More focused, more productive
As the traditional broker model has been replaced by a more consultative approach, the makeup of agencies’ staffing has also evolved.
For a long time, the model of most, if not all benefits agencies looked nearly identical: a team of producers selling health insurance and other benefits products to employer clients, who were then passed on to account managers after the sale was made.
But as the traditional broker model has been replaced by a more consultative and service-focused approach, the makeup of agencies’ staffing has also evolved. And while many familiar and key roles still exist, new ones are also being added. Successful agencies today are often built around specialization, expertise and agility. But those aren’t the only differences from the past.
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“I’m the CEO of our company and I’m located in Boston,” says Bob Gearhart, Jr., of Ohio-based DCW Group. “We have an employee in Mansfield, Ohio, who is a full-time enrollment counselor. We’re hiring someone out of North Carolina who is going to support the benefits tech for our groups. One of the other roles that we utilize heavily is a team of 1099 enrollment counselors; I consider them part of our team, too, though it’s more of an on-needed basis.”
Those are just a few of the roles (and locations) that make up the employee roster at DCW. Like many in the industry, Gearhart’s team is increasingly remote, drawing on talent wherever it can be found and leveraging technology not just to keep the business ticking, but as an integral part of what makes it successful.
“With more and more employers ‘going green,’ electronic/online enrollment and online decision support tools have become commonplace,” says Rina Tikia, managing director of Tikia Consulting Group (A Risk Strategies Company). “Other tools, such as mobile apps, Zoom and Go-To Meetings are now the norm. And data integration, benchmarking and underwriting tools are becoming more prevalent in lieu of the old methodology.”
“It’s different for everybody,” adds Adam Berkowitz, founder of Simpara HR, which currently has a staff of just four. “What’s worked well for us is that we’re highly customized, specific to our industry. Self-funded health plans have all these various components, different solutions partners, and our role is kind of as project management to streamline a lot of these processes.” While every agency will take a different approach and have different needs, there are a few characteristics that today’s modern agencies have in common.
Perfecting processes
One of the first hires that Trey Taylor made at Taylor Insurance was a director of operations. “They were tasked with eliminating all time and money waste from our systems and processes, and coordinating all the operations necessary to make the sales and service arms of the business functional,” Taylor says. “Most agencies have an office manager tasked with all the things that no one else wants to do, but we wanted someone with a defined focus and perspective.”
This process-oriented mindset is what sets many newer brokerages apart from their predecessors, says Gearhart. “Many brokerages still throw people at what are ultimately process problems,” he says. “They either don’t have rewritten processes or they haven’t been updated, so the solution is, ‘If we get too stressed, we’ll hire another account manager,’ rather than saying, ‘How do we take our current account managers and allow them to better focus?’”
Everyone at DCW is responsible for mapping out a certain number of processes each week, creating a more streamlined and efficient model. “We have become very process-driven and systemized,” Gearhart says. “Organizations consist of tasks and talent. My job as CEO is to ensure we have the right talent doing the right tasks.”
Process-mapping results in a set of standards and templates that reduce the amount of time team members spend on routine tasks and frees them up to focus on bigger projects. “I’ve been working with account managers and say, ‘Lets only respond to service issues from 11 am to noon and 1:30 to 3:30.’ With the templates we have, you can just line them up and go, go, go,” Gearhart says.
Empowering people
A strong set of processes and protocols shifts the balance of how employees spend their time. This has resulted in a shift to more agencies creating and hiring for defined, specialized roles. That was another change put into place by Taylor’s director of operations. “The person who took on this role for us revamped the internal job assignments, really focusing on getting people into highly specialized roles, and reducing the number of hats and multi-tasking required,” Taylor says. “Before having him on board and tasked in this way, we were simply running around answering the ‘latest and loudest’ complaint.”
Similarly, Berkowitz’s team members all have defined roles to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. “My role is on the business development and strategy side,” he says. “We have somebody who handles implementation and execution, a client success manager, and a director of operations, someone who oversees the day-to-day execution and success globally of all of our clients.”
