers exactly where their claim is in the process.  We sat down with two of the seven members on the winning team to learn more about their surprising career pivot from the business side to IT and what they found most inspiring about the Hackathon.

Helene: Yes! I feel the same way. I’m Helene and, like Melanie, I came from the business side, from Global Financial Services where I worked for five years. My background has mostly been in financial analysis, and I joined the IT team as a Senior Project Lead for the automation teams a year ago. The learning curve has been - I can’t even put a curve to it! - it would be like a rocket! It has been an incredible ride. 

After spending most of your careers on the business side, did you ever think you’d pivot your career path into IT?  

Helene: I was certainly interested, as I had exposure to some of the backend systems when doing financial analysis. I started being curious about how it worked and how I could help to streamline things – and now I’m on the automation team! I’m grateful to have had the exposure to other areas and the support of my leader to try something new. 

Melanie: No, I never pictured my career path this way, but it’s been a fun surprise. IT is not all about programming or engineering, and I think that’s a common misconception.  I'm still using my skill sets of ideation and process improvement, just applying it in a new way. It’s fun! 

Tell us more about the Hackathon – what is it and why did it interest you? 

Melanie: There was an email from the company letting everyone know about the Hackathon, but it was really our direct leader who encouraged us to enter. Mind you, we were still brand new to the team, only four months, but she saw the potential we could bring, I’m very grateful. Since we were new, she helped us connect with other individuals and that’s how we formed our first team.  When we were putting the team together, we inadvertently started with an all-women’s team and we were very, very proud of that, just to see all the women show up for this event. However, we needed diversity in thought and experience, so we rounded out our team with people who had the knowledge we didn’t have – both in IT and from the business.   

It sounds like your team had a lot of brain power, so how did you decide on the final idea? 

Helene: We all got together and brainstormed ideas. Something that was extremely important when we were doing the brainstorming is that we wanted to provide a solution that could be applicable to many areas within MetLife. We didn’t want to solve just one problem, we wanted to scale to many other business units. So that was the lens that we put everything through. Once we landed on our idea, to provide transparency of the disability claim status, we realized that solution could be scaled to other business units, and we were off! 

Melanie: It was helpful that we had such a diverse team because we could look at the idea from multiple angles – most importantly, how it would impact the customer.  Everyone put in their best effort and educated each other along the way.   

Helene: Exactly! It was a dynamic team in that everyone had their own strengths, but they were all equally important and helpful. But my biggest takeaway from this is that passion is contagious. All our team members, every single one of them, were so passionate, not just about the solution, but just doing the work itself.    

How did you bring the project to life in such a short time, only a few weeks, right?  

Melanie: I really have to shout out to our managers. They were so supportive every step of the way. They were just as excited about our project as we were. We were able to squeeze in some things during the day, but some of our team members were customer-facing and didn’t have time during the day. We set up a time after work where we could all collaborate. But honestly, it didn’t feel like “working late” for us – we were so excited about it, it became a hobby just like anything else you do after work. We saw that this could make a big impact...and, well, we’re all slightly competitive.   

Were there any external motivators besides bragging rights? 

Melanie: At the beginning, we didn’t know what the prizes were, other than receiving the funds to roll out the idea to the business. It wasn’t about that; we just wanted bragging rights!   

Helene: That’s true, I wasn’t really expecting anything, but we did get some cool prizes. We were given a credit for any educational course or seminar that we wanted, and we also got to donate $250 to a charity of our choice, which was really special. We got a few other things. Honestly, making a difference was the real driver.  We knew the idea we put together was multifaceted. It really has a WOW factor, so it was just exciting to see it come to life. We weren’t working for anything other than making an impact on our customers, and I think that was probably one of the greatest rewards for us.  And yes, the bragging rights! 

What advice would you have for someone thinking about the Hackathon this year? 

Helene:   People think that they shouldn’t sign up if they don’t have this grand idea, and that’s backwards.  The only thing you need for the Hackathon is curiosity and passion. MetLife is a huge company with thousands of associates and millions of customers, and any idea, no matter if you perceive it as big or small, will have an incredible impact.