The talent crisis is here and is hitting the insurance industry hard, according to Sandra Springer, senior vice president at Captive Resources.
Speaking on the ‘shaping the captive leaders’ panel at the Captive Insurance Companies Association (CICA) 2019 conference, Springer referenced the statistics that are regularly quoted on the talent crisis.
She said: “You’ve heard the statistics that 400,000 employees, and recently I’ve heard 500,000, in the insurance industry will be exiting just the insurance industry within a very short period of time.”
“We all know that we have a shortage of talent, it’s been predicted, it’s been discussed but It's here now and it's hitting the insurance industry particularly hard.”
Springer said that this issue meant that growing organisations were “dually challenged”.
She explained: “They’re looking both for young professionals to fill the holes created by retirements and to attract new talent as part of their growth.”
“We need to be proactively engaging these young people and selling captive insurance. We work in a very interesting field and we need to make sure we can describe exactly what that is.”
The panelists discussed important factors in attracting new talent, emphasising the importance of internships, mentorships, and developing recognition on college campuses.
On the topic of retaining and developing talent, John Prescott, managing partner at Johnson Lambert and Company, cited research from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).
ACCA research showed that amongst young professionals career progression, learning new skills, salary, work-life balance, job security were the top factors for sticking with a firm.
Focusing on the career progression and learning new skills factors, Prescott noted: “We see talented and hard working folks that want to develop their skills, you have to help them do that and you need to communicate about career progression.”
Also speaking on the panel, Courtney Claflin, executive director of captive programmes at the University of California, talked through what he believed were some important things to remember when developing talent.
He said: “Give away the credit, promote and verbalise their success, and don’t be jealous. It’s not about you it's about them.”
“Be patient, sometimes deadlines don’t get hit.”
Claflin concluded: “Grow them to leave and be better than you. I grow our team to be better than me. That to me is rewarding, to see them fly.”