How to Retain Top Talent For Your Benefits Agency: Your Ultimate Guide

Attracting great people to staff your benefits agency is a vital first step if you want to grow and thrive, but to retain them you must remain attractive long-term. In the current marketplace, where competition for top talent is fiercer than ever, retention is not a luxury or a “nice to have,” but a fundamental necessity.

As a benefits agency, your company is in a position to set an example for client businesses – both in terms of embracing new and different types of benefits customized for the workforce, but also in nurturing the kind of working environment that attracts and retains exceptional employees. If you take good care of your employees, they will take good care of your clients, creating loyalty that delivers double retention benefits.

Every successful marketer knows that it is easier and far less expensive to retain customers than to attract new ones. Happy customers buy more often, spend more, and can become invaluable assets in promoting your company and products or services to others. The same holds true for employees.

The most desirable companies understand that their employees are like customers.

Once you successfully attract top talent, you want to keep them for as long as possible. Just like loyal paying customers, great employees generate revenue that supports profitability and growth, and they can serve as magnets to attract future top talent. But there are other benefits to retention:

•         Skills retention (and expansion)
•         History/familiarity with the company
•         Leadership development pool (and peer mentors)
•         Save money and HR time, eliminating painful costs and headaches associated with high turnover and revolving door recruitment
•         Building a company reputation as a great place to work

Most of the best practices you follow to attract top people in the first place also apply to retention.  We hope you find this entire guide helpful, but you can use the following Table of Contents to zero in on a particular topic of special interest.

Table of Contents

1. It All Starts with Keeping Your Promises
2. Create a Clearly-Defined Company Culture
3. Promote Continuous Improvement for People, not just Production
4. Make it work, remotely
5. Keep Your Current Employees Happy
6. Contribute to Your Community
7. Hire the Right People in the First Place

Every company has a culture, whether it takes shape on its own or it is deliberately nurtured. Company culture is “a set of shared values, goals, attitudes, and practices that characterize an organization.” It affects the practical, emotional, and mental aspects of a person’s job as well as their internal and external working relationships.

No doubt someone explained your agency’s core values during the hiring process. That’s important because 77% of job seekers say they pay close attention to a company’s culture and values. Top talent listens, so they expect to see that everyone, including the agency’s owner or CEO, is emulating those principles day to day. Unfortunately, mission statements and lists of corporate values are all too often treated as strategic planning session busywork or marketing materials instead of words to live by.

Culture that fits

With so much at stake, letting culture “just happen naturally” does not make good business sense. Instead, there are steps you can take to create and support an internal culture that serves everyone well and encourages your best people to stay on.

Interestingly, based on recent studies comparing cultural fit versus cultural adaptability, the Harvard Business Review reports that while good fit led to high performance and low turnover, “employees who could quickly adapt to cultural norms as they changed over time were more successful than employees who exhibited high cultural fit when first hired.” This type of adaptability is critical for companies that operate in fast-paced, unpredictable environments.

Take advantage of new emphasis on workforce DEI

Working toward greater diversity, equity and inclusion expands your company’s cultural horizons. While people are more productive when they feel comfortable within the group, you don’t want everyone to be the same. Businesses grow and innovate only when they have diverse thinkers on board. An inclusive culture encourages collaboration and shows that your agency values individuality along with commitment to group success.

Diverse employees will, indeed, feel more comfortable and excited to stay when they know they are not the odd one out. Besides, a more diverse staff may make your agency more appealing to a broader variety of clients – companies that are also anxious to promote diversity within their own ranks or that want to offer more broadly appropriate benefits.

Communicate openly and often

Openness is a key ingredient in any company culture that encourages retention. Every employee wants to feel valuable and know they are contributing to your agency’s success. This is a key motivator for top performers, especially.

•         Share company news – the disappointing as well as the exciting. Your people understand they are working in the real world.
•         Celebrate new client acquisitions and other milestones.
•         Share future plans and goals, and provide regular progress reports. These things foster a sense of inclusiveness and camaraderie as well as personal value.

And just a side note: honesty and transparency are extra important when times are tough or when big change is in the air, such as a potential merger or acquisition. If people are worried about the company’s future or think their own job may be in jeopardy, they are likely to leave now rather than wait till the decision is out of their hands. Facts trump speculation when it comes to retention.

