Kris Allison
President
Burnham Benefits Insurance Services
Irvine
The employee benefits insurance industry has never experienced more complexity than we have today. Lines of products, technology and regulatory requirements all acting independently and dynamically have intensified an already-complex environment. This is where industry experience, specialization, and culture can contribute significantly to an organization’s competitiveness and future as they seek to attract clients and new talent.
As we’ve gained a larger footprint in the industry, it’s given us the opportunity to have more employees internally that specialize in certain areas. Burnham has individuals with deep expertise in functional areas like communications, financial analysis and technology. Clients aren’t just equipped with a senior account person and support person but rather have a full team behind them with subject matter expertise in all the areas that mean the most. Having these layers of internal specialties has been appealing to younger generations, who in earlier years didn’t see the opportunities in the employee benefits industry. Within the last year, we have grown our staff by 35% in an effort to have all of the right people on hand for our expanding employer client base.
Burnham has been attracting new talent out of college by looking locally at California State University-Fullerton and Long Beach, as well as University of California-Irvine, and Chapman University. We’re also holding on to our baby boomers, many of whom are willing to mentor this younger generation. The younger talent contributes to our existing organization by bringing advanced technology skills and fresh ideas to the firm.
We are willing to make an investment when we find the right person, because we only hire people who we believe are smart, ethical, ambitious and will be a great fit within the Burnham culture. Millennials are attracted to Burnham because it’s a fluid work environment—employees can move up or move over to a different function. For example, we had a consultant employee with an interest in communications who later transitioned to that side of the business, and several employees who were previously underwriters are now in more all-encompassing roles. Carriers have been another source of new talent. Formerly working with a single carrier, these individuals have a desire to transition to the benefits side so they can work with multiple carriers and products with a more client-facing position.
Thomas Lewis
Regional Chief Executive-West
USI Insurance Services
Irvine
The insurance industry is at a critical crossroad in its ability to attract and retain the brightest employees and ultimately its next generation of leaders. As the available pool of experienced talent shrinks, it becomes more difficult to find employees to fill open positions.
Talent is critical to our success. We are taking a multifaceted approach to address the impending talent gap. Our team is involved with an insurance industry workforce coalition to develop strategies to build awareness of the industry’s opportunities among students and their advisers, expanding the number of graduates from schools of insurance and risk management, and improving the education and training that risk professionals receive. We compete with other industries that are better known among Millennials. So we are joining together to promote the positive attributes that an insurance career offers: stability, work-life balance, intellectual challenge, and social relevance. This generation brings tremendous energy and passion, which we intend to harness in our firm.
At the same time, we are building a strong talent pipeline within our organization. As CEO, I make talent management a top priority and set the tone for a talent-driven culture. We support and invest in employee development, mentorships and involvement in professional organizations. We are exploring flexible work programs to enhance talent acquisition, retention and engagement. And we are strengthening our recruiting strategy in every market.
USI continues to grow in Southern California, and we’re aggressively looking for the next generation of talented and skilled professionals to further our success. Our industry has much to offer, including stable employment, demand for services, and forecasted revenue growth. To successfully address the impending talent shortage, attract new employees, and cultivate the next generation of professionals, we must remain laser-focused on our talent strategy.
Chris Martin
President
Precept Insurance Solutions LLC
Irvine
Today, Millennials make up between 25% and 30% of our workforce. This percentage is expected to grow as baby boomers reach retirement. Millennials bring a whole new set of values, work-life priorities, and demands or expectations to their work.
We are investing in training our managers to be more effective communicators, motivators and stewards of our Millennial workforce. This means allocating time to understand career goals, accommodating work schedules, and providing flexible work hours and work sites. Constant connection is a requirement.
Technology is an integrated part of Millennials’ lives. Using technology to recruit, train, motivate and retain Millennials must become second nature to our business. Our success depends on the successful integration of Millennials into our human capital strategy.
John Melbon
Executive Vice President—Benefits Division Leader
SullivanCurtisMonroe
Irvine
A lot of the talent in the employee benefits industry is getting long in the tooth. Many of the current top performers in the benefits space started out as life insurance professionals and gravitated to benefits or were trained as insurance company representatives. Unfortunately, the old life insurance general agency system that used to provide talent to employee benefits firms no longer exists. Moreover, insurance carriers are not recruiting and training as many young and talented sales reps as they used to. Thus, the talent pipeline for brokerage firms has dramatically dried up in recent years.
