Every day you make mistakes, but most of them don’t have a devastating impact on your business. Often, no one will notice that a mistake was ever made. However, when you work in the insurance industry, the errors you make could have serious consequences for your client and for your business. What kind of impact does a workplace mistake have on your employees, and how can you manage this?
A Workplace Mistake Can Damage Communication
If an employee makes a minor mistake that only has a small impact on your company, that person is likely tempted to hide that mistake. However, this can be a problem for your insurance agency in the long term. Firstly, you’re not able to offer reparation and an apology to those involved. Secondly, if an employee hides a mistake, this means that you’re not able to learn from the error.
Encourage your employees to note minor mistakes and bring them to others on the team so you can problem-solve together. Often these mistakes are not due to a problem with the employee – they are actually due to inconsistencies or gaps in your workplace processes.
A Mistake Can Influence Productivity
Writing in Inc, Bryan Falchuk discusses a huge mistake he made at work. He states, “The actual mistake was not an issue, but the way I let it spill into every day after that and impact how I did everything was where people took issue with my performance.” If your employees make a mistake, how can you help them move past it and continue to work productively for your company?
Ensure that you have a process in place for addressing the causes of mistakes and employ safeguards such as having a computer or a person recheck work that has been done. Automating parts of your processes can help you avoid mistakes or can act as an automatic cross-check for data entry. For example, if you have forms that ensure that you always input certain types of information about a client, then this helps you avoid future information gaps.
Build a Strong Reputation
As an insurance agency, you need to develop a reputation for being trustworthy and honest so current and future clients will put their trust in you. Owning up to your mistakes, apologizing, and making reparations is a way to build trust. While acknowledging a mistake can be painful for your reputation in the short term, in the long run, your honesty will be beneficial to your agency.
Mistakes Shouldn’t Devastate Your Business
Some mistakes can be very serious so you need to have safeguards in place to ensure that those mistakes do not devastate your business financially. Adding E&O insurance to your insurance roster will help you avoid some of the most serious consequences of a workplace error. E&O insurance protects your insurance agency if an employee makes an error or omission that causes harm to one or more of your clients. E&O insurance can protect your business from total devastation.
At American Agents Alliance, we’re happy to help your agency get ready for success. Preparedness is essential to your business success, and we provide discounted E&O insurance to help you meet that goal.
