How To Build A Great Insurance IT Workforce
The multi-generational character of today's IT workforce can be tricky to manage but also creates some interesting growth opportunities, the panelists agreed. Referring to millennial employees, Hackney noted, "The people who work with them and supervise them have to change. They have to find ways to work together and communicate." It's also important to make sure that older professionals don't get locked into one role -- something that often occurs because their skills and expertise are so valuable in a specific capacity. "Make sure that the folks who are retirement risk or nearing it are not getting stuck in a job," he warned. "A lot of these folks have enormous institutional knowledge, they get pigeonholed and stale. Move these people around the organization and give them opportunities to continue to grow and learn. It's hard to let go [of that expertise], but when you do you find you have a stronger workforce."
It's A Small World
But that doesn't preclude the need to find and cultivate the next generation of IT workers, Hackney emphasized. "If in your companies you don't have internship programs focused on colleges, universities, even high schools, I can promise you'll fall behind," he said. This is further complicated by the increasingly dispersed (often globally) nature of the insurance enterprise. "The world is a small place, and it's no longer the case we all work in the same building," Hackney said. "We need to spend time figuring out how to communicate and collaborate across boundaries -- geographical and cultural." One type of initiative Hackney advocates as a way to build these connections is what he calls "skills-based volunteering," that connects IT employees with local non-profits to engage in "real-live projects in the community. This builds that feeling of being proud of the company you work for. I can't say enough about that type of approach."
These cultural and demographic changes are happening in a business world where the credentials and "skills in demand" are in a fluid state. A lot of this is being driven by the shift from in-house developed systems to packaged and cloud-based or hosted solutions, noted Unum 's Miller. This is having a big impact on traditional software development roles, she said. "We have a large legacy debt, but the roles going forward are more about understanding process, data and integration; understanding the tools and software that are available, and how to apply this from a data and integration perspective -- how to put the puzzle together."
USAA's Schwartz concurred. "The skill set absolutely is changing," he said. "In our world, we don't look at coding as a core competency." Where USAA does hire people to start as coders, "We advance them pretty quickly, within three years."
Ultimately, it comes back to the leaders of the technology organization to create the opportunities -- not just for growth, but for innovation and competitive advantage. Panelist Gray Nester, SVP, BB&T Insurance Services (the insurance division of North Carolina-based bank BB&T), related how he has worked to get his organization to understand that growth and market leadership involve some risk-taking. "I come in and say, 'There's an opportunity to make some investments, some will be great, some will not be great. [But] it's not whether or not the investment makes money. The culture change is: What did we learn and how can we apply it to other business areas? How do you take failure and turn it into success by changing the nature of what success looks like? It's not all profit and loss."
[Effective insurance CIOs recognize the importance of developing an engaged and productive workforce. If you know an insurance tech exec who has mastered this challenge, you can nominate this leader to be considered for I&T's 2014 Elite 8 Awards. This year's honorees will be recognized at I&T's 2014 Executive Summit, Nov. 9-11, 2014, St. Regis Bal Harbour, Fla. The deadline for nominations is June 26, 2014.]
Katherine Burger is Editorial Director of Bank Systems & Technology and Insurance & Technology, members of UBM TechWeb's InformationWeek Financial Services. She assumed leadership of Bank Systems & Technology in 2003 and of Insurance & Technology in 1991. In addition to ... View Full Bio
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