Next-Gen Workers’ Comp Adjusters: Who will step up?

Margaret Spence. Twitter @margaretspence Three factors the Workers’ Compensation Industry is failing to address – recruiting, retention, and career development, coupled with the continuing brain drain of an aging experienced workforce. Honesty factor, the adjusting job is not appealing to millennials – especially college educated, and well-rounded individuals. The demands of the job, the ongoing requirements, the lack of upward mobility, and the lack of investment in career development can be sited as a few factors that will affect the long-term growth and sustainability of the industry. Today most adjusters exist on sheer resilience because they’re too far in to make a change – the next generation will not be so courteous.

The next generation of leaders are not like your father or mother – nor should they be.

Every generation has its expectations – millennials are no different. The ongoing struggle in all industries, especially the insurance sector, we are great at recruiting employees with lots of shiny objects, but we will never be able to retain employees because we are operating like dinosaurs stuck in the mud.

The question we should be asking: what can the industry do to move out of the dinosaurs’ era of talent recruiting and into the twenty-first century of talent development? The answer is quite simple, adjust the demands and ask people what they want out of their careers. In the past adjusters were hired, developed their skills through continuing education and on-the-job training, and they stayed at the same desk until they were put out to pasture – that seems cute, but that is not how anyone should spend his or her career.

The Next-Gen Workers’ Compensation leader asks two questions, “where am I going and how will you help me get there?” They want to be developed into leaders, they want more responsibility beyond the adjuster’s desk, and they want to be appreciated for the contributions they are making daily. If we are not willing as an industry to spend money on talent development and training, we will become the relics of the employment process. Here’s a little-known fact, continuing education is not a career or talent development tool. The law requires continuing education – talent development means you care about the long-term viability of your employees and you invest in their growth. People want a reason to stay and grow with your organization they want to be engaged in the outcome and the process. Our current model of stealing employees from Peter and offering to pay them five cents more than Paul is not a recipe for a sustained workforce.

We must invest in recruiting, talent development, career advancement, diversity, inclusion, and sustained professional growth to meet the long-term talent demands of the workers’ compensation industry – because you and I both know that new claims get filed every hour of every day and we need experienced people shepherding injured employees through this complex system.

Yvonne Guibert. Twitter @buzzystreet. Networking in Naples, Tuesday, June 19! Join me and fellow Alliance of Women in Workers’ Compensation ambassador Tammy Boyd as we kick off the summer at the upcoming FL RIMS Conference in Naples. Guests will enjoy a complimentary cocktail and appetizers. Meet in the lobby bar, 4p – 6p just before the conference cocktail reception. Casual networking at the Lobby Bar, Ritz-Carlton Naples.