The time of year where staffing becomes a challenge
With the holiday season and the end of the year approaching, you’re likely faced with your team going on vacation and using up that accrued PTO before it expires. Additionally, the end of the year can be a high-turnover time as people look to retire or take the next step in their career in the new year.
What can you do to get the talent you need to support your team as they take some well-deserved time with family this holiday season? Here are some tips to ensure that your business is adequately staffed to maintain service continuity for your customers during a change-heavy time.
In-House Temporary Employees
In order to ensure that your team is fully supported, you might work with an insurance staffing agency or other temp source. While temps are a great resource, they can be harder to come by during the holiday season because like your full-time employees, it’s likely that they’ll want to travel and spend time away from work during this season.
If you are going to work with temps, ensure that you have the time and resources to invest in training and managing them. Even if you’re only bringing on temps for basic admin tasks, they’ll need a guiding hand to understand your processes. Only 16% of insurance employers have established policies to manage a variety of types of workers, which can lead to confusion and low motivation among both temps and permanent employees.
Amp Up Full-Time Recruiting
Now that the year is ending, you likely have a pretty good picture of your annual performance and your goals for next year. If your budget and productivity allow it, you might find the end of the year a good time to make additions to your full-time staff. As people assess their upcoming New Year’s resolutions and set career goals, the end of the year is a high turnover time that might draw prospective employees to new opportunities.
Keep in mind—year end turnover goes both ways. The same forces that may drive candidates to your door—such as better pay, better benefits, or the next logical career step—may also draw your current employees to other companies. Be sure you’re investing in your current employees in addition to hiring new ones.
The insurance industry has an extremely low unemployment rate at just 2.2% as of August 2019, leading insurance industry jobs to remain open longer than other industries—with some postings remaining unfilled for 49-97 days. Even if you can’t fill vacancies in time for the holidays, posting jobs now will set you off to a great start for 2020.
Insurance BPO Services
Insurance outsourcing can be an extremely cost-effective way to partner with trained insurance industry professionals to service your clients. Insurance outsourcing can help solve staffing shortages for everything from basic processing capabilities to omnichannel customer experience services.
While insurance BPO services take your work offsite, you still get full visibility into your clients and maintain your existing processes to ensure total continuity of service. The onboarding process for BPO partners is simpler and shorter than hiring an in-house temp or full-time employee, but the quality of work remains consistent. A good insurance BPO partner will develop a completely customizable solution based on both your immediate and long-term business needs.
Here at Patra, we’re dedicated to your business success. Get in touch to discuss how we can help keep your team and your customers cheerful through the holidays and beyond.
