While new business sales are the backbone of an agency’s business, it’s the insurance renewals that allow the company to increase profitability. And yet, as critical as renewals are to the success of the agency, the renewal season creates dissatisfaction among the producers, account managers, and specialists. It is also cited as a leading cause of employee turnover.
As the Great Resignation (also known as the Big Quit or the Great Reshuffle) is sweeping the nation, companies are trying to understand why their employees are leaving and what they can do to prevent turnover. Every Industry is impacted from turnover, but brokerage firms are hit especially hard because of the specific skills, training, and licenses
Why is employee retention necessary?
Consider the costs around recruitment fees, resume analysis, interviews, onboarding, etc. According to SHRM, the median cost per hire is about $4,424 plus an additional $1,100 per employee for training. Now imagine that you have to replace someone for the same position once a year. Harvard Business Review says that the turnover cost can range between 100% to a whopping 300% of the replaced employee’s salary. Over time, employee turnover adds up to a lot of dollars wasted.
Think about the time it takes for a new hire to learn their role. Within that first month of a new hire being on the job, their production will hover around 25%. In fact, it can take up to three months for a new employee to become fully productive within their role.
Why do employees leave?
There are many reasons why someone on your staff will decide to put in their two weeks, but here are just a few.
- Lack of recognition
- Employees need to feel valued and when they feel they aren’t heard, it can lead to animosity within the company.
- Burn out
- Employees need to feel valued and when they feel they aren’t heard, it can lead to animosity within the company.
- Misaligned with their position
- Employees who feel like their job isn’t a good fit for them can also leave them feeling unfulfilled.
How do you make an employee retention plan?
- Solve employee pain points
- Asking your employees what makes them tick is a great way to start uncovering pain points. What is making your staff feel burnt out? Do they want more or fewer responsibilities? Do they want better technology to do their job in a more efficient way?
- Create an employee recognition plan
- Make your employees feel valued. How do they best receive recognition? Do they like being taken out to lunch, a pat on the back, or a gift card?
- Create a supportive work environment
- Help your employees feel supported in the office by creating an open-door policy, keeping the office clean, encouraging staff to help others when needed, setting up team-building activities, and creating inclusiveness.
- Give employees autonomy
- Your staff needs to feel like they have some control over their work. Whether it’s deciding how to work or when to work, give them options based on what works best for your staff.
- Solve employee pain points
- Asking your employees what makes them tick is a great way to start uncovering pain points. What is making your staff feel burnt out? Do they want more or fewer responsibilities? Do they want better technology to do their job in a more efficient way?
How PerfectQuote Can Help.
One of the reasons employees feel burnt out in our industry is due to the lack of technology to support them. This is particularly true for the quoting and renewing process. There is still a lot of manual work needed to put together presentations for renewals and quoting new business. Insurance carrier’s desperate systems are partly to blame. Agencies still have to mold their process and workflow to accommodate all the different proposal formats creating a swell of hurried and last minute work. This year-end workload can lead to increased stress and exasperation.
Most agencies are reliant on their spreadsheets and “homegrown” internal processes for their renewal and sales process. And most agencies agree that spreadsheets are hard to maintain, require a lot of manual effort, and place undue pressure on the team.
The more the agency grows the more employees need to constantly check for data accuracy, ensure formulas are correct, fix broken links, and search for and piece together data from the multiple disconnected carrier systems – all of which eat into the time and morale of the staff.
One way to support your staff is by incorporating PerfectQuote to eliminate manual data entry and increase accuracy for quoting and renewals. PerfectQuote’s proprietary platform supports medical and ancillary despite the multitude of formats and systems.
Instead of spending hours and hours putting together spreadsheets and monstrous binders to present to clients, employees can focus their time on servicing clients and generating more leads. Agencies win because the team works efficiently and employees win because they aren’t bogged down by mounds of tedious tasks.
Are you ready to boost your employee retention?
We know that employee retention takes dedication. Designing work and work experiences that unleash the full potential of individuals and teams also takes time and effort. Implementing automation tools, such as PerfectQuote, in order to shift work away from manual, tedious tasks is a great step.