You’re ready to conquer the market, but there’s a lot facing the industry right now. You have to be ready to overcome some big challenges, like the sophistication of insurance technology, cyber risk, consumer trust, the economy, advertising costs, climate change, and unskilled workers. And that’s on top of the everyday business needs, such as knowing your product lines and agency benefits thoroughly, setting and achieving sales goals, and understanding what your customers want so you can keep them loyal to your agency. Oh, and hiring the right people who can do all of the above. After all, agency success starts and ends with people. That’s why we suggest starting with a strong selection process and a solid pre-employment assessment strategy that incorporates tools like behavioral assessments, sales assessments, and cognitive ability tests.
Do you know how to select the right people?
Even the best agency owners can find themselves unprepared to tackle the important and also arduous business of hiring. Those who manage small agencies may have been lucky enough to know and trust the people they hire, like relatives, friends, or individuals from their own circles. It’s always easier working with known quantities.
However, as agencies grow and change, they are sure to run out of family, acquaintances, and even employee referrals when filling both vacated and growth positions. When this happens, agency owners and managers will be dependent on a more terrifying and riskier place for their staffing needs: the outside world! When working with the unknown, it’s best to collect as much information as possible and use data-backed hiring tools as your insurance against making a wrong hire. Sure, gut feelings can play a small part but should never be the only tool used to select people; too many things can cloud our judgement, and some candidates are superstars at hiding their faults until it is too late.
The Turnover Illusion
A common myth often accepted as an absolute fact is that frequent employee turnover is normal, so it almost doesn’t matter who is hired since the employee won’t stay long anyway. That’s why, in large agencies, it might feel like the goal is just to quickly find anybody to fill an open position and hope they’ll stay longer than a year. Unfortunately, this illusion only fans the flames of inefficiency and expense, making the already frustrating everyday problems agencies face even more infuriating.
When you are ready to start looking for your next superstar employee, consider these 6 easy tips:
1. Have a structured but not stringent process
Agency managers might think a formal hiring system is unnecessary. Too many bureaucratic layers yield complex problems, while the typical emergencies within an agency can get in the way of following the system perfectly. As a result, stringent hiring practices can seem impractical or too time consuming. And there is certainly some truth to that; stringency can be as problematic as no system at all.
A formal, structured process is necessary, but you need one that works for your culture and is not encumbered by bureaucratic layers that unnecessarily complicate the process. Find a balance between unstructured and chaotic and overly bureaucratic. Extremes never work; looking for the middle ground will go a long way toward avoiding problems down the road.
Hiring talented, trustworthy, capable, long-term, and well-suited employees should always be the goal whether you manage one person or a hundred people. Never settle if you can help it. List your needs and some reasons for those needs. This will help you set priorities and see your expectations, strengths, and weaknesses in a real-world way. Think about the specifics of your agency culture and work environment.
Is your agency high-octane and fast-moving? If so, you have good reason to avoid hiring people who tell you they get overwhelmed easily or hate being rushed. While such patience and diligence are admirable qualities, they could be liabilities in a hectic, highly charged environment. Of course, certain roles might need that methodical approach, so it’s important to think about all factors, like the agency culture, the department’s culture, and the demands of the job itself. One-size-fits-all never fits everybody.
Also, make sure you stay up to date on the latest hiring trends to stay competitive in the job market. You want to be an employer of choice in your area.
2. Attract the right talent with the right job posting
Your job posting is the first impression you make on a potential employee. It’s also the best way to quickly weed out people who are not the right fit for the job or your agency.
Start with being clear about the job, exactly what it is, what it entails, and what type of person is best suited to it. All too often we hear how candidates felt misled about the role. Your biggest employee retention tool during the selection process is honesty. Don’t be afraid to scare people off. The right candidates will want to apply, and the wrong candidates will turn away. But if you aren’t honest, you may hire the wrong candidates, and they will quickly feel resentful of the “deception” and leave or perhaps stay but do the bare minimum. Scaring off the wrong type is best for your retention efforts in the long run.
That’s why you should also make sure your post shows who you are as an employer and company. Highlight your identity and brand and be bold. More and more, employees want to work for a company that aligns with their personalities. If your agency is playful and lively with a “work hard, play hard” mentality, make sure your post reflects that. Don’t be afraid to use humor. But if your agency is direct, formal, and serious with a “work hard, then work harder” mindset, then be serious and formal in your post. Staying true to who you are will help you attract like-minded people, and like-minded people are more likely to stay.
Once you’ve posted your job and started collecting resumes, weed out the obvious ones that do not align with your needs. Whittle down your candidates to a number that seems reasonable to you, but keep in mind that, as you dig deeper into each person’s background, you may uncover more than just a few unpleasant surprises. Research shows that 30 to 40 percent of applications and resumes include some false or inflated facts!
3. Get extra insight from a behavioral assessment
A pre-employment personality assessment will help you look even closer at a candidate’s potential with the job and even the team. If you’re looking to retain strong, productive employees, make sure the people you hire are a match for the job. Omnia helps to set the “job personality” so you can see how a candidate’s traits match up to the best traits for the position.
The best part is that a behavioral assessment is not a pass-or-fail test. The Omnia behavioral assessment uses the candidate’s responses to a simple online checklist. It’s a quick yet powerfully accurate tool that provides extensive insight into a person’s strengths, motivators, weaknesses, and fit to the job’s demands.
Within an agency environment, sales hiring is a major concern. A personality assessment is also a sales hiring assessment. Why? Because our assessment’s assertiveness trait is strongly correlated to sales performance. Naturally assertive people are stronger prospectors, presenters, and closers.
4. Know the skills you need and test for them
Minimize the risk of a bad hire, but make sure any potential new hire really does have the skills needed to do the job even at the most basic level. This can be done by administering proficiency tests that are job appropriate and designed to demonstrate abilities. It might be a bookkeeping test, a Microsoft Excel or Word test, a cognitive ability evaluation, or an insurance terminology quiz. Don’t assume that the person interviewing for your accounting position knows the difference between debits and credits. Sometimes, people say they know how to do something just to get their foot in the door.
5. Conduct background checks
A background check protects your agency and your employees. Crime and violence are, sadly, not uncommon in the workplace. Make sure there are no issues from a candidate’s past that make you uncomfortable. “Negligent hiring” is a term commonly used in today’s business world and can be alleged if an employer fails to exercise reasonable caution when choosing an employee. Employers could be held financially and legally liable for illegal or violent action taken by employees not subjected to reasonable pre-employment screening.
6. Get to the bottom of your leadership style
Think about your own management style and encourage your managers to do the same. To motivate and inspire others, it helps to understand yourself. Self-awareness is a powerful leadership tool.
Are you good with employees who consistently ask for your guidance or with the ones who regularly make their own decisions? Do you closely oversee every detail, or do you expect your team to take the ball and run with it?
While it might sound nice to simply surround yourself with people who mesh with your own work approach, that’s not always realistic or even wise since different roles require different traits. Knowing how to adjust your style to meet the individual needs of your employees is one of the strongest employee retention tools you can use.
It might feel daunting, and sometimes it will be, to hire and lead a productive, cohesive, and dedicated team, but it is possible. First, you need to know what you want and seek out employees who can live up to that. Don’t settle for second best. Display your excellence as a decision-maker and take your leadership skills to new levels by employing people who have the potential to exceed your expectations.
