Insurance professionals need practical training now more than ever
Here is how employers can develop programs to increase productivity and retention, and guide trainees to more fulfilling insurance careers.
Most businesses’ pocketbooks are stretched thin these days. Training programs are among the first line items the ax falls on. But in lean times, practical training is essential to profitability and reducing the risks of errors and omissions.
As Michael Lebouef, a management professor, wrote in “The Greatest Principle of Management in the World“ (1985), “If you believe that training is expensive, it is because you do not know what ignorance costs. Companies that have the loyalty of their employees invest heavily in permanent training programs and promotion systems.”
This year the Gallup organization echoed the same principle in an article “4 Ways to Continue Employee Development When Budgets Are Cut,” published Aug. 3, 2020. According to Gallup, “Organizations that have made a strategic investment in employee development report 11% greater profitability and are twice as likely to retain their employees.”
The need for training should be obvious. Recent hires see their peers moving up the ladder, aided by formal training programs; firms that want to stay in business need successorship plans. These are congruent interests. Companies should get an early start in grooming talented current employees for leadership roles. The best place to find a successor is often on the payroll.
The Gallup article recognizes the need for belt-tightening in a pandemic but encourages businesses to increase their efforts to help employees develop technical and personal skills. Looking ahead, Gallup concludes, “As the current pandemic fades, there will be greater urgency felt to prepare leaders and employees for the future. This will require HR and learning professionals to dramatically reorient and revise their training calendars.”
Citing a 2019 IBM survey, Gallup noted that “in the future, behavioral skills will be the area with more significant gaps than digital skills” due to the increased use of artificial intelligence. Gallup recommends seven behavioral skills to emphasize in training future executives:
- Relationship building
- Coaching
- Leading change
- Inspiring others
- Critical thinking
- Clear communication
- Accountability
Training these so-called “soft” skills can be challenging in a virtual environment, but not impossible. Gallup’s recommendation: “Developing a blended learning approach (online and instructor-led) is most effective.”
If writing is a ‘soft’ skill, why is it so hard?
What should your company’s training priorities be? Certainly, each employee must be thoroughly familiar with the core competencies of the job, but training must not stop there. Take writing, for example.
Since the days of Lloyd’s Coffeehouse on the London docks, insurance has been a written profession. There, risk-takers signed their names on the blank sides of bills of lading and accepted percentages of potential shipping losses. That is how “under-writing” began, literally.
A few years ago, I developed a three-part training program, “Writing, an Essential Skill for Insurance Professionals.” Applications, insurance policies, reserve recommendations — nearly everything done in the insurance industry exists on paper or its electronic equivalent. For this reason, I continue to consider writing an essential competency of any insurance professional’s job.
There are other essential soft skills in insurance that can make or break a career. Collaboration is one. Though agents, underwriters, actuaries, and claim adjusters usually have their own workspaces — especially so in a time of forced isolation — insurance is a team sport.
Working in a hierarchical, rule-based profession is another key competence, but it’s rarely trained. For that reason, I have advised brokerage firms and insurers to hire military veterans, who have learned the “loyalty up, loyalty down” rules of the road. Veterans have demonstrated their commitment to protecting the rest of us, a calling not so far from the insurance industry’s mission — protecting us, our property, and our businesses against covered losses. Veterans have already taken on great personal risks for us; they deserve a chance to perform a less-risky service.
What might pragmatic training look like?
I hope the saying, “Those who can’t do, teach,” isn’t meant literally. After 40 years (so far) of “doing” the law, I taught two classes this year at the Golden Gate University School of Law. For me, this was a long-held objective coming true.
The classes are not the bar exam topics — torts, contracts, or property, for example — but rather they teach what lawyers in civil practice do each day.
The spring semester course introduced skills that new attorneys need to succeed in their first year in a law firm. I titled it “Civil Litigation Practice and Practicality, With Apologies to Jane Austen,” but the school thought “Civil Litigation Practice, Pre-Trial” a better name. The skills practiced in the class included
- Writing an engagement letter;
- Working with expert witnesses, discovery vendors, and support staff;
- Giving bad news to a client;
- Avoiding expensive motions to compel discovery by picking up the telephone; and
- Preparing a litigation budget.
In the fall semester class, “Overcoming Civil Litigation Obstacles,” we discussed obstacles such as obstreperous clients, self-represented opposing parties, clients who don’t pay their bills (hint: don’t sue them until the statute of limitations for legal malpractice has lapsed), and appellate courts that improvidently overturn the legal precedent that was the keystone of your case.
It’s difficult for law students who have not clerked in law offices or courts to know what they’re getting into. To the extent their preconceptions have been warped by “Perry Mason,” “L.A. Law,” “Boston Legal,” or “Law & Order,” practical training can be eye-opening.
Bar review courses will teach my students how to pass the Bar Exam. I want them to know how to write a report, accurately bill their time, and start excelling on Day Two of their careers, soon after the obligatory high-fives have ended.
How about you?
This brings us to you. What do newer employees in your shop do on a daily basis? What competencies do you expect them to already have, and what others do you expect them to learn while on the job? Who, exactly, is going to impart that knowledge and experience to them? They won’t get it through osmosis, a process that seems to imbue only the worst work habits.
I have seen practical training work well when it combines these concepts:
- Training must be scheduled, regular, and sacrosanct, that is, not interrupted for anything less urgent than a fire alarm. It works best at the beginning of the day in a group setting, no longer than an hour. It should be mandatory but recorded or memorialized in writing so that anyone with an excused absence doesn’t fall behind. The idea is to train and involve everyone, not to reward mere attendance.
- One-on-one or small group discussions are also important to reinforce what has been covered in the larger group. Such follow-ups give each trainee the opportunity to ask questions and are more conducive to setting individual goals.
- Interactive training is best. An hour-long monologue seems to take forever; a dialogue flashes by before you know it.
- It’s best to have skilled presenters leading the training sessions because some people in your organization have phenomenal experience and skill but lack the “teaching gene.” Gender and cultural diversity among the presenters will show that the organization’s leaders share a common vision that applies to all.
- Each session in your training program should have a unique, measurable goal. An example: “Today we’re going to compare several reports written by our claims department, with identifying information omitted, and find five ways they could have been improved. Later, I’ll give each of you another claim report for you to edit, practicing what we’ve learned, and you’ll explain your edits next session.”
Does this sound time-consuming? It is, but far less so than correcting avoidable mistakes. Training is the stitch in time that saves nine.
Takeaways
Failing to train employees is more expensive than training them. If there’s no training budget, create an internal training plan that’s tailored to the skills your less-experienced colleagues need.
Soft skills are hard to come by, but they can be trained by practice and example.
A pragmatic training program can increase productivity and retention and guide trainees to a more fulfilling career.
The tuition is exorbitant at the School of Hard Knocks. If we can’t afford formal outside training, then let’s marshal internal experience and resources to conduct in-house practical training for our newer staff members’ interests and our own.
If you’d like a guest speaker for part of a virtual training session, I’m happy to participate. No charge.
Louie Castoria (lcastoria@kdvlaw.com) is a partner in Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck, LLP, a national law firm, in its San Francisco office. He is chair emeritus of the firm’s Professional Liability Practice Group and of the Insurance Educational Association. He is a Mediator, teaches law at Golden Gate University, and is a Mandatory Settlement Conference Officer for the San Francisco Superior Court. This article does not provide legal advice, and the opinions expressed are the author’s, not necessarily the firm’s or its clients’.
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