We are very concerned with the need to recruit, train, and mentor young and talented sales professionals. Becoming a salesperson or a consultant in the retail insurance brokerage industry is difficult, and so many of the Millennials that consider our industry don’t have the patience and the perseverance to grind through the early years and build a clientele. Add to that the fact that the former sources of talent no longer exist. Therefore, we are starting to look outside of the traditional sources for employee benefits sales talent.
To ensure that we can continue to grow our business, perpetuate the firm, and replenish our sales team, we are now hiring young and hungry college graduates without previous insurance industry experience. However, rather than throwing these folks directly into sales positions, we are starting them off on the service side of the business, allowing them to acquire the expertise to eventually be effective salespeople and consultants without the pressure of having to meet sales quotas from day one. Those individuals who show a hunger to grow and succeed, who learn quickly, provide tremendous customer service, and show an aptitude for sales will be moved into sales and consulting positions after an apprenticeship period of two to five years. Others will either stay on the service side of the business, where they can build terrific careers as employee benefits account managers, or they will leave our company.
Like many insurance agencies, we recognize the new challenges in finding talent and growing a successful sales and consulting team. And like most of our competitors, we are investing up to 5% of our revenues on young and unproven college graduates. It’s a big investment to make, but we are well aware that it is a necessary investment to make if we are to continue growing our firm.
Darrin Silveria
Chief Sales Officer
Confie Seguros
Huntington Beach
We remain highly committed to retaining and recruiting top talent while developing the capability of our team to continue to enable our accelerated growth. We are well positioned to continue to attract Millennials as they become a bigger part of the workforce. Since we are continuing to enjoy strong organic growth, as well as accelerated growth through acquisitions and opening new offices, we have a strong demand for talent to earn promotions and for new employees to join our team. With our rapid growth, we are a wonderful destination for talent to have a successful and long-term career.
Since investing in people is a top priority for our company, we have significantly increased our investment in this key area of our business. To optimize recruiting and on-boarding of talent, we have invested to add incremental recruiters to our talent acquisition team and enhanced our employee on-boarding process. Additionally, we have launched Confie University within our company to build the capability of our team. The training delivered as part of Confie University has been well received by our team and is being seen as a significant benefit for prospective employees that are joining our company. Confie University will continue to be a key driver of our efforts to attract, retain, and build talent within our company.
We are excited about the future of our company and believe we will continue to be a great place to work. We are currently hiring talent for many roles in our organization.
Travis Trask
Principal and Managing Director
Barney & Barney, a Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC
Aliso Viejo
We’re continually thinking about how to best manage human capital. Baby boomers and Millennials often have different ways of approaching work, so we are very thoughtful about bringing together the fresh thinking of a new generation with the wisdom and experience of those responsible for our success over many years.
Succession planning is particularly important today, given that we have one large generation gradually exiting the workplace and another being introduced. To prepare for this, we have held regular succession planning meetings that contemplate both the short term and longer term.
Professional development is also one of the most successful ways of creating a team that works well together. We invest in a deep professional development program. Ninety-six percent of our workforce participates in our Personal Excellence Plan, which means they have a customized plan for achieving advanced professional training of some kind. We also have a robust leadership development program, which prepares our most talented people for future leadership roles. The program is also a very rewarding personal experience that helps people in all aspects of their lives.
Hiring is another vital way we are building a workforce that appreciates the strengths of different generations. We have a multifaceted hiring strategy that reflects Barney & Barney’s priorities and size. We invest in all types of people: those who are industry veterans with proven experience; those who have work experience and talent but are looking to move to a new industry; and those who are brand-new, just out of college and starting their careers. This helps us create a wonderfully diverse talent pool with both experience and youthful enthusiasm. We make significant investments in new talent each and every year.
While it is hard to truly stereotype generations of employees, we do recognize what’s important to various generations. Millennials place an especially high value on giving back to the community and in work-life balance. They want to be good corporate citizens and search for ways to contribute outside the business. Our people have the chance to do this through flexible work scheduling and participation in Barney & Barney programs supporting our communities.
Our focus on creating a highly effective, multigenerational workforce is clearly benefiting Barney & Barney. We are creating a dynamic team that is helping our clients navigate a phenomenal amount of change in the marketplace.
