When handling business the right way, your insurance agency can achieve a high level of success. As a highly competitive industry, there’s not a lot of room for error. Unfortunately, some insurance agencies possess toxic traits that do significant damage to the culture of the company.

9 Traits of a Toxic Culture

The best way to avoid making costly mistakes is to learn what they are and then fix them. The following are nine things that you need to watch out for. If you identify any of these, take immediate and appropriate action.

Low Employee Morale

One of the easiest ways to determine if your insurance agency has a toxic environment is to gauge the morale of your employees. That includes other agents as well as all office staff. If you notice your workers showing up late, struggling to perform, or grumbling about various things, you need to get to the root of the problem.

Hold a meeting with all your employees. Let them know you care and maintain an open-door policy so they feel comfortable to speak with you freely without any concerns of repercussions. Also, ensure them you’ll do whatever it takes to boost morale.  For this issue, recognition goes a long way. The goal is to get your staff excited and engaged.

To help with this, you can always rely on a software program designed specifically for someone in your position. Powerful insurance agency management software will help tremendously.

Reduced Production

Especially with a booming housing market, insurance agencies have plenty of work to do. However, seeing a reduction in what your employees are accomplishing is another indicator of a toxic culture. This typically goes hand-in-hand with low morale. So, if you fix that problem, production should increase.

Remember, if you want to get your employees motivated to work, make sure they have the necessary tools. That might be something as simple as software that allows them to run reports.

Missed Time at Work

If you find that an increasing number of people are calling in sick, consider that a red flag. When employees feel engaged and get recognized, they’re excited to show up for work.

For some people, skipping a day or two is nothing more than a way to avoid walking into a toxic environment. However, others legitimately don’t feel well. If someone’s overworked and unappreciated, there’s a good chance they’ll feel anxious or stressed. As a result, they stay home rather than address their concerns. This is when you need to lead and listen.

High Turnover Rate

Watching one employee after another leave your insurance agency should be a wake-up call. When people feel satisfied with their jobs, including the culture there, they’ll stay for years, if not for the remainder of their career. On the other hand, poor management can quickly lead to a high turnover rate.

It doesn’t matter if the root cause falls back on you or one of your managers. Whatever the case, you need to do something about the underlying problem. Look, no one likes to admit they’re not doing a good job managing their team. However, instead of giving up or just not caring, you have the opportunity to turn things around.

If you want your insurance agency to thrive, you need to uncover the reason that so many individuals leave. Once identified, you can then develop a plan to correct the issue.

Failure to Establish and Meet Goals

Imagine setting multiple goals only to fail meeting every one of them. It wouldn’t take long for you to question your abilities and value. That’s what happens to employees. So, when setting goals for them to meet, make sure they’re attainable. If not, the people you depend on to help run your insurance agency will get frustrated, which leads to additional problems.

As part of this, review your staff to ensure you have the right people in the right roles. At the same time, be careful not to put inexperienced individuals in positions that set them up to fail. For instance, if you have a relatively new agent come onboard, allow another agent with years of experience to help guide and mentor them.

Lack of Empathy

This applies to both business and personal aspects of your employees’ lives. To avoid creating a toxic culture within your insurance agency, show that you genuinely care and want to see others succeed. When someone’s struggling, take time to find out why and then work with them to find an appropriate remedy.

If an employee’s dealing with personal issues, show a little empathy. Although you can’t let problems from the outside affect the business, you can show kindness and understanding. After all, your employees are human, and as such, they’re going to face challenges in life.

The One and Only Solution

Stop trying to be the one and only person in the agency that can handle everything. You can’t. Even if you have tons of experience and knowledge, there are limitations as to what you can do and the problems you can solve. If you need help from an outside organization, by all means, take advantage of its services.

As an example, say you’ve tried to come up with ways to recognize and reward your staff. While they’ve done “okay,” you’re not seeing the results expected. In this case, turn to a company that specializes in boosting employee morale. There’s nothing wrong with learning from others.

No Agency Values

The core values of your insurance agency set the tone for the overall work environment. Without establishing these, you can inadvertently provide others with a toxic work environment. Along with setting rules and regulations, this involves having a philosophy or mission statement as to what the agency stands for.

If your agency doesn’t currently have established core values, consider having a team event that’s part business and part fun. You might book a full day at a dude ranch, day spa, or hotel with a pool. For several hours, hold a meeting where you provide everyone with insight as to what you want to achieve as the owner of the agency. Then, when you’re finished, everyone can kick back for some needed R&R.

Disengaged Staff

If your employees are disengaged, you’ll have a hard time reaching the level of success you want. This is yet another surefire sign of a toxic culture. In most instances, you’d see this in the comments your staff makes. That might include “It’s not my job,” “I’m too busy to help,” or “That’s not what I was hired to do.”

These and other phrases show that your employees have no real interest in their job or your success as the owner of an insurance agency. Employees who jump in to help whenever and wherever needed are incredibly valuable. Those are the people you want as part of the team at your agency.

Depending on what’s going on, correcting this could come down to better recognition, updated training, or even letting some people go. Unfortunately, once an issue of disengagement occurs, it can quickly lead to dysfunction throughout the entire agency. To avoid problems with attitude and performance, you’ll need to take quick and decisive action.Toxic Traits That Are Killing Your Agency’s Culture

When it comes to building a successful business, insurance agencies aren’t much different than other types of businesses. They face stiff competition and need to do everything they can to stand out. Especially because of the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasing number of people began to search for optimal insurance coverage in exchange for affordable premiums.

For a while, insurance agencies, like other businesses, just tried to survive. However, now that things have started to settle down, they’ve turned their attention to growth. The good news is that for 2021, the insurance industry has incredible opportunities to reach a much higher level of success.

If you own an independent insurance agency and you’re eager to expand your client base, consider the tips provided below.

Take Advantage of Technology

A key to growing an agency is to identify the types of policies that sell the most and provide the highest margin. With that knowledge, you can either cross-sell or upsell. Today, digital technology is vital for your industry. With the right insurance agency management system, you can quickly and easily get the critical data you need to make decisions that lead to growth.

Upsell to Current Clients

Using information gathered through your insurance agency’s management system, you can identify upselling opportunities to clients you already serve. Remember, because you have an established relationship with these individuals and businesses, you’ll find it relatively easy to get them to upgrade an existing policy or buy a new one.

For this, you want to introduce new but applicable products to your clients as soon as they become available. While you need to sell them on the idea to some point