By Daniel Maddox, owner, Elite DocumentationInc.

Brain drain has become a bigger and bigger problem at insuranceagencies in recent years. The baby boomer generation is retiring,and new faces, without the same level of experience, are steppingin to take their place.

The new hires are different. Often they will not stay with acompany for as long as their predecessors did. So we are left witha double whammy of retiring, senior employees, along with incoming,new employees who may not stay as long.

Knowledge is the lifeblood of any agency. Without it, there isno business. So this departure of knowledge, which is gettingfaster and faster, can kill an agency. The fact that more babyboomers are retiring, creating a need for more hiring, just makesthe problem worse.

Think about the employees that work at your company. If youradministrative assistant was suddenly gone, or whoever handles yourcommercial lines contracted a serious disease, would someone knowhow to do cover every key aspect of that employee's role at yourcompany?

There are ways to address these issues, especially at largeragencies. If you have two employees working on the same segment ofcommercial insurance, you will probably be okay if one of themleaves. The remaining employee can teach a replacement what todo.

Read related: “Modeling Best-Practice Behavior.”

If an agency is part of a well-connected network, that alsomakes the problem smaller. If your expert in such-and-such aspectof insurance is out, but you know just whom to call, you should bein decent shape. And if you have an office manager who has a goodgrasp of what everyone is doing, then all the better.

Certainly, many insurance providers offer online training to newhires, or employees who are moving into a new role in the agency.The documents and other learning items that are provided can helpoffset the loss of an employee.

Also, doing a good job when interviewing candidates is critical.If you ask the right questions, you can have a better idea ofwhether a person wants to stay with your company for a long time,or if they plan to use your company as a temporary stop.

When those remedies don't work

These responses to employee turnover can be very helpful.However, there are two circumstances in which these methods aren'tenough:

• When the agency is small, without much overlap in jobduties
• When key employees have work processes that are not covered ingeneric training.

It's great to have multiple people covering the same area ofyour business. But what if you just have one person doingcommercial insurance? If someone has to fill in for them, will thereplacement know the steps to take to get their work done? Willthey know exactly whom to call for help?

And what about your key, high-ranking employees? They areresponsible for tasks that are not covered in any generic insurancetraining. If another employee steps in after they leave, will thenew employee know about those unique tasks, and how to completethem?

Read related: “R&O Consultants: Quality Control.”

How to make sure you have the rightinformation

There are ways to fill in these gaps, and to prevent so muchinformation from leaving your business. Think of it as taking outan insurance policy on your company. If there is a problem (andthere always is), you will be better prepared if you follow thesesteps:

1. Identify your critical business information.Spend some time brainstorming your most critical processes. Duringa given week, or year, what has to happen to make your business go?What information is in the head of just one employee?
2. Plan to capture the information. Once you knowthe information you need to capture, you should prepare yourresources. Make sure that your key employees know that they need todevote time to developing this new “insurance policy.” You shouldalso make sure that your employees aren't afraid of being replaced.Really, you think they are extremely important. So important thatyou're trying to reduce the risk that would come if they walkedaway.
3. Get it written up. If someone in your companyhas a good sense of your needs, and how to get everything writtendown and distributed, have that person get the informationtogether. Otherwise, look for outside help from someone trained tocapture the information that is critical to your business.
4. Update the documents periodically. Businessesare always changing, and you will need to update the documents on aregular basis. The intervals for reviews may vary, depending on howmuch your key business tasks change in a given year.

If you follow these steps, you will be much better preparedshould you lose a key employee, or if you need to train an employeeon a particular aspect of your business.