Around the turn of the century, the insurance industry enteredthe war on talent.

As boomers began aging out of the workforce, succession planningtook on a pronounced urgency.

Insurance leaders feared they would be replaced by naïve, socialmedia obsessed young professionals unprepared for the realities ofthe workplace.

We're all familiar with this narrative at this point. Millennials, or young professionals typicallyidentified as having been born roughly between 1980 and 2000, havemuch different expectations and norms around work and careers thantheir parents' and grandparents' generations.

Not satisfied to merely follow the well-worn path towardspromotions and career respect, they want ongoing feedback, clearrewards and a sense of community and meaning. Therefore, thiscurrent talent development milieu isn't just a matter of replacingretiring people; it's a matter of reimagining the workplace andintegrating different styles of learning and working whileresponding to an overwhelming demand for smart, new talent.

Battles on multiple fronts

But why is it a war on talent? Combine these retirementand recruiting realities with an insurance industry demanding agreater diversity of skills and the accelerating pace oftechnological development and the composite challenges aredaunting. Those tasked with recruiting, developing and supportingyoung professionals are feeling like they are truly waging a war,with battles on multiple fronts that must be won for the future oftheir companies and the industry.

The number of jobs available in the insurance industry isexpected to grow over the next five years. Today's up and comingyoung professionals are the natural successors to fill those jobs,assuming they can be recruited and retained in time. 

Related: 7 things the insurance industry needs to know aboutthe looming talent gap

All companies must learn — and should want to learn — to evolvetalent management to help young professionals thrive in the moderninsurance workplace. Now isn't the time to disparage youngerworkers; now is the time to engage them.

Here are four tools to arm yourself with to win the war ontalent: 

The youngest workers among us are digital natives — theyhave not known life without the internet — and view technology asan enabler of their lives. (Photos: iStock)

1. Understand what young professionals want.

 
Millennials and their generational successors, Generation Z, have different expectations fortheir work-life balance than previous generations. They have beenraised with a great deal of structure, but one which blends workand play. At the same time, they have a deep conscientious streak;they want their employers to join them in fighting a worthy cause,support their volunteerism and help them work in teams with theirco-workers.

They also have different learning and working styles. Theyoungest workers among us are digital natives — they have not knownlife without the internet — and view technology as an enabler oftheir lives.

Young workers can be fast, creative and short on patience;hierarchy creates a roadblock to decision making because they needto wait for approval. If promotions take too long in coming, theywill jump ship.

At the same time, younger workers are oriented towards long- andshort-term goals and meaningful work. They need quick, clear andongoing feedback that helps them fit their work into the bigpicture.

Crave confirmation

That is, young workers crave confirmation that they are making apurposeful contribution towards something that matters. Helpingthem grow will require a renewed focus on talent development andengagement, which became a victim of the economic downturn ascompanies were forced to consolidate jobs and job functions.

For the sake of tomorrow's insurance leaders and to the benefitof all insurance professionals, we need to rethink how we modelemployee careers: rather than climbing the corporate ladder,employees are now scaling a rock climbing wall. They are makinglateral moves when step-ups aren't available, all in the pursuit ofa strong and meaningful career.

Related: Using tech to win talent

In order to develop talent appropriately, you need to knowhow your business is going to expand and strategically plan forwhat skill sets your employees will and will notneed.  (Photo: iStock)

2. Know talent management best practices.

Over the years, our perspective on recruiting, developing andretaining professional workers has changed with the jargon, frompersonnel management to human resources to human capital to talentmanagement. Many descriptions of the younger generations reflectmuch of what we consider current best practices in talentmanagement.

Integrated talent management is an organizational approach toleading people by building culture, engagement, capability andcapacity through talent acquisition, development and deploymentprocesses aligned to business goals.

Meeting the challenges of the modern insurance workplacerequires several practices working together for talent management.These are your specialized forces in the war on talent:acquisition, team and individual development and engagement,succession planning, organizational development, career planning,retention and performance management.

Talent management must focus on both the big picture and theminutiae of day-to-day activities. In order to develop talentappropriately, you need to know how your business is going toexpand and strategically plan for what skill sets your employeeswill and will not need. Will this require you to hire or redevelopthe employees you already have? How does this align to their careergoals?

Succession planning is a big focus of talent management in theinsurance space, considering current challenges. Say you have 10years until the owner of your agency retires and 10 C-suitepositions to fill. Who do you want in those positions — in thepipeline towards becoming CEO?

