Filled mostly by a typically older demographic, most now accept that insurance needs to do more to attract young people and drive the industry forward – but how can it be achieved?
“Millennials in the workplace is something that we are forced by necessity to deal with on a daily basis, and increasingly our workforce is dramatically changing,” Jeff Cameron, chief operating officer, Willis Towers Watson, told
Insurance Business at an event hosted by the Toronto Insurance Women’s Association.
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“We need people with different skills, and they have demands quite different from our typical recruits, so this is something that we felt was really necessary to address, and we’ve addressed it at Willis Towers Watson,” he said.
The industry is regularly told that it needs to do more to attract young people, but many companies and executives may find themselves baffled on where to start.
Cameron says the first step within Willis was sitting down and “really listening” to what young people want.
The ability to progress, he said, is key, but not necessarily in the context of making money – though that remains important too.
“Really it was quite simple for us, it was that they want the intrinsic benefits,” Cameron explained.
What that means for many millennials is an interesting and challenging workload – “a different day yesterday than today and tomorrow,” he added.
The perception of insurance as old-fashioned is also hindering its ability to bring in new talent, and removing some of these preconceptions about the industry can also remove some barriers, Cameron said.
Willis Towers Watson “talks less about insurance,” and has instead branded itself as corporate risk and broking.
By reinventing some of the terms around the industry, the company can “tell its story from zero,” and shed some of the baggage that the word insurance typically carries.
Bringing younger generations into the industry is also important when planning for the future, Nadia Linklater, partner at DGA Careers, said.
“Most insurance executives are of the baby boomer generation and succession planning is critical for all companies in the sector,” she explained.
“Millennials make up such a massive component of our demographic, our population, I really feel that in many ways – especially in insurance – they tend to be overlooked.”
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