How to Retain Your Insurance Agency Staff

Your insurance agency should have an employee retention strategy in place for the New Year.

Your employees are the gears to your business, they work and use effort to keep your business going. But if you do not have an employee retention strategy to keep your hard working employees, you could lose them if they find another company they feel would treat them better. An employee retention strategy can keep your employees happy, which encourages them to stay and in turn keeps your business’ momentum going. Here are a few tips on how you can create your very own employee retention strategy and retain your insurance agency staff.

1. Develop effective leaders. The Rebellion would not have been successful without a strong leader like Princess Leia. Employees often leave a job due to a poor relationship with their superior. To be effective, supervisors need the proper training and guidance on performance management, applying workplace rules and policies, communication, and employee development.
2. Promote your company’s culture. Every company needs a culture and an employee that feels a strong attachment to that culture is likely to stay loyal and engaged with the company. Does your company communicate your culture to your employees? If not, your policies and practices reflect those values.
3. Offer flexibility. With Millennials taking over and changing the workplace, you need to offer flexibility to meet their demands. If you don’t, someone else will have already done so and guess where your young employees will end up? That’s right: with your competitor. Offer work from home days, alternative start and stop times, or compressed work weeks.
4. Recognize and reward. In the old days, promotions and rewards used to be given out by longevity. Millennials entered the workforce and immediately recognized that this was incorrect. Instead of rewarding your employees because they have been there a long time, reward your employees whose work and effort merits the recognition. It will inspire others to work harder and in turn profit your business.
5. Company events. After a successful month, it’s good to treat your employees to a good company event. Whether it be kickball or go-karting or trivia night, your employees will enjoy the time off work and will appreciate that you recognize their team effort.
6. Provide challenges. Contrary to popular belief, Millennials enjoy a good challenge. Many employees seek challenging and varied work. Here possible, design job tasks with a range of actions and allow top performers to work on high-profile projects.
7. Create an attractive benefits package. Employees like to know they are taken care of in and out of the workplace. An attractive compensation package can put your company ahead of your competition. The right mix of direct compensation (paycheck, bonuses, commissions) and indirect compensation (health insurance, paid time off, retire plan, etc.) is key in order to maintain your employees and even attract new talent.

At PMC Insurance Group, we’re experts on small business insurance in MA and can help you put the proper policies in place. To learn more about getting competitive coverage for your small business clients, contact us today.