Advisor of the Year panel: A new generation for the next generation

Attendees of this year’s BenefitsPRO Broker Expo Advisor the Year announcement (and loyal readers) may have noticed something seemed a bit off about this year’s panel. But no, it wasn’t the Mandel effect; after years of internal discussion, the editorial team officially changed the award’s name from “Broker of the Year” to “Advisor of the Year”, a reflection of how the profession has evolved over the last decade.

But it’s not just the industry that’s changing, being led by a new generation of thought-leaders intent on recharting the course of health care and employee benefits. The employees they serve are also taking a more active role in charting that course.

“Employees, specifically millennials and Gen Z, are not afraid to advocate for themselves, especially after COVID,” noted Lindsay Clarke-Youngwerth of the Shandro Group. “A lot of our mental health awareness comes from this generation demanding these services. It’s an under-leveraged voice for those of us who are intent on pivoting and building a new health care system.”

Indeed, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, 33- and 34-year-olds make up the peak of the U.S. population. And, in our post-pandemic world, they’re throwing their clout around in the workplace.

“It’s really been a big shift,” said Chris Wolpert, founder of Group Benefit Solutions. “There’s a lot of Baby Boomers who have said, ‘Hey we don’t really need to keep working, so why are we?’ There’s this generational shift that’s driving a lot of this disruption, a lot of this change.”

The confluence of these events offers a rare opportunity for the benefits advisor community; those who are most ready to abandon the “status quo” have the most to gain, but with so much at stake, the competition is poised to get much more fierce. Today’s advisors aren’t just worried about offering the benefits that their employer-clients need to attract employees, they’re also investing in their own future workforces.

“Younger people are very mission-centric, very values-driven,” Advisor of the Year Chelsea Ryckis of Ethos Benefits said. “That’s how we’ve been able to attract them. In terms of retaining them, everybody that I’ve talked to has left their position because they don’t see a path to growth. There’s no upward mobility. We’ve created an organizational chart and ask them, where do you want to be, what entices you? And we create a professional development plan around that.”

At Arrow Benefits Group, the benefits platform is also tailored to the next generation, said Rosario Avila. “We build our benefits platform for them: They want flexibility, they want to work from home. We’ve also adopted unlimited PTO.

“Another thing that we’ve found is the need for financial literacy, financial wellness,” she added, referring to the needs of the broader workforce. “They’re calling out sick beacuse of this financial stress.”

Their collective understanding of what it takes to help the next generation of the workforce be successful was a common theme amongst this year’s panelists, and one that others in the benefits industry should also prioritize.

“The number one want from employees is empathy,” suggested Marybeth Gray of Trion, a Marsh McLennan Agency. “If I was starting this world today, I don’t know if I could do it. It’s complicated, and we need to help people. We need to lift them up; we need to be compassionate and empathetic. It’s up to us to bring in the next generation.”