Your Remote Hiring Plan In-house hiring practices don’t often translate to hiring employees that will work remotely. What modifications do you need to make to your hiring process?
By Sharon Emek, Ph.D., CIC By all accounts, the pandemic-related work-from-home business model is here to stay, at least for the time being. For the most part, many companies were able to transition quickly, albeit not without some significant challenges. Yet now another significant challenge is looming: how to hire employees you may not meet in person, either during the course of the pandemic or for the duration of their employment with your company. For the insurance industry, that challenge is multiplied by a shortage of viable candidates. Veteran insurance professionals are retiring at an alarming rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that between 2016 and 2020, 400,000 insurance professionals will head off to retirement. The situation is made more dire by the fact that millennials are showing little interest in insurance industry careers. According to The Millennial Survey conducted by The Hartford, a mere 4% of millennials would consider an insurance industry career.
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Yet the very pandemic that has challenged insurers to adopt remote work strategies may be somewhat of a saving grace in the quest to find remote workers. According to World Economic Forum data, 85% of millennials are seeking full-time remote work opportunities. What’s more, 82% expressed higher company loyalty to those companies with remote work programs. In fact, remote work is appealing across a wider age demographic than just millennials; a recent Zapiercommissioned Harris Poll reveals that 95% of all knowledge workers (those working in a professional setting and using a computer as part of the job) want to work remotely. That means companies that were forced to shift to a remote work arrangement are now facing the very real challenge of trying to build a remote hiring process. No matter how big or small your agency is, remote hiring takes planning. But if executed properly, your hiring process could do more than just help you hire good talent – it can elevate the number of candidates to choose from, and deliver candidates that have the exact skills needed.
november 2020
