It's well recognized that the insurance industry — and claims, in particular — can expect to encounter a myriad of issues related to the retirement of baby boomers. While a shortage of qualified claim professionals is predicted to occur in the near future, the biggest concern of late seems to be the knowledge evaporation that will occur when experienced professionals retire, taking with them years of real-life scenarios and issues that they are uniquely qualified to handle.
Crawford & Company has shown an interest in dealing with these emerging issues, beginning with the launch of its Knowledge Management Center On Demand (KMC) in January 2009. Essentially, KMC On Demand provides opportunities for claim professionals to learn only what is needed — and to do so from their own computers. This type of learning has two main benefits: It's more efficient in terms of cost and time, and it appeals to a younger generation who is at ease with — and in many cases prefers — web-based researching and learning.
This week, Crawford took another step towards stopping the brain drain with their announcement that they will be integrating a feature into KMC On Demand that allows the best information in an enterprise to be shared company-wide.
The Expert Forum, as Crawford calls it, allows a company's KMC On Demand administrators to appoint category experts who receive online questions from the claim force. Those experts can answer questions and post responses, or bring in other experts to collaborate on an answer. The forum then allows for a final legal sign-off, if necessary. Each expert can edit an answer and each edit is memorialized, as with a wiki (a page or collection of web pages designed to enable people to contribute or modify content). Anyone within the organization needing this information can search answers by keyword, phrase, or category.
"The Expert Forum melds the training function with business partners for a collaboration that is necessary for long-term success," said Colm Keenan, vice president of knowledge management for Crawford & Company, in a release. "Training must be much more integrated into the business mainstream. It cannot only be an event or a place; it must be interactive, vital and available at the point of need. We must build a bridge from the learning interaction to the job performance by providing tools and resources that support learning and performance directly. The Expert Forum is an example of this bridge building."
Keenan went on to note the significance of the technology to an emerging generation of new claim professionals.
"It is imperative that companies capture and extend the power of learning technology directly to the workplace and provide knowledge sharing, collaboration, and support to new workers in the context of their jobs," he said. "The millennial generation is adept at using accessible, accurate online information resources. The Expert Forum function will be invaluable to this generation of adjuster."
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