Insurance companies waste staff potential

by Gill Montia

Story link: Insurance companies waste staff potential

OPP, the consultancy specialising in business psychology, has been surveying workers in the insurance sector to establish how they feel about their employment prospects.

Over half stated that their employer was failing to help them realise their potential and 13% of respondents believed that their managers had no knowledge of their strengths in the workplace.

The results of the OPP survey indicate that talent is going to waste in the insurance sector and this could be costing the industry a great deal, because 47% of those surveyed were planning to change career in the near future.

High staff turnover rates leave employers footing the bill for excessive recruitment and training expenses and OPP believes these could be avoided if firms paid more attention to supporting and developing their employees.

It urges employers to put more effort into understanding employees’ strengths and in developing these through career long programmes of assessment and training.

According to the OPP, 44% of jobs in the insurance sector undergo no structured evaluation or feedback.

In addition, less than 25% of employers use formal tests to assess the abilities of their staff.
Such tests are a means of putting employees into jobs that suit them best, thus ensuring that a business has every chance of capitalising of the strengths of its workforce.