For these brokerage and restoration companies,
Take Your Kids to Work Day is a very personal way to show how their industry is having a positive impact on people's lives.
“With insurance, during any kind of claim you are catching people at their darkest hour,” says Rob Symons, media co-ordinator with itech and the parent company Strone, “especially if it is a major flood loss. With
Take Your Kids to Work Day, they can see how the restoration and the insurance folks can turn their lives around and get the client through a tough situation.”
Take Your Kids to Work Day was first created by The Learning Partnership in 1994 as a one-day learning partnership for students in Ontario. Today it has grown into a national program involving more than 250,000 Grade 9 students, 18,000 teachers and 75,000 organizations.
For Symons, it has become a back-to-back experience for his two children.
“Last year it was my daughter who was involved in the twitter accounts, and she wrote a blog post at the end of the day,” Symonds told
Insurance Business. “This year it is my son Riley, he will be getting the itech account. For the Strone account, it will be another student taking over that.”
Headquartered in Oakville, Ont., Strone is an emergency response restoration and remediation company. And for students participating in
Take Your Kids To Work Day, they get a full course of the training that any employee would receive. (continued.)
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“It is the actual training that our guys have to do that we have the students take part in,” says Symons. “Today they are involved in some asbestos training and learning about that. Last year we had a boy go out with one of our restoration project managers and actually went to a commercial water loss, and we had him take readings of the actual dampness. It gives them an appreciation of what their parents do, and maybe inspire them for what they choose as a career.”
President and CEO of Jones DesLauriers Insurance Management Shawn DeSantis brought his son Carson to the brokerage – and the biggest takeaway from the day for Carson was how much insurance is a personal, people-oriented business.
“Insurance is a people-first kind of business,” says Carson, who was one of six Grade 9s who were at the brokerage. “But there is a lot of paperwork involved.”
The amount of paper that is involved is what surprised not only Carson but the other Grade 9s, says Shawn.
“He worked on a project – we’re going paperless – and a part of bring your son or daughter to work day was to give them a task of about an hour or a half,” says Shawn. “They had to take some of our files and take the staples out and scan them through, so that it would help us to go paperless. All of them wondered why we weren’t paperless to begin with!”
But the bottom line of Take Your Kids to Work Day was to expose the next generation to a career path in insurance.
“Our industry needs to keep bringing in young talent,” Shawn told
Insurance Business. “So days like this are important to educate the future workforce on how great this industry is – so that one day they will want to join us.”
For Karin Ots’ daughter Kati Hay, the day involved a trip to Queen’s Park to watch her mom make a presentation to the committee discussing Bill 15.
“It was very interesting,” says Kati, “learning about the fraud that is in the system.”
Ots, senior vice president of government relations at
Aviva Canada, spent the day with her daughter at the office and at Queens Park – and for her, the value Take Your Kids to Work Day is exposing those just starting out in high school to the working world, and planting a seed for a career choice.
“It is a great program, and I’m glad that Aviva and the industry have embraced this,” says Ots.
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The photo above shows the Grade 9 students who came to the Aviva offices. The top photo is Carson DeSantis.
