Nadia Khan has served in a wide array of insurance roles ranging from broker to her current position as partner with DGA Careers, Canada’s top insurance executive recruitment firm.
She is also a member of Generation X, a background that she describes as a precursor to feeling “a little more jaded” about employment prospects.
“A lot of us arrived on the job market at a time when industry and technology was in flux, forcing us to learn and change and adapt,” she said. “But then we’ve also been downsized because we either haven’t had enough experience or we’ve had too much experience.”
As a result, Khan and her peers have now adopted a mentality that it’s acceptable to leave an organization if it doesn’t provide a certain level of security – whether that’s in regard to a company’s solvency, the sustainability of a role or uncertainty around one’s career trajectory.
This trend reflects a human capital crisis affecting the Canadian P&C industry, and one in which employers must address before Baby Boomers’ complete their mass exit from the workforce.
For this reason,
Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company has implemented strategies to address the employee engagement of its middle managers – a move that helped the insurer became a Platinum winner in
Aon’s annual “Best Employers” competition.
“These are the next round of leaders coming up, so we try to focus on them and provide plans that include leadership development,” said Cindy Grant, vice president, human resources, Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company. “They’re one of the smallest generations, which is partially why they get overlooked, so we try to tap into their expertise and knowledge and use that as a resource.”
To do so, the organization leverages its multifaceted internal survey to understand what its Generation X workers want from a job. Some popular responses are flex time options, robust training and mentorship and the opportunity to establish a career trajectory that leads to leadership roles.
Khan confirms that these priorities do, in fact, resonate with herself and her contemporaries.
“Because we’ve been through so many ups and downs, especially with the tech boom and bust and then adjusting to the age of the internet, we’re a bit more entrepreneurial in nature,” she said. “So we appreciate when there is that aspect to a position, which feeds into our desire to be involved in the business and have a viable stake in the company instead of sitting idly by while decisions are made by people very far away and you have no influence in what happens next.”
Part of this can be achieved collaboratively, through such measures as offering an equity share of the business or providing compensation based on production or sales.
But no matter what initiatives are instigated, Khan just hopes that other insurance groups will follow Trisura’s example and continue to make Generation X a priority.
“We’re an incredible generation – we’ve seen the world change and we’ve been part of that change,” she said. “Not only were we required to transform and adapt our entire skillset, but we’re now in a spot where we can earn the respect of executives in their early 60s while still being understood by young people who may have just entered the job market.”
“As a manager, that’s invaluable.”
