Only moving upward - Commercial Insurance Underwriter Skyward Specialty Insurance Employee Review

Thank you, to all of our staff, but especially to those who have recently shared their feedback on this forum. We are pleased to see the acknowledgment we are making great progress and agree we still have lots more to do. We like to say, “We are building the company we have always wanted to work for,” and to that end, we have not yet completed that building. We are very interested in employee feedback and are genuinely committed to considering all ideas and suggestions. Our recent engagement survey results reflected 95% of surveyed employees are “excited about Skyward’s vision and strategy”, a reflection, we think, that we are on the right path. The scores regarding career pathing and professional development were not as positive indicating opportunity areas for us. As a result of this feedback, we’ve encouraged all employees to work with their managers in crafting one or more professional development objectives for this year. Skyward is in the process of identifying and developing opportunities for both technical training/certifications and leadership/management training to best support those identified development objectives. Throughout the year, we also plan to better define roles and levels and to actively identify career paths, both technical and supervisory, across the company. With respect to compensation, we were happy to provide salary increases this year at a competitive 3.5% amount in aggregate, although of course that’s an average increase amount with some receiving more and some receiving less. On the bonus front, 99% of eligible employees received a bonus this year, a 25% increase in participation versus the prior year, and for those eligible in both years, an increase in total bonus amounts of 30%. With respect to benefits, we greatly enhanced our 401(k) program as of the beginning of the year and can now boast a 94% participation rate. We are about to launch a benefits survey to gather employee feedback as we seek to best remake our overall benefit programs to ensure they best meet the needs of our staff. We are excited about how far we have come in less than a year and are not letting up on the accelerator anytime soon. Skyward Leadership