Talent has become the top challenge CIOs face, above IT ops and budgetary concerns (see our report, Insurance IT Talent Management, authored by our own Rob McIsaac). What do workers need to be good at their jobs in the modern insurance industry? According to a recent special report in The Economist, in addition to a combination of good social and math skills, today’s workers in general need to be willing and able to learn new things in roles that are constantly changing due to technology, and insurance is no different. This largely boils down to a need to hire and foster the intellectually curious. But how?
One current method is to use graduation from college as a proxy for curiosity—but this is imperfect at best and a very expensive way to signal curiosity. The firms Manpower and Knack are therefore seeking to test candidates’ aptitude, including their intellectual curiosity. Knack’s apps are essentially psychological tests masquerading as games. In one, participants play waiters in a restaurant in which customers make requests only via facial expressions. Players’ choices on how to prioritize service are used to generate aptitude profiles including estimates of empathy (reading those expressions), adaptability, and even integrity (from a decision always to seat customers in the order they arrive). Manpower is also reportedly working on an app to test users’ “learnability.”
A shift in hiring perspectives may also be needed. A resume demonstrating a laser-like focus on a given career path was once seen as ideal, but talented individuals today often try several jobs—and even careers—in a fairly short time. An “unfocused” resume could be a sign of just the sort of intellectual curiosity employers are seeking to hire and foster. Once hired, though, how can employers retain curious workers interested in trying new things? Those same unfocused resumes are, after all, a sign that previous employers have struggled with that retention.
At Novarica’s recent annual Research Council Meeting, author and investor Chris Yeh noted that the amount of time employees spend at companies is steadily decreasing. The average time an employee spends at Google is less than two years. How can this be squared with the fact that the specialized jobs being done in today’s economy are often best done by insiders who’ve had lots of time to not only learn the ropes, but master them? As noted in a recent Novarica blog post, insurers like Liberty Mutual have found that “it is harder to teach people the nuances of the insurance industry than it is to scale them up on technologies that the organizations need.” But if employees are more footloose, does it make sense to spend money training them? Chris Yeh pointed out that employees often switch companies because their current employer does not offer a clear path to betterment—and a raise. Beyond raises, Gaul Jackson, VP of Human Resources at UTC, argues training makes sense—even if those receiving it later leave: “It is better to train and have them leave than not to train and have them stay.”
Why? Curious employees learn faster and are more adaptable. Their curiosity leads them to desire change and growth. In other words, they get bored easily. If they are not offered the opportunity to leverage that curiosity, skill shortages will result not only from a lack of training, but also from the most curious employees leaving to find a more stimulating environment, leaving behind only incurious laggards. If provided opportunities for growth, the best employees might still leave, but if provided none, they definitely will. Those uninterested in learning anything new will stay regardless, but with engaged, curious minds to encourage them, they are likely to be more productive at a firm that offers training than one that doesn’t—even if they are less likely to take advantage of it themselves. “To train or not to train” is an increasingly easy question to answer.
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