Finding Talent for Your Agency Strategies for Success
By Jennifer Jacobs Finding and hiring the right employees was already a challenge and COVID-19 has made that process even more difficult in this era of social distancing and working remotely. Claudia St. John of Affinity HR Group moderated a discussion during the IIA of IL Virtual CONVO between J’ai Brown, HR Director at Hub International in Chicago and Mark and Christine Bailey, Co-Owners of Bailey Family Insurance in Springfield, who shared their unique perspectives on hiring in the insurance industry. When asked where they are finding talent, J’ai Brown shared that she has joined LinkedIn groups for specific organizations and associations to help build relationships among the target audiences. Christine Bailey added that prospecting on LinkedIn can help agencies home in on graduates of local colleges and other candidates within your community. While they do find LinkedIn a useful tool, Mark and Christine Bailey had more success with a job posting on Facebook. The Bailey’s produced a recruitment video, using just an iPhone camera and microphone, according to Mark. Culture plays a huge role at Bailey Family Insurance and Christine said they looped in the whole team when making the video so employees could share why they enjoy working at the agency to help convey the culture to prospective candidates. To ensure candidates will fit well with the existing team, current employees have been included in parts of the interview and onboarding process.
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Employee referral programs have been successful at HUB where they provide a financial incentive for employees that bring in qualified candidates and an added incentive if the recommended individual makes it through the first round of interviews as well. A final referral incentive is paid when the new hire has completed a specified period of service. J’ai said that at HUB they encourage their existing employees to serve as a “talent scout” always looking for ideal candidates. Employees are encouraged to share their stories about why they value the organization and the benefits they find appealing. The motivation for referrals is twofold, according to J’ai because employees like to work with good people that they know and they value the financial incentives as well. As a larger agency, HUB is often filling roles from unlicensed individuals to producers and another way J’ai finds talent is by keeping a record of former qualified applicants in order to build a pipeline of prospect for positions that are filled often and could have an opening in the future. When it comes to the type of candidates they are looking to hire, Bailey Family Insurance is not focused on hiring for experience. Too often, agencies want someone who is experienced and can hit the ground running, but those candidates are harder to find. Mark and Christine focus on hiring for attitude, personality and potential sales ability. Mark emphasized that there are tools and training resources available to teach processes and the carriers should have support to help train new employees on how to use their systems. On hiring inexperienced employees, Mark said he likes to see a new team member grow from the ground up and the agency can train them the “right” way to do things. continued... insight
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