March 2023 – Message in a Bottle from Future Employees

It’s important that companies listen to their employees.  But what about listening to their future employees?  The ones they don’t even know and who may not even be out of college yet?

Companies that don’t listen will have trouble winning the war for talent.  And as we posted last month, the war for talent will be partly won by providing meaningful and valuable L&D training programs.  Part of what today’s emerging talent wants you to know – is what they need to know when they start working for you.

PriSim ran a business simulation class last month for undergraduate students who are studying at 8 top U.S. colleges with insurance and risk management programs and who are preparing for management careers in the insurance industry.  After the class, we asked the following question and collected responses:

Describe to your ‘future employer’ in the insurance industry how this [business simulation] experience has made you a more valuable employee.

Here are some excerpts from the responses:

  • Understanding why and how our brokerage operates in the first place within the broader insurance industry is a skillset I directly learned.
  • Gained a pivotal understanding of how to effectively and efficiently operate a simulated insurance brokerage giving me a broader sense of the role a brokerage plays in the marketplace.
  • Having a better appreciation and understanding of resource allocation to operate an insurance brokerage will allow me to be of great value to the insurance industry.
  • It has helped me to understand all of the components that go into running an agency, and how one decision can have a substantial impact and effect on the entire agency.
  • This competition has taught me how to operate an insurance agency effectively and efficiently.
  • This experience taught me teamwork and how there is more to insurance then just premiums, there is a lot that a company has to go through in order to succeed.
  • This experience really helped me learn how you have to balance more than just finances while running an agency.
  • It taught me, as I have heard before from professionals in the field, that the relationships are just as important as revenue and learning to balance these things is where you will ultimately find success in this industry. Money should not be your motivator, people should be! I was also able to see how investing in one department (such as staffing & sales) can directly impact revenue and profits and indirectly affect other measurements such as CSI, differing ratios, and Net Margin %.
  • I have greater knowledge about the foundation of insurance businesses which I think is very important to understand before you start to build up your own line of business.
  • It showed how important dedicating different amounts of time to new business, renewals, and more.
  • I was able to see all the factors that go into running an agency, expanding my knowledge of information of which I was not aware.

Wise insights from a set of future business leaders – and part of what they need and want to learn from you.

But just because future employees are speaking doesn’t mean that all employers are listening.  Maybe some should pay heed to a Native American proverb – ‘Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf’.