Treat your employees like customers - not children!
Most agency principals have owned one or two agencies and have been in a few dozen others. I've visited thousands of agencies during the past 23 years and one common thread is a lack of communication among the owners and the employees. The exceptions to this rule are always happier, more productive, and more profitable agencies.
Why can't communicative agents communicate with their own employees?
Because they treat their customers like customers and their employees like children.
Agents know that prospects and customers alike must be treated with respect and deference. Right or wrong, they pay the bills. But although a customer only influences the amount of commission their account produces, employees influence revenues from hundreds of customers. The way your CSRs treat customers could influence them to either accept or reject your relationship-building efforts.
But do agents really treat their employees like children?
In many cases, yes. Children are tolerated in spite of their flaws. Many agents tolerate employees who display unwarranted behavior because:
- They've been with the agency for years
- They've done such good work in the past
- They're not 'that bad' they do work hard and stay late
The question is whether you'd hire the person if they left and returned looking for a job. If the employee cant meet your standards for a new employee, why are they still with you?
Meanwhile, employees who do well regularly are rarely thanked because:
- They're doing their job
- They've screwed up in the past
- If the principal praises them too often, they'll ask for a raise
I create Incentive Compensation Programs in agencies nationwide that result in substantial productivity and compensation increases to the point that the ICP agencies are paying 20% above scale in their areas and generating more productivity and less turnover. Wouldn't you rather keep your great employees and lose your mediocre ones? Tell your great employees that they're great!
NEED TO KNOW?
Another anomaly is the schism between agencies that tell their employees about the agency's performance (bad or good), production, and financial status, and agencies that keep this information firmly under the owners hats.
When I ask why they keep agency finances and productivity a secret, the common answers are
- They wouldn't understand
- If we tell them, it would soon be all over the street
- Employees don't care about how the agency performs
What these agents don't understand is that although they collect the profits and the asset growth of the business, the agency is as much a career for their employees as it is for them. Most employees want to (and expect to) retire from the agency in which they're currently employed. Rumors about mergers, sales, and acquisitions make them nervous. But if rumors are all they have, then they listen and react. Any information good or bad is better than no information at all. Don't expect your employees to check their brains at the door just because their jobs are administrative or not terribly creative. Employees do care, even if they're simply protective of their jobs.
If your employees don't understand that the larger and more productive and profitable you are, the better their futures become, its time you taught them this business lesson. You'll have employees who actually want to help you retain existing business and get new business (without incurring substantial additional expenses). Use the agency to teach them the basics of business. Finally, if you have employees whose lips are loose, lose them. Its not just financial information that should worry you. Be more concerned about stories telling how you 'almost' lost an important account this year. Identify loose cannons and either tie them down or jettison them.
Start slowly. Tell your employees about 'happenings' of the month (new accounts, carrier activities, etc.), then move into retention and new business calculations, and finally review department and agency productivity and profitability. Include employees in the planning and problem-solving process. Agency owners are among the loneliest people around. When you share with your staff, issues that bear on your mind diminish because others know and share your concerns and creative problem solving activities.