Like many small businesses that have stood the test of time, Harbor/Brenn Insurance Agencies in Petoskey, Mich., faces the difficult task of hiring and training new employees. It becomes especially challenging when replacing longtime, experienced employees who have set the bar high for their jobs. Second-generation owner and president Ashley Whitney has had four such departures happen recently, and a few more are yet to come as staff who started working for her father move on to retirement. Surprisingly perhaps, she says she doesn't necessarily focus on technological skills when culling the field of candidates.
“I look first for a good fit in terms of attitude and work ethic. The new hire needs to fit with our agency culture and current staff. We've been fortunate to hire well and retain employees who stay with us until their retirement. Knowledge and experience are great to have, but who the person is at their core is often the most heavily weighted attribute. Also, I expect that Gen X and millennials are coming in with the basic knowledge needed to adapt to our systems," she says. “We will get them trained on anything that is unfamiliar."
Ashley's assumption is a good one. Those born between 1963 and 1981—Generation X—are just as likely to be comfortable using technology in the workplace as millennials, according to the
Global Leadership Forecast 2018, published by Development Dimensions International (DDI), The Conference Board and EY with support from CNBC. In the study, 54% of Gen X and 56% of millennials said they are digitally savvy. What's more, Nielsen found that Gen X is the most connected generation, Gen Xers use social media 40 minutes more per week than do millennials, and they spend more time on every type of device than other generations. Additionally, they bring that connectivity to work with them.
Putting that knowledge and those habits to use at the office—within compliance guidelines—can be a challenge, but done right, it can yield profitable results for an agency in both customer experience and staff satisfaction. Take texting for example. Ashley was able to integrate text messages as a communications tool via AMS 360. Compliance and recordkeeping are built into the program, so auditing and convenience are not in conflict.
Attracting and Keeping the Right Talent
It's widely reported that millennials and Gen Xers want more than a paycheck from work. That works in Harbor/Brenn's favor because the agency has a long-standing history of being “super involved in the community," Ashley says. “We encourage employees to volunteer both during the workday and outside work hours. We support volunteering as part of our business policy, so there are financial incentives to contributing to the community. Put simply, it's good business to make sure our community thrives."
Harbor/Brenn also makes training and educational opportunities a priority. Those sessions not only help staff perform better on the job but also build up their skills and make them more qualified for promotions and senior leadership roles. That kind of upward mobility is an important factor in employee retention across the independent agency channel, especially for your best and brightest.
As for hiring, Ashley has to strike a balance in finding experienced people who can hit the ground running on the insurance side and people who are open to learning so they can advance technologically as the agency evolves. Finding people with some insurance experience and some familiarity with computers, social media, mobile apps and basic software isn't too difficult, she says. Getting the right fit in terms of agency culture is where she puts much of her energy.
She assesses those characteristics both in the application phase of the hiring search as well as at the interview stage and says she is “pretty choosy." But that attention to cultural fit pays off for Harbor/Brenn, where retention is very high and most people stay until retirement.
“It's an important balance, because—as a small agency—we don't have the resources to bring on an extra person for a year or two as a transition phase," Ashley says. “We have to stick to a much shorter time period" between the time a veteran leaves and a new hire can take over the role.
The Big “I" has produced some
best-practices resources for hiring and training that may be a good springboard or refresher for agency owners. With the average age of a small-agency owner approaching 70 years, talent recruitment and development are an immediate priority.