Next Generation: Why you'll regret neglecting Gen X

IBA investigates the critical role Gen X professionals will play in keeping the industry humming as others retire.

Insurance News

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Editor's Note: For the month of August, Insurance Business America will be investigating the role of Generation X in the industry's oncoming talent crisis--the level of their importance, how to recruit and retain and how to prepare these critical 30- and 40-somethings to assume management roles with Baby boomers retire.

Baby boomers are retiring, and millennials aren’t quite ready to take their place at the helm. Enter Generation X, currently aged 34 to 49.

Ann Fishman has been studying generational differences for decades, having received four U.S. Senate Research Fellowships and founding her own consulting firm, Generational Targeted Marketing.
Through her research, she believes that each generation can best be exemplified by the toys made popular in their youth.  For Generation X, that would be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: reptiles who were neglected by their owners, and forced to subsist on junk food and nuclear waste in underground sewers.
    
“This is a generation of individuals,” said Fishman.  “They had to become individuals in order to survive – family units were broken, religious units were broken, public schools were broken - so they had to focus on themselves in order to survive and get through childhood.”
    
Rather than falling prey to victim status, though, Fishman notes that Generation X used these setbacks to become stronger and more resilient.  She describes this group, now aged 33-53, as entrepreneurial, open-minded, honest, tech-savvy, and creative.
    
This is precisely why the insurance industry needs them now more than ever.  

Filling the Talent Gap with Talented Workers

Recognizing the impending talent gap about that’s about to afflict the industry, global search and staffing firm The Jacobson Group, along with Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), Valen Analytics, and the Institutes, have outlined a plan entitled “Tomorrow’s Talent Challenge,” designed to recruit much-needed professionals to the field of insurance.
    
Although the plan’s call to action puts a great deal of emphasis on increasing internship opportunities through their web portal My Path, The Jacobson Group’s CEO recognizes the need to bring skilled, mid-level career executives on board as well.
    
“The industry has to recognize that it doesn’t put a lot of focus on bringing people even with a couple of years of business experience into the industry to learn about insurance.  Generally, our industry is focused very much on experience, sometimes over skills,” said Greg Jacobson.
    
“Organizations are saying, ‘We want somebody with experience doing exactly what we’re doing,’ and that limits the opportunities and focus to bring in people from outside the industry.”
    
Elizabeth McDaid, SVP of Leadership & Management Resources with the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers (CIAB), also points out that recruitment is only one part of the equation.  
    
“According to a study Lifecourse did back in 2011 on the ability of insurance to hold onto Millennial and Generation X talent, insurance agencies are losing new talent faster than other industries are losing new talent,” McDaid said.

“Obviously, then, we’re not engaging them the way we should be.”

You may also enjoy: "Millennials to the insurance industry: 5 ways you can do better"

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