What factors matter most to you when considering an employer?
Job security? Salary? Opportunities for development?
It may not come as a surprise that for Generation Y – the 20-35 year olds that are streaming into the workplace – there is a significant shift in priorities.
“Young people want to go for brands, they want to work for a Google, a Starbucks,” Dr Karyn Gordon, best-selling author, TV personality and relationship expert tells
Insurance Business.
The industry, it seems, has something of a branding problem when it comes to bringing in young, fresh talent.
“It’s almost like [insurance] has all the right pieces, it’s just about them being properly communicated,” Gordon says.
Young people are increasingly overwhelmed when it comes to choosing which career path to go down, and as the choices continue to multiply, insurance is not top of the pile.
“Insurance is not one of the career options that a lot of young people even think of, and yet it’s an amazing industry to go into – it’s very lucrative, it’s very secure,” she explains.
And part of that is the way that the industry is – or isn’t – branding itself.
An astounding 90% of Gen Y want to work for a company where there is some kind of brand recognition, according to Gordon, and the industry just isn’t hitting the mark.
“I think there’s a lot of work that has to be done around really helping young people understand what insurance is, and the advantages, in terms of actually looking at it as a career option,” she says.
Insurance companies also need to be more progressive in the way that they are structured.
“How companies structurally set themselves up has huge value in terms of their ROI, and how much investment they are actually able to retain,” Gordon explains.
This ranges from the way that the office is set up – “Gen Y do not like the traditional office spaces, in terms of cubicles and corner offices,” – to the dress code and the level of transparency about how to climb the corporate ladder.
Dr Gordon will be talking to the industry at the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario convention later this month, where she will give practical advice on how companies can adapt to attract and retain more millennials.
“At the conference I’ll be giving examples of what very progressive companies are actually doing,” Gordon says, adding that she will also talk about the “huge focus” on entrepreneurship among young people, which the industry must harness.
“When you think about insurance and brokerages, there are tremendous opportunities for [young people] in terms of really managing their whole portfolio,” – and those are the things that need to get communicated out, she says.
“[Gen Y] are incredibly ambitious, like their parents,” Gordon says. “But this is one of the myths – people think they are lazy and entitled, so I’m really going to debunk a lot of those myths and really frame it in a different way.”
The 96th IBAO annual conference will be held on October 19-21 at the Toronto Hotel Sheraton Centre. More information and tickets can be found at: http://www.ibao.org/events/convention/
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