Go team! If your insurance agents need to get motivated, you don’t need to hire a cheerleader. Set up your insurance agency so that your employees feel naturally motivated to achieve goals, please customers, and generate new business. From new hires to long-time employees, here’s how to get your employees motivated.
Hire the Right People for Your Insurance Jobs
What’s the first step in motivating your team? Choose the right team. When you’re hiring, look for those who can describe how they’ve achieved goals, conquered obstacles, and stayed on target during difficult times. Bring those who have a passion for your work onto your team: the job you’re offering should be a career goal for your new hires, not something that they’re taking until they find something better.
Choose the Right Team for the Right Project
When you’re placing people into positions or onto teams, make sure that you choose the right people to do the job. They love the project you’ve placed them on and they want to see it advance. They have skills that complement each other and they work well together. If you’re aiming to get a project done well in a short time, choose those whose personalities will motivate each other.
Provide Leadership
While people may not always enjoy strict, top-down leadership, they do need guidance. Your employees need someone to set the tone for your agency. If that’s you, don’t be afraid to push your teams to set goals and achieve them. Accept and integrate employees’ feedback and work to set a vision for your agency that your employees know and aspire to achieve.
Give Opportunities for Advancement
As individuals, we like to see ourselves rising in our chosen fields. Make sure that your agency has room for people to grow, change, and move on to new challenges. Even if your job titles and positions available are limited, give your employees the opportunity to invent and change within their existing jobs, and reward them for this.
Move Past Doubts
When your employees complete an educational achievement or finish a difficult project recognize their accomplishments. This could be through verbal recognition, through a staff event, or through a change in job responsibilities.
Create Security
Job security and other benefits such as health care are huge incentives for employees. If you hire someone as a part-time employee who does not receive benefits, make the progression to benefits or other job security rewards visible and achievable. Give people the opportunity to progress into more and more job security.
Make an Impact
Do your insurance agents make a difference? Make that difference visible. You might give all agents the opportunity to work directly with those you serve, or you could highlight positive feedback or examples of times when your work made a difference in someone’s life. If you receive a note from someone who’s grateful that their home insurance allowed them to rebuild after a disaster, share this with your employees. It will help them stay motivated to do the work that they do.
Do you need assistance with making the right hiring choices to help your insurance agency succeed? As you seek new agents for your insurance jobs, the American Agents Alliance can help you increase your agency’s profitability and employee motivation. Contact us today to see how our agency hiring services can help your insurance agency grow.