Talent management allows us to figure out what work needs to bedone to develop people along paths that fulfill them professionallyand ensure the business is prepared for the future. 

Related: Attracting bright, young minds to an insurancecareer

  (Photo: iStock)

3. Engage through performance management practices.

As part of talent management, performance management is theprocess that aligns employees with the work needed to meet businessgoals. Think of this as the day-to-day of talent management,addressing short- to medium-term goals that work in tandem withyour succession plan.

We can divide performance management into four distinctpractices that work together in a yearly cycle:

• Setting expectations – At the beginning of thefinancial cycle, managers can work with each employee to reviewbusiness goals, set expectations in terms of daily work and goalsand create individual development plans for building skills andcompetencies that relate to their work and their next job.
• Providing feedback – Managers shouldcommunicate regularly and fluidly with team members about theirperformance on a day-to-day basis, but they must also make time formore formal feedback. These feedback sessions should occur at leastquarterly and take the form of a dialogue. The manager can help theemployee stayed aligned with business goals, while the employee canhelp to drive the feedback by tying it to their career goals.
• Evaluation – Evaluating employees isn't justabout assessing their performance; this is also about realigningtheir development with goals at the end of the performancemanagement cycle. Core to this conversation is knowing your keymessages about performance and future expectations. Those messagesmay be short, but they must be meaningful to the employee. Documenttheir performance in the last period, share key performancemessages and discuss their career.
• Recognition – The most obvious example ofrecognition is merit pay and bonuses, but do not overlooknon-monetary forms of recognition that are meaningful. Meaningfulrecognition will look different for different employees. Somepeople would prefer to be recognized in public, while others wouldprefer a quieter reward, like new work-at-home privileges.

What sets this process apart is not only the cyclical nature. Italso strengthens employee engagement, so their expectations arealigned with business realities. It connects them to the goals ofthe business and their department, so they feel they can have apositive impact and contribute to the organization in a meaningfulway.

Related: Why mentoring is critical

The performance management process also puts the employee in thedriver's seat, so they can own the results of their work. And itactually translates to improved business results, with everyoneworking together towards common goals while ensuring theirprofessional goals and needs are met — a crucial practice formanaging an increasingly diverse and younger workforce that willinherit the business.

SMART goals help employees see where they fit in the bigpicture. (Photo: Shutterstock)

4. Start with SMART goals.

Young professionals, talent development, succession planning,performance management — there are many fronts on which to fightthe war on talent. Much of this requires a big-picture, strategicperspective best tackled in conjunction with senior management. Butmanagers can win skirmishes on a day-to-day basis, and SMART goalsare an excellent place to start.

SMART goals are a favorite topic of everyone from personaldevelopment bloggers to school teachers. But they are a powerfultool for beginning to align employee performance, individual careergoals and business goals. SMART stands for the characteristics ofstrong goal-setting habits:

• Specific – the goals specify what will beachieved, when it will be achieved and how it will be achieved
• Measurable – the goals include quantity,quality and budgetary considerations
• Attainable – the employee has the necessaryresources and authority to reach this goal
• Relevant – the goals are tied to a strategicand/or departmental goal
• Time-bound – the employee has benchmark datesand a deadline for the goals

Here's a goal that meets those specifications:

Increase new business policy count by 62 percent by year end.Accomplish this by:

• Monitoring and tracking progress vs. territory goals– reports built and distributed by the end ofJanuary.
• Monthly meeting with sales teams that address actionplans and pipelines that are documented and distributed– in place by end of Q1.
• Pipeline reports distributed to sales staff on abi-weekly basis – Crystal Reports built anddistributed by end of February.

If you have identified goals for your department or team for2017, take a fresh look at them through the SMART lens and see ifyou can define them more concretely. SMART goals — and theircontext within performance management and talent development — helpemployees see where they fit in the big picture, help managersensure their team is making an efficient contribution to the wholeand help eliminate sources of waste in processes.

As we have watched the insurance industry undergo significantchanges through the recent recession, the emergence of the nextgeneration of professionals and technological advances, it hasbecome clear the war on talent will not be won on a single front.We must address the succession planning concerns of boomers, thedevelopment needs of millennials and the business goals of theorganization in order to create lasting change that strengthens theinsurance industry rather than just reacting to change.

Related: 8 ways to attract millennials toinsurance

Ruth Sencio, vice president of Global Talent for New YorkCity-based ReSource Pro, has30 years of financial services experience in the U.S. and abroad.She can be reached at [email protected].