Be willing to address internal problems

Failure to do so can become a major barrier to retention because it indicates you really do not care about your people, despite words to the contrary. You don’t have their back, so why should they stay? One of the most common reasons good people leave is a poor relationship with their manager. Whether the situation is contentious or merely unsupportive, it makes more sense to correct it than to let a top performer drift out the door.

Help staffers get to know one another

Team-building activities take on new importance post-COVID, as people continue to work apart from one another. Get creative!

If yours is a culture of excellence, current employees will expect their newest incoming colleagues to be great additions to the team. One way to ensure that is to offer employee referral bonuses, which can also be seen as a nice employee benefit.

The emphasis on quality and continuous improvement started in the manufacturing industry as a way to assure parts and finished products reliably met exacting customer standards. But quality and continuous improvement are universal requirements no matter your type of business or internal department. If your business or the benefits you provide or recommend don’t add up to high-caliber, leading-edge advice and assistance, clients will turn to your competitors. So there is an obvious business imperative to promote and support professional development.

Students of the industry

Talented people know they always have room to improve, but they can’t do that unless you help facilitate it.

When Suzy K. Johnson, CEBS, RHU, HWC was starting her own benefits agency, professional development was one of her priorities because she believes employees must be “students of the industry” in order to serve clients well. “We must be constant learners who share a willingness to adapt and change quickly to adopt new ideas and proven solutions to bend the cost curve,” she says. “This is what the client pays a benefits adviser to bring, along with electronic enrollment solutions, compliance solutions, data analytics, a strategic plan and a service experience that is second to none.”

Almost everyone agrees that employee development should be a strategic goal. Desire to grow and improve is a hallmark of high-performing personnel, so they appreciate companies that step up to help them feed their desire. However, each individual has different professional and personal goals. Your agency also has its own staff development goals, in terms of expected behaviors and skill-building. Some of these issues can be sensitive, so it’s best to work with employees one-on-one, through:

•         Informal conversations that feature active listening on your part
•         Structured conversations that follow a list of questions or an agenda – something the employee could also fill out on their own, if preferred
•         Feedback sessions (annual reviews and intermittent check-ins) that are constructive and encouraging 

Done right, employee development is a big win for everyone. Employees can expand their skills and self-confidence and take on greater responsibility. Their value to the company increases, and they are happy to use their expanded talents in such a supportive environment. Of course they want to stay. In fact, 93% of employees say career development is a big factor in securing their loyalty. Employers gain upskilled or reskilled talent rather than having to search anew for these people in today’s extremely competitive hiring marketplace.

Millennials and Gen Z’ers are especially outspoken about their desire for career advancement, but don’t assume older employees are less interested. You don’t want to lose a top performer who has tremendous experience under their belt just because development opportunities dry up.

There are numerous ways to help employees grow:

•         Create peer-to-peer mentorships that allow employees to learn and also teach or coach
•         Pair veteran and newer employees or senior leaders with aspiring leaders
•         Hold workshops or other training sessions (and be sure to widely publicize them so everyone who wants to can attend)
•         Offer cross-training that allows people to learn about aspects of your business beyond their own position. This helps everyone understand the big picture and the value of their own role in creating successful outcomes. And who knows? One of your best people may decide they’d rather make a lateral move to remain with your company. There’s no reason an underwriter can’t become an expert on the health and benefits software products your clients use or take on a new role as a benefits counselor. Cross-training enhances retention by enlarging the pool of candidates you can promote from within.  
•         Encourage people to join professional associations devoted to their roles within the insurance or benefits industry, and encourage them to take advantage of conferences and other content sponsored by those organizations.
•         Encourage the pursuit of certifications such as CES, GBA, REBC, and RHU. These make people more valuable within the industry so, yes, a competitor might try to lure them away. But advanced learning and keeping up with industry trends and best practices benefit your own business and clients most of all. High performers will stay when they know they are performing a true service.

·         Give them the tools and resources to pursue learning on their own.

We are all learning together, as we go, how to create new working environments that work well for everyone. Most, if not all, benefits and insurance roles lend themselves nicely to remote work, thanks to the technologies everyone is now comfortable using. Personal interactions can be handled via phone or video conferencing as easily as in person, and products and services are digital.

Still, some firms are working to establish new hybrid workplaces where employees can work from home and/or in the office on a fixed or flexible schedule. However, creating a well-functioning hybrid workplace requires a whole new set of considerations.

