One of the key challenges in 2017 related to Workers’ Compensation is how the insurance industry is going to deal with the insurance talent gap. Within the next 10 years, a large percentage of insurance industry professionals are going to retire, and there is a significant shortfall of talent available to replace them.
To plan for the insurance talent gap, employers need to take immediate steps in the areas of employee retention and how they can attract the small percentage of millennials that choose to enter the insurance workforce.
#1 Employee Retention = Job Satisfaction
It has become more important than ever to retain your top employees, and job satisfaction plays a huge role in this.
Whether you work in a large or small firm, you have claim adjusters with various levels of experience and expertise. Throughout our claim handling experiences, we all develop strengths in our ability to adjudicate claims. It’s important to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your employees by building upon their abilities to make them better at their job, and therefore promote job satisfaction.
Most adjusters will have a strength in some aspect of the claim handling process, and most likely tend to work on these types of claims, resulting in a strong area of expertise. It could be settlement negotiations, subrogation handling or something as simple as time management skills. Equally, these skills could be found as weaknesses for other adjusters. It’s up to management and the individual adjuster to identify these strengths and weaknesses and use them to promote each other.
Below are some of the ways to help promote job satisfaction with your employees.
- Acknowledge Strengths and Weaknesses
It’s essential for an employer to acknowledge an employee’s strengths by providing a way to build on them. Equally as important is to identify their weaknesses, and provide a way to improve.
If you have an adjuster who excels in a particular area, highlight those skills by allowing them to share their knowledge with their peers. One of the cardinal rules in any business is to avoid key person dependency. You may have an adjuster who is a wiz at investigating subrogation but be sure they share this information by mentoring others. Lunch-and-learn sessions are a great way to get an employee to share their knowledge with coworkers and makes them feel important and needed.
- Address the Need for Increased Responsibilities
Do you have an adjuster who is continuously looking for more responsibilities? Give them an opportunity to shine, and they may demonstrate their leadership skills. Feel like they have the potential to move up in management? Provide training and mentoring. You may be surprised to find some adjusters may be sitting in the shadows just waiting for an opportunity!
- Adapt to Culture Change
As companies grow, families grow as well, and younger, family age adjusters are brought on. Offering work/life balance to these employees is important. Flexibility becomes extremely important. Allowing the opportunity to work from home or creating a flex schedule will create an atmosphere that sustains the talented adjusters. There are many articles on working from home. It’s clear that employees given this opportunity are happier and healthier and remain in their jobs longer.
Enter the Millennial Generation
As the Millennial Generation enters the workforce, they are changing the way employers attract and retain their employees. In this ever-changing workforce, employers must adapt to retain their most promising employees.
#2 Attracting and Retaining Millennials
The key with Millennials is to attract and retain. They are bigger risk takers than Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers. If they feel they can do better with another employer, they will take the risk and move without much thought. Here are some ways to attract and retain Millennials.
- Offer Internships
Many degree programs require students to complete internships within their major. Students are looking for internships that provide them with real-world experience that is valuable when they graduate.
- Leverage Technology
Millennials love technology and will embrace it. They can help you leverage technology that makes your operation more productive and efficient as they are not afraid of it. This generation of workers went to college taking notes on their laptop, going online to review homework assignments and performing most of their research online.
They are not interested in thumbing through 3-ring binders or thick manuals to complete assignments.
- Offer Training Programs
If your organization is not large enough to have an internal training staff, there are plenty of options to send employees to onsite training or have them participate in online instruction.
Conclusion
To survive in the long-term, organizations must continue to evolve with the changing workforce environment. Sticking with what currently works is not sustaining. The industry is changing, and we must change with it or be left behind.
Focus on job satisfaction by understanding what drives your employees to do better. Provide your adjusters opportunities to learn, or share their expertise. Reward your star employees, and understand what motivates the Millennial Generation. They will be the key to our success.