Another important role not to overlook? Having someone in charge of staff development and culture. “Behind every producer is a confident, knowledgeable and motivated staff,” says Tikia. “Mentoring young talent and leading by example to build an educated and emotionally invested team is vital. Our team leader ensures the staff feels valued and acknowledged, and guides them and helps them learn. With the ever-changing health care industry and a new era post-COVID, it’s crucial to stay informed, educated and coordinated.”
That’s an area that Gearhart says he often sees new businesses struggle with. “They refuse to delegate, and they hire people to be glorified administrators. Employees come to you with questions, you dictate a response, but at no point have you given them a vehicle to say, ‘Let me explain to you why we’re getting this question.’ I see so many organizations that choke out because they’ve surrounded themselves with glorified assistants and haven’t actually built a structure that can be sustained without them.”
That’s not to say that having an assistant is a bad thing for a business. In fact, an executive assistant is one of the three key roles that Taylor credits with changing the way his firm operates. “I have an executive assistant who is only tasked with managing my calendar and inbox, and guarding my time so that I work only on things requiring the best use of my resources,” he says. “She isn’t multitasked to death, being asked to do one project after another. Instead, I pay her a high hourly wage but pay her only for when she works. We did a study after having her on board for three years and found out that I kept 800% more meetings after we hired her than I had in the two years before she joined the firm. Every agency CEO should have an executive assistant working in this fashion.”
Technology as a key player
No benefits agency, whether a startup or established brand, can compete in today’s market without a robust toolbox of technology solutions. “For all their faults, Zenefits proved that you could sell benefits virtually,” Gearhart says. “They did a lot wrong, but they added a whole lot of clients under the concept of technology.”
“My technology budget has grown from a few thousand dollars in 2005 to multiple six-figures today,” Taylor says. “We have a lead-generation management tool to manage email and web-marketing activities; a sales funnel management tool to report on sales and marketing activities; calendar tools to help schedule meetings; as well as proposal generators.”
Berkowitz is also a big believer in automating and streamlining. His team utilizes everything from complicated Excel spreadsheets to scheduling software to project management tools—whatever makes sense. “At the end of the day, we use these tools because we want to free up our time to have human interactions with our clients,” he says. “That’s the side we don’t want to automate. If we can eliminate all that other redundant, behind-the-scenes stuff, it’s going to allow our team to be much more agile and responsive. We need to ask: What is the problem we’re trying to solve for, what does the process look like today, and how is using this tool going to be better?”
With more agency teams comprised of remote workers, tools such as Slack, Zoom and Microsoft Teams are becoming more essential to maintaining communications and connections. “We have ways that we can make that personal connection, even though we are virtual geographically,” Gearhart says, citing the company’s Slack channel, where team members can show off their gardening skills or even their competitive tuna fishing trophy.
Plan for the future
An essential function among today’s benefits agencies is continually evaluating, refining and building in a thoughtful manner. “There’s a natural evolution, especially for a young business like ours where you’re moving from a one-person band into a team; and there has to be this move from working in the business to on the business,” Berkowitz says. “That needs to be very thoughtful. You have to be able to step back and evaluate the needs of the organization, the needs of the client, and decide, ‘Can I meet those needs the best, or do I need to hire different talent or invest in different solutions?’ It’s this steady feedback loop we’ve created to constantly adapt, grow and be more efficient.”
This mindset is also what led to the last key hire Taylor highlights: his CFO. “We hired a fractional CFO, because we didn’t believe the job was a full-time commitment. But we knew that we wanted this level of thinking on the management team,” he says. “The first three months were intense as we built a financial plan, and the next three months were super hard as we executed against it, building the habits that were important but difficult to acquire. Now, we have a quarterly meeting with her where she updates me on the progress, all the bills are paid, all the special initiatives are funded, and we are good to go.”
Tikia is also planning to add to her agency’s staff roster in the coming months, both on the producer and non-producer side. “Fresh ideas are always welcome here,” she says. “The key to determining what works and what doesn’t is contingent on how you run your business. Data-driven decision making, finding the right people for the job, embracing change, strategic planning, creativity, and the ability to adapt are all incredibly valuable components of a successful business.”
“As more employers tune into this idea of controlling and managing health care costs, it’s just a matter of finding the right team to guide them,” Berkowtiz adds. “The client becomes the focus and we have this place where we can come together successfully. It’s allowed us to streamline a lot of things and onboard more strategically and successfully.”
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