7 ways to improve insurance industry IT recruitment

Tarafından gönderildi: UBI Telematics Kategori: Kullanıma Bağlı Sigorta (UBI)

Talent acquisition looms large among the tech innovation challenges facing insurers, according to fresh research from Novarica, the Massachusetts-based insurance industry tech consultancy.

Operating and improving today’s technology systems, particularly as insurance carriers work to fuse legacy programs with cutting-edge software and services, demands insurance industry IT employees with fresh skills. But finding the choice hires who will be charged with keeping the insurance businesses competitive among tech-savvy consumers is proving difficult enough to raise serious concern among CIOs, according to Novarica’s March 2017 CIO Research Council Study “Insurance IT Talent Management.”

“Many organizations are not ready to meet the demands of a highly-skilled millennial workforce,” Rob McIsaac, senior vice president of research and consulting at Novarica and co-author of the report, said in a press release. “They continue to employ management practices that were perfected in a different time, with a different labor force, with a different set of priorities and expectations.”

Why are insurance industry CIOs especially worried about attracting IT talent? Some of the reasons outlined in the report include:

        • The potential disruption to the visa program (H-1B) that allows U.S. companies to recruit and hire outside the country.
        • Ongoing cost and budget reduction pressure.
        • The increasing complexity of modernizing legacy tech systems.
        • The call to shift corporate culture and management practices to suit the tastes and needs of millennial IT workers.

Click here for an online preview of the report, or continue on to read about seven things that innovation-challenged insurance companies can do to draw the best IT employees.

Insurance needs to be positioned as an exiciting career prospect for top tech job prospects. (Photo: iStock)

No. 7: Stand out during the recruitment process.

Carriers need to make themselves attractive to top IT talent, according to Novarica. One way some companies are doing this is by teaming up with colleges and universities prior to the actual hiring process.

Another way that carriers can differentiate themselves is by adapting hiring and management practices to suit millennials, as the generation roughly born between 1980 and 2000 will soon dominate the American workforce.

What should carriers know about millennials? According to Novarica, this generation “thinks about both their careers and the very nature of work in a way that is substantially different than their predecessors.”

Additional research about millennials indicates that members of this generation are just as concerned about quality of life issues as they are about professional advancement, which is one reason millennials can have trouble clicking with an employer. They also are a plugged-in, politically active demographic that needs to feel that their work really matters in order to be truly engaged.

Novarica researchers found that roughly one-third of large property/casualty insurers, and close to half of all mid-size property/casualty insurers, are not involved in any type of college or university collaboration to support recruitment efforts. (Photo: iStock)

Novarica researchers found that roughly one-third of large property/casualty insurers, and close to half of all mid-size property/casualty insurers, are not involved in any type of college or university collaboration to support recruitment efforts. 

No. 6: Expand the talent-search pool while supporting current IT employees.

According to the Novarica study: “Insurance carriers may need to re-think how they acquire talent, and quickly.”

Those who are recruiting successfully in a competitive hiring environment are hatching fresh approaches such as partnering with local schools or municipalities on career development initiatives that pinpoint and train talented young people. “More than ever, waiting for individuals to finish college/graduate from school may put insurance companies at a significant disadvantage,” the study says.

Fostering such student-insurer relationships — not just at traditional colleges but community colleges and high schools, too — is especially prudent now that many insurance industry tasks once managed by entry-level employees are outsourced or automated. This means carriers have lost some of the benefits of training and promoting from within. That makes the IT talent challenge to insurance carriers two-fold: They have to look for fresh places to recruit while also actively updating the skills of existing IT employees. “Competition for scarce IT skills from other industries is making it harder for CIOs to build and retain the staff they need to meet the challenges they face,” said Novarica’s Rob McIsaac.

Roughly half of major insurers now have or plan to develop this type of talent acquisition program, according to Novarica.

The insurance industry needs to be marketed as one that offers exciting professional opportunities. (Photo: iStock)

The insurance industry needs to be marketed as one that offers exciting professional opportunities. 

No. 5: Position insurance as an attractive career.

Carriers need to proactively counter any negative perceptions about insurance to make their industry more attractive than other fields. The good news: Novarica researchers deducted that this pitch may be easier to sell to young IT professionals than those going into other types of insurance jobs because insurance by nature is a data- and analytics-driven business. That makes the insurance business rife with opportunity for people fueled by the thrill and potential achievement of overcoming technical challenges.

“Proactive marketing and engagement programs to make carriers, and insurance overall, more attractive to rising students can be a key element to driving future interest and engagement” in insurance IT careers, the study says.

Capitalize on geography and remote work tools.

No. 4: Capitalize on geography and remote work tools.

Location may be everything when it comes to establishing fruitful IT recruiting relationships. For instance, insurance carriers who build innovation hubs in communities known for tech innovation, such as California’s Silicon Valley or the Research Triangle Park in Austin, are more alluring to young people who aspire to drive tomorrow’s business advances.

Another card that insurance carriers can play is the ability for tech employees to work remotely. This can help carriers “find the right talent at the right time and for specific types of work.”

 

No. 3: Nurture a two-pronged approach to IT development.

Legacy systems may be dated, but they remain essential to daily operations for most carriers. That means carriers must scale the mountain that is “bimodal IT development,” or the process of building the new while nurturing the old when it comes to systems and software.

Bimodel businesses separate functional, foundational tasks from modernization initiatives, but support them both equally. This approach can be especially helpful when it comes to the retention of existing IT talent.

“Managing this can be a challenging issue for CIOs and their teams,” the Novarica study says. “When done well, however, it can create broad positive outcomes for their organizations.”

Only about 20 percent of large property/casualty insurers, and 14 percent of midsize property/casualty insurers, have formalized employee rotation programs. (Photo: iStock)

Only about 20 percent of large property/casualty insurers, and 14 percent of midsize property/casualty insurers, have formalized employee rotation programs. 

No. 2: Enable varied job and advancement opportunities.

Although previous generations of American workers coveted employer relationships that spanned decades, today both employer and employee job-longevity expectations have shifted. Millennials want flexibility in their jobs. At the same time, contemporary business mores favor more transitive employment relationships, with companies seeking to capitalize on the right talent for a particular job.

These workplace shifts demand that insurance industry IT recruiters adjust their onboarding and training programs to recognize that an individual is now more likely to remain in a particular position for three to five years as opposed to decades. It follows that current employees are also likely to need a fresh challenge in the form of a new position or enhanced training in order to remain engaged.

One possible solution, according to Novarica, is to foster internal rotational programs that enable employees to engage in a variety of job experiences over time. Another solution may be to make it easier for former employees who opted to leave their positions for a fresh opportunity, to easily return in the future.

More than half of large property/casualty insurers have been positive results from reconfiguring workspaces, according to Novarica. (Photo: iStock)

More than half of large property/casualty insurers have seen positive results from reconfiguring workspaces, according to Novarica. 

No. 1: Reconfigure workspaces to help improve productivity and promote innovation.

Design matters when it comes to job performance as well as recruiting practices. Today’s workspaces should foster collaboration and rapid communications. Beware of dismissing this as a superficial employee demand as competitors may be able to lure away top IT talent with more attractive or accommodating workspace models.

Read more at http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2017/04/10/7-ways-to-improve-insurance-industry-it-recruitmen?slreturn=1492165356&t=technology-implementation&page=7&page_all=1

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