​​Author: ACT News Team

We all know our deep bench of industry talent is nearing retirement and the industry needs to find the next generation of workers, especially those with technology and digital communications skills. Maura Quinn, assistant VP for campus recruiting programs at Liberty Mutual, has taken a look at hiring through the lens of the evolving customer experience—especially digital demands. We talked to her following her insightful presentation at the March 2018 ACT Meeting to take a deeper dive. ​

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Talent may be inherent, but it needs to be cultivated. There are multiple steps in the process: identifying talent, introducing prospective employees to insurance as a concept that appeals to their minds and emotions, making our jobs financially and practically attractive, and training hires to exceed customer expectations while complying with the rules.

Whoops. Did we forget retaining them so your investment dollars don't walk out the door in three years?

While most millennials—and the newest college students, Gen Z (or the iGeneration)—are digital natives, there is a big difference between using those skills for business purposes and using them for a personal social media accounts, and employers have to know enough to help them tailor those skills for working at an insurance organization.

“In our internships and development programs, we focus on transferable skills and capabilities that we know are successful," says Maura Quinn, assistant vice president for campus recruiting programs at Liberty Mutual Insurance. “We leverage their unique ideas to help us solve real business problems."

Liberty Mutual uses its internship program to mold interested students for a career in the industry.

“The goal of our internship program is to provide a quality experience for the interns, get them excited about Liberty Mutual and our business, and then ultimately convert them to full-time employees upon graduation," Maura says. “To achieve this, we provide interns formal training, give them creative and dynamic work assignments, and expose them to the culture of a growing Fortune 100 company."

Since technology (and customers' demands for its use in their daily interactions) is rapidly evolving, it is crucial that agencies stay abreast—even if only to give relevant guidance to new hires who wish to employ their digital savvy. For example, employees may be champing at the bit to respond to clients in real time through texts, emails or other electronic methods, including social media. They understand that such immediacy is part of an excellent customer experience.

“To keep up and continuously innovate, we need highly technical talent across our organization," Maura says. “We strive to hire and develop talented individuals to reach their full potential in order to fuel this innovation. Fresh talent and new perspectives are essential to the development of product and the organization."

But there are constraints: recordkeeping, proper processing to get the right quote and insurer, potentially cumbersome forms. Somewhere in the mix, there has to be a traffic cop who understands the value of speed and broad accessibility but who also enforces compliance with rules and laws. Having both types of employees requires hiring and training practices that make digital strategy a focal point.

Finding and Molding

Two key words Maura uses frequently are “identifying" and “developing." Either can make or break your success.

“We partner with several national organizations to help source and select an inclusive talent pool," Maura says. “Organizations like Grace Hopper and the Society of Women Engineers are two great recruiting sources for technical talent. Our college recruiting strategy focuses on early talent identification. We are finding ways to access and engage technical students as early as high school to help build brand awareness and understanding of how their backgrounds can fit well in the private sector."

To attract the best and brightest, agencies should market themselves to employee candidates, which means going to where the “customers" (potential hires) are. In Maura's presentation at the March 2018 ACT Meeting, she mentioned that Liberty Mutual considers campus the foundation of its talent-acquisition strategy. The company pitches the great stories the industry has, the opportunities for innovation and engagement it offers, and the chance to do good it presents. Ongoing engagement is a must, along with modeling by industry veterans and persistence in messaging. And don't forget the rewards. Today's students and young workers are very financially conscious, often coming to the market with debt and fears learned from the 2008 meltdown.

Liberty Mutual also partners carefully with post-secondary schools and hiring managers to make sure undergraduates are developed incrementally. Systematic training and feedback can turn a nascent hire or intern into a high-level performer.

Essential skills include applying analytical insights to drive continuous improvement and building customer loyalty by providing an exceptional experience for customers, Maura says. “These core capabilities, measured through performance conversations and reviews, are the expectations of how we will achieve success with both our customers and with each other. This plays a significant role in how we select, develop and manage our people."

Current Talent and Beyond

Though much emphasis is rightly placed on hiring and training new employees, there is a stock of current personnel who can move your organization forward. Build retraining or continuous education into your employee development plan.

“One of the recent challenges we faced was the growing demand for software developers," Maura says. Our chief information officer, James McGlennon, recognized the need to reskill and retool some of our own employees. We launched GoForCode, an immersive program that sends our own employees to coding schools and boot camps, to improve their software development skills. This program is part of a broader effort to increase training and professional development."

Liberty Mutual also has an in-house incubator that helps the insurer meet and exceed customers' changing expectations.

“Solaria Labs is our in-house incubator; it's where we rapidly ideate and create new products and services to test with consumers," Maura says.

The combination of continuous innovation and ongoing access to professional development and promotions is the one-two punch that could make your shop a winner with employees and prospective hires. It's a matter of developing your talent-acquisition and retention plan with digital in mind.

• Identify
• Woo
• Hire
• Train
• Develop
• Reward
  

Working with carriers, vendor partners and shared-knowledge groups such as ACT, agencies may well find the resources they need to acquire, cultivate and retain employees who are not only digital natives but also digital dynamos.