Managing expectations with new employees
[I]t’s important for prospective employers to understand that how
students are asked to demonstrate their knowledge today has changed significantly.
By Cheryl Koch, CPCU, ARM, AAI, ACSR, AFIS, and Mary Belka, CPCU, ARM, ARe, RPLU, CIC
When some of us started school, admittedly long ago for us, the emphasis was on the so-called Three Rs—Reading, ’Riting (writing), and ’Rithmetic (arithmetic). It’s little wonder kids had a tough time learning these fundamental concepts when the grownups couldn’t even spell the words correctly!
Like everything else in life, much has changed in education. While still an important part of early childhood education, reading, writing and math standards have changed with the times; and student outcomes that once centered around memorizing facts and figures and demonstrating one’s mastery by passing examinations or writing academic papers have shifted toward citing evidence, writing arguments and making a case for one’s position.
This may seem like an ideal fit for the business of insurance, where these abilities will certainly serve a new entrant well, but it also creates some pain points for those agencies employing early-career individuals.
In previous generations, academic standards were set on a state and local basis, but there was great variation in those standards. Memorization was emphasized, whether it was your weekly spelling list, multiplication tables, or dates of important historical events.
While most of this remains, it’s important for prospective employers to understand that how students are asked to demonstrate their knowledge today has changed significantly. Case studies, conceptual understanding and explaining why a particular solution will work, as opposed to merely restating the facts, has replaced rote memorization.
As Generation Z and Generation Alpha enter the workforce, their expectations for training and education will reflect these new standards and as employers, we must provide them with insurance knowledge and training that mimics this new style of teaching and learning.
We often engage with newly hired insurance company and agency employees, early-career individuals who are either transitioning from another industry or are recent graduates. Many tell us that in four years of college they neither took tests nor wrote papers.
“Are you telling me they didn’t learn anything?” you are silently screaming; but rest assured, they learned a lot. They just didn’t learn it the way we did, and employers would be well-advised to make themselves aware of what skills and knowledge are being taught in today’s public and private schools, so that any perceived “gaps” can be filled at the employer level.
We would propose that a new “Three R” approach is needed, one that meets the individual where they are and builds a concrete plan to get them where they need to be, as productive members of the agency’s sales, service or support staff.
Recruit the best talent. It should go without saying that finding the right people is essential; however, this is often the most difficult part of the hiring process. Gone are the days when you could assume that because someone was related to someone it meant they would be a good fit for the organization. DNA is not a determinant of success.
Just as in sports, there are always the “intangibles” that don’t show up on a résumé but hugely contribute to achievement on the job.
One shift that impacts the ability of an agency to determine if someone is a good candidate is a tendency to avoid any kind of pre-employment assessment. Some human resources (HR) professionals have persuaded many agencies to eliminate testing of any kind, lest the test itself create bias.
We agree that any assessment must be free of bias and clearly tied to specific, essential functions of the job being filled, using written position descriptions and career development plans. A personality assessment that does not have a credible connection to the job to be performed should not be considered. In addition, any tools being used must be applied consistently for producers, account managers, and other roles.
When hiring early-career individuals, you can’t expect them to have a vast amount of knowledge of the insurance industry or coverage forms, so that kind of assessment would likely not produce the results for which you are looking. Always check with HR experts and/or an attorney before using any assessment tool.
Reinvent your training and educational materials, vendors and providers. In the past, learning material and then spitting it back on a test was the norm. Now, an employee needs to learn the material but will more likely “own it” if they can explain how they reached a conclusion about what they learned, how they intend to apply their new knowledge, or what facts they can cite to support any conclusions they reach.
This requires a different style of presentation, one that emphasizes the “why” behind what we do and puts the concepts in context. Real-life scenarios and stories will resonate with learners better than lectures and a recitation of facts and figures.
When hiring new people, the learning and development infrastructure must be in place when they arrive. The younger generations especially need to see a clear education path and how they will grow and contribute to the organization. Nothing should be left to chance, and with today’s remote workforce, learning must be more intentional than ever before.
Amazing resources are available, but each must be vetted and a determination made if they will present the right information at the right time. There are no quick fixes or shortcuts in this industry. Insurance is hard. It’s supposed to be hard, or it wouldn’t be worth doing. It will always take time to develop deep understanding.
Retain the best talent and liberate the rest. This is an age-old problem in the independent agency world—and directly tied to the first two Rs. High performers will leave if they don’t see a way forward. Low performers will stay.
The inability to recognize the difference, coupled with the reluctance to admit you’ve made a bad hiring decision, results in stagnation for the individual and the agency. We all should be slow to hire and quick to fire, but all too often this gets reversed.
It’s never pleasant to part ways with an employee, but the sooner you do it, the more respect you will earn from your staff members who likely recognized the need even before you did.
If you line up one hundred agency owners at the end of their career and ask them what the single biggest mistake was they made while operating their agencies, they will say it was not making a tough decision fast enough when it was warranted.
At the risk of beating an old drum, what gets rewarded gets done. When you set forth a clear development path, you must reward the people who follow it. In the end, they are the ones who will help you increase the value of your firm and it’s easy enough to create performance-based compensation for every individual (see previous articles on this topic).
The newest generations of employees will not request it. They will demand it, and that will benefit not only the agency and the employee, but will greatly benefit the agency’s clients who all-too-often get lost in the daily pursuit of the agency’s goals and objectives.
The authors
Cheryl Koch is the owner of Agency Management Resource Group, a California firm providing training, education and consulting to producers, account managers and owners of independent agencies. She has a BA in Economics from UCLA and an MBA from Sacramento State University. She has also earned several insurance professional designations: CPCU, CIC, ARM, AAI, AAI-M, API, AIS, AAM, AIM, ARP, AINS, ACSR, AFIS, and MLIS.
Mary M. Belka is owner and CEO of Eisenhart Consulting Group, Inc., providing management and operations consulting to the insurance industry. She also is an endorsed agency E&O auditor for Swiss Re/Westport. A graduate of the University of Nebraska, Mary holds the CPCU, ARM, ARe, RPLU, CIC, and CPIW designations.
