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The thought of suiting up, commuting and sitting in an office for eight hours a day is the definition or agony for many young professionals. Millennials, Generation Y, people born from 1974-1980; whatever you want to call them, this segment has been exposed to the internet and mobile communication for most of their professional lives. And for many, this exposure has instilled a sense of connectivity carried from work to home to play.
In referring to Millennials, an article on BrightHub states:
“The influence of this new and completely different workforce will bring with it a tsunami of change. These workers are not cube-dwellers, they are an instant gratification, naturally multi-tasking, technology-eating/breathing and consuming force that will join the voices of the older Baby Boomers who are also demanding flexibility in their work opportunities.”
From an insurance business perspective, whether you’re seeking new talent or trying to hold on to existing team members, understanding this paradigm shift and surrounding yourself with the right people is key to growing your agency. A staff that clocks in at nine, clocks out at five and takes a one-hour lunch break in the afternoon is an archaic model.
Flexibility works both ways however. While you may not feel great about an employee sauntering in at 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday; the client email they respond to at 10:30 on a Saturday night can make up for that extra hour of sleep. The key is having the right insurance technology solutions and infrastructure in place to monitor productivity and make communication efficient.
Social media is creating new portals for 24/7 communication but can also introduce privacy risks when personal information is available. While social media tools are excellent for support, a virtual insurance office that is constantly generating leads and offering visitors a “storefront” experience is the first step towards streamlining your agency for the next generation of insurance professionals.
Lead generation is obviously important, but from the Millennials perspective, the virtual insurance office must provide access to client and policy information. Work is done from laptops at children’s doctor’s appointment or on smartphones while at the local coffee shop, and not necessarily in a poorly decorated cubicle. What’s more? This on-the-go business execution can generate more leads just by having agents out in public.
Is your agency prepared to handle the demands of Millennials, who, consequently, will make up the bulk of new insurance policy buyers in the coming years? You are if you use their tools and play by their rules.
(Special thanks to Steve Anderson for inspiring this article.)
January 28, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Thanks Nick for helping me with the comments. Much appreciated.
This is really interesting to me. As an industry we are losing out on young talent because insurance is not only seen as a boring desk job. Being bound to a cubicle desk isn’t appealing anymore.
I think that making this transition is hard for established agencies who employ 10 or more people. It changes their whole office culture which is something that can be really challenging to management. The change is what is really challenging. I have seen a few agents try to get into 24/7 service in the past year. It’s also a pretty big investment for some and requires them to really trust their employees.
However this presents a great opportunity to start ups. There is no reason why you can’t run a full service agency from a home office these days!
January 28, 2010 at 1:16 pm
My pleasure, thanks for making the issue clear.
Your comments are spot on. Changing hours of office operation sounds easy in theory but juggling 10-15 employees, all with different schedules can make it a major headache. From a management perspective, understanding how to maximize each employee’s strenghts comes into play. If someone loses focus or falls out of touch when they leave the office, they probably shouldn’t telecommute. However, an agent who can write a policy on their laptop while speaking on the phone with another client while waiting for an appointment to show up at a coffee shop would thrive in multiple work settings.
The growing breed of agents who use their homes or the field as an office NOW may very well be the ones who employ 10-15 people in a few years from now. And then we have to worry about hiring the New Boomers…
January 29, 2010 at 8:24 am
I understand the issue Millennials have with insurance…and the surveys that illustrate how Gen Y want to work and how they perceive insurance pretty much tell the whole story.
What is interesting to me is how many people have launched insurance agency careers over the decades, as owners or producers, precisely for one of the career attributes that younger people value – freedom.
At the end of the day, any business compensates employees for what they do (produce), not for their time. Omnipresent high speed internet access, web services, and other technology make it possible to produce revenue or service accounts from pretty much anywhere, anytime.
If agency and company owners and managers can get past the time clock mentality, and tie compensation plans to work output, the insurance industry will have gone a long way toward creating an appeal to Millennials.
January 29, 2010 at 9:01 am
Well said Kevin. I think as agency owners learn the technology better themselves, they will understand how to grant employees more flexibility based on productivity.
Your point about becoming an agent for the freedom it affords is a huge selling point to up and coming talent. The industry needs to create appeal.
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