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Management Strategies

09:00 AM
Bill Budde
Bill Budde
Commentary
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How Recruiters Are Luring Away Your Best Employees

Recruiters are using social media and constant contact to understand what candidates need. Insurers seeking to recruit and retain top talent should pay heed.

Those of us who have been in the industry for years (or decades) have sometimes been annoyed by the calls of recruiters. They always seem to call when we are busy, and sometimes when we are worried about our careers (with changes in our workplace, outsourcing rumors, and the constant drum of mergers and acquisition announcements). Is it safe?

(Disclosure: We started a staffing/recruiting firm in 2007, when I saw the impacts of this trend toward "contingent labor" after years working in the global outsource industry. I was also influenced by Daniel H. Pink's 2001 book Free-Agent Nation, which I highly recommend.)

Let's consider some trends as they impact industry employment:

  • Outsourcing is on the rise, impacting much more than IT resources and stretching into areas like actuarial, finance, underwriting, and claims -- all thought to be "sacred" jobs.
  • Skills (and their acquisition) have become easier to "buy" than to "build" in-house. Training budgets have been reduced over the last two decades, and salaries have increased as the workforce feels less connected to "employment for life" assurances.
  • Age and experience are becoming harder to find due to the lack of investment in skills over decades. Leadership is forced to consider alternatives to keep critical knowledge intact for the continuity of the enterprise.
  • The talent pool is shrinking, and more are willing to move toward opportunities that excite them as risks (or perceptions of risk) mount.

[Is Talent Acquisition Low on Insurers' Priorities List?]

Recruiters are savvy about using social media -- sites such as LinkedIn, GlassDoor, FaceBook, and Twitter -- to reach out and excite candidates with new opportunities. In many ways, given the information available today, recruiters may know more about insurance industry employees than their supervisors do. This is a risk for employers in what is shaping up as an emerging talent grab.

Procurement and human resources have created a phalanx of systems to limit what hiring managers can do directly to attract local and known talent. The rationale has been based on increased compliance and employment practices liability risks, which are a real concern. These systems create a supply chain for sourcing that is focused more on managing the costs of recruiting and less on the quality of candidates.

This "commodity sourcing" philosophy is now working against large industry employers and working to the advantage of small startups.

Recruiters have adapted by becoming more automated, using global resources to do the data mining of job sites and social media sources. Keep in mind that relationships are the currency of recruiters. The social web has enabled recruiters to monetize these relationships more efficiently than ever before.

In short, recruiters are developing detailed databases of key resources and are waiting for the right moment or job opportunity to leverage this advantage. The shift to smaller carriers of key resources is fueled by economic reasons, but it's also due to the fact that recruiters "listen" for the reasons why professionals want to move: security, appreciation/ego, quality of life, and life changing events.

Moral of the story: Management will need to pay more attention to their employees' needs. Recruiters are using social media and constant contact to understand what candidates need. Human resources should pivot toward quality and market expertise of recruiters, and they should focus on measuring employee satisfaction to aid in retention.

[Join the Women in Technology Panel & Luncheon at Interop on Wednesday, Oct. 1. How different are IT career paths and opportunities for men and women in 2014? Join your peers for an open forum discussing how to advance in an IT organization, keep your skills sharp, and build a mentoring network.]

Bill Budde, CPCU, is the Managing Partner at Silhouette Management Services, LLC.  Silhouette is focused on helping its clients through periods of significant change by offering a range of alternatives to deliver value.  View Full Bio

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