Making agency life more appealing to upcoming generations

During the past 10 years or so our industry has been involved in an intense effort to determine how to replace the current generation of leaders and employees in our insurance agencies. As the baby boomer generation reached the midpoint in retirement age a year ago in the middle of the tightest labor market in recent memory, urgency around that effort increased. Insurance Careers Month, February, presents an ideal opportunity to continue those discussions on how we can best approach and appeal to new candidates to interest them in agency life.

Much of the thinking about how to attract new talent into our industry has focused on arguments related to compensation potential and, to some degree, the benefits of the nature of the work itself. While those may be valid points, they are typically framed as arguments that naturally appeal more to the generation of those who made them rather than in terms that resonate with younger generations. In a nutshell, each generation is different, and if we want to gain their interest, we need to focus our approach on what our industry offers that matters to them.

As a salesperson as well as a mentor of younger professionals, I find the most powerful question I can ask is “What do you want?” With the answer to that question, I can often offer a solution. To that end, let’s see what the younger generations want from a career. As we do that, we will need to keep in mind the needs and wants of candidates in two very different generations — millennials and Generation Z. They are distinctively different, and our pitches aimed at selling a career in agency life should take that into account.

Appealing to millennials

According to job site Indeed, millennials share the following traits:

• An interest in values and meaningful work.
• A non-hierarchical perspective.
• An appreciation for mentorship and close relationships with superiors.
• An open and adaptive attitude toward change.
• A task-oriented versus time-oriented focus.
• A passion for learning.
• An appreciation for recognition.
• A free thinking and creative mentality.
• An appreciation for teamwork and social interaction.

Recruiting from this generation will require highlighting different aspects of agency work that appeal to them. Our industry values teamwork, as do they. Our work requires constant upgrading of education and skill, rewards creativity and is highly results (task) based, which also matches the traits of this group. Further, agency life offers the potential for tremendous time flexibility, as well as the opportunity to contribute to our community’s good through our work — a priority for this group.

When you think about it, the insurance agency business is ideally suited to attract millennials based on what we know about them and what we know about agency life. We just need to paint a more attractive picture of agency life in terms that resonate with them.

Now is an excellent time to focus on recruiting this generation as its pioneers reach mid-career and its youngest members are reaching the point when people often make career changes or career shifts. As all good salespeople know, the time to be selling is when buyers are ready to buy. Millennials are ready.

Winning over Gen Z

Gen Z was born between 1997 and 2010 and differs tremendously from their older counterparts. Just beginning their careers or perhaps finishing their first workplace experiences, they too are at a point where they should be receptive to thoughtful and targeted industry recruiting efforts that resonate with them. So, let’s look at some common Gen Z characteristics from the Pew Research Center:

• Is the most diverse generation in American history.
• Is the most educated generation.
• Values independence.
• Is highly pragmatic.
• Values nonhierarchical leadership.
• Questions authority, inflexible rules.
• Is self-directed.
• Values authenticity.
• Is digitally fluent even more than millennials.

Related: How to incentivize five generations of employees

Here is a generation tailor-made for the independent agency system where, among other things, independence is a key value and attribute. Agency owners who are interested and willing to explore diverse work styles, encourage continuous education and lean into assigning early responsibility and allowing for experimentation have powerful recruiting pitches to share.

Businesses that have, as their foundation, a strong culture with shared company values will be highly attractive for this generation and meet their desire for authenticity. A pitch that says “we challenge how we do business,” rather than “we do what we’ve always done” will attract Gen Z candidates. This mantra is the essence of an entrepreneurial business.

A huge opportunity for agencies and their new Gen Z team members is the rapidly increasing ethnic diversity of the United States. Our industry has work to do in terms of building diversity from the bottom to the top. These young people represent the customers agencies want to attract who are increasingly diverse, increasingly entrepreneurial and open to mitigating risk in the wake of notable economic challenges that have shaped their lifetimes. The pragmatism of this generation should lead them to want to be a part of the changes across our industry needed to attract these customers.

Meet them where they are

As an industry, we do have talent challenges to solve. To solve them, we must consider a fresh approach that speaks to younger generations — one that explains, in their own terms, how agency life could be the right career choice for them. Those different tactics begin with understanding who they are and crafting new and different recruiting messages.

Tony Caldwell is an author, speaker and mentor who has helped independent agents create more than 250 independent insurance agencies. Learn more by visiting www.tonycaldwell.net or contacting him at tonyc@oneagentsalliance.net.

Opinions expressed here are the author’s own.