Flexibility is the key, and that comes down to each individual. Hard working, high performing employees were demanding a better work-life balance long before the pandemic, and being forced to work from home has accentuated the fact that work and life are inseparable. Keeping top talent now means understanding what is most important for them in every respect and providing ways to accommodate their needs.

On the other hand, a sense of belonging and camaraderie are fundamental to building strong, creative teams. So while you’re catering to individual needs and preferences, you must also create a workplace that brings folks together no matter where they are to prevent feelings of isolation. You don’t want to create the illusion that there are two classes of employees – those who come into the office and those who don’t.

Along this same line, employers will have to consider whether pre-pandemic compensation and benefits packages still make sense. It’s not likely. Remote locations add layers of complexity, especially for details such as health plan networks or cross-state regulations. Commuter benefits such as paid parking or public transit become irrelevant, while benefits like child care or pet sitting or home office subsidies now have real value. Even performance evaluations may have to change to reflect remote working.

As a benefits agency, grappling with these issues internally will give you special insight into the new needs and challenges your clients now face regarding employee benefits design and administration.

The days when employees were happy just to have a steady job are long over. Years before the pandemic hit, smart employers figured out that happy people are more productive and do better work. A 2019 Benify survey confirmed that. Everyone in the benefits industry understands this because that’s our mission, every day – to help employers provide a more relevant, valuable workplace. 

If there is one thing we’ve learned from the pandemic, it’s that failure to prioritize employee experience can be costly in the most catastrophic sense. Even as employers are desperate to add personnel so their business can move forward and grow, millions of workers have quit their jobs due to dissatisfaction. Just because someone still works for you doesn’t mean they are planning to stay much longer. If turnover is a problem in your organization, your future depends on uncovering the reasons and taking steps to turn things around.

How?

Celebrate success

•         Publicly recognize achievements with Employee of the Month awards or a virtual party to applaud someone’s new accreditation. Post their photo on your website and brag about them on social media.
•         Don’t wait for major milestones to acknowledge great work. There is no such thing as saying thank you too often. These two simple words can make a big difference in someone’s day, boosting their morale, their confidence and their appreciation of you as their boss. Many excellent employees leave because they felt their contributions were not valued.
•         Always share positive client comments, at least with the staff member they mentioned, although hearing good things from the people you serve boosts everyone’s happiness.
•         Encourage employees to give a shout out to one another when things go well because we all want peer approval as much as boss appreciation.

Refresh your benefits

Not so long ago, flexible working options were considered a little “out there,” something of a second-tier benefits option available only to a few. Well, times have changed, haven’t they? Location and scheduling choices aren’t even “benefits” any more, they are the new normal.

As a benefits consultancy, it’s up to you to set an example. Clients come to you for help because they believe you are on the cutting edge when it comes to benefits best practices. Are you following those best practices yourself, offering up to date, thoughtfully curated benefits for your own employees? There’s no point in offering “benefits” no one wants. Just as you advise your clients, the only way to know which options have value for your employees is to ask. It can help them to think in terms of categories as well as specific options. For example:

Benefits at work

•         Additional holidays or paid personal days off or parental/family leave
•         Skills training and professional development (a must if you expect to retain top talent)
•         Food and beverage (formerly popular, these perks now could be seen as favoring those who work in the office)
•         Employee activities and gifts (nice perks, but do they fuel retention?)

Benefits for health

•         Medical insurance is still an across-the-board priority for employees, but now they’re interested in expanded options such as dental, vision, even pet coverage. Life and disability insurance remain popular with some employees.
•         Wellness programs have received mixed reviews, depending on company culture and workforce demographics
•         Mental health programs can benefit both employees and companies

Benefits for financial security

•         While employees of all ages appreciate the value of retirement savings plans (especially if the company contributes), millennials are particularly interested in financial planning and wellness programs.
•         Financial benefits such as commissions or bonuses (or stock purchase options, if your company is public)
•         Tuition assistance and student loan repayment counseling or assistance are popular with younger employees

Lifestyle benefits

Especially with so many people working from home, time-saving benefits that provide child care, pet walking, grocery delivery, etc. can have significant value.

Make Benefits Part of Ongoing Training

Study after study has shown that top candidates consider a company’s benefits package to be more of a tipping factor than salary. That means something in your benefits package might have been the clincher that brought a new hire in your door. You supply benefits info during onboarding, but then what? Too many companies assume employees will take it from there on their own.

In order to advise clients, your employees regularly research and follow benefits industry trends and best practices. As you implement these cutting-edge best practices in your own benefits design and management, your employees can also serve as real-life evaluators.

Promote your benefits regularly

Communicating with employees about available benefits and how to access them is more important than ever, now that employees are working from elsewhere and cannot just pop into the HR office to ask a question or get help filling out a form. Use every means at your disposal to get the word out about all of the mandatory and voluntary benefits your firm offers. People have different learning styles and different schedules, so use a variety of formats that include plenty of self-help options. Ask your marketing team for help.

Here are some suggestions:

•         Make short videos or podcasts that explain certain benefits, and post them on your intranet
•         Post standard application and claims forms employees can download or submit electronically
•         Conduct virtual “brown bags” or Q&A sessions
•         If you make changes to your employee benefits handbook, be sure to post the new version
•         Send periodic email reminders highlighting a benefit or two, with follow-up links or contact information.
•         Create an open enrollment campaign for benefits that don’t have year-round access
•         Offer assistance in understanding complex benefits such as health plans
•         Make it a point to ask for feedback, to identify areas where employees find barriers to getting the information or assistance they need. 

Why keep repeating yourself? Because things change. Benefits that didn’t resonate with someone when they were hired may become must-haves later on. Single employees get married and have families (or the kids grow up and move away). Getting a nice raise along with a promotion could trigger new interest in financial planning or retirement savings benefits. Personal preferences also change over time, so well-being or other lifestyle benefits may become more or less valuable to different individuals.

If you don’t keep reminding employees what is available and make it easy to access their choices, they could be missing out on something of great value to them. On the other hand, if employees know your range of benefits is flexible enough to grow and change with them, that’s one more solid reason to stick with your company.

Provide the right tools to do the job

One of the most common employee gripes in any industry is lack of resources. Good and great employees need (and expect) you to provide technology and other tools and resources that inform and streamline their work. They can’t produce exceptional results with ho-hum or outdated support systems, and if that’s all you have to offer they won’t stay around long. Employees, the company and clients all benefit from digital tools that facilitate communication, collaboration, benefits administration, finance and accounting, etc. – more so now than ever, given the remote nature of doing business.

Make them a true part of your team

Inclusiveness isn’t only about race and ethnicity or the hiring process, it should permeate every aspect of employee relations. That includes making employees part of company information flow, planning and other decision-making. You can call it buy-in, but it’s really about showing employees you value them and what they have to contribute in a broader sense than their job description.

How do you know they’re happy?

You don’t have to guess. Just ask -- there are lots of formal and informal ways to assess mood and motivation. Everyone likes to be asked their opinion, especially about themselves. It’s not only flattering, it shows you care about them as a person as well as a worker. Just be sure to follow up. Doing so will further boost your employee relationships, but failure to do so can feel like a slap in the face.

Ultimately, it’s not really happiness but engagement that determines whether your best people are likely to stay. Office vibe defines employee engagement as “the emotional commitment they have towards the company, the company’s values and their mission, and are able at the same time to enhance their own sense of well-being.” Many factors affect that, including:

•         Personal growth opportunities
•         Recognition
•         Feedback
•         Pride in the company
•         Relationships with colleagues
•         Wellness

·         Compensation, benefits and culture

People want to be part of something bigger than themselves, to know their organization has the community’s and Mother Nature’s best interests at heart. In the Benify survey noted earlier, 83% of those who responded said they would be more loyal to a company that helped them champion environmental and social issues. Really, the gains you can achieve by giving back are priceless:

Even if you have a crackerjack HR/TA team, they have many “priorities” to contend with. Meanwhile, the recruiting environment continues to get tighter and more competitive. Help from professionals who can concentrate only on this and who have the deep networks and relationships to successfully match people with positions can literally make the difference between corporate momentum and growth or falling behind due to personnel or expertise shortages.

A seasoned recruiting firm that specializes in the benefits industry knows what it takes to craft attractive, accurate job descriptions. They know how to market your agency honestly as well as appealingly. With that, you can land the top performers you need, keep your promises and deliver the fulfilling job and positive cultural environment that inspire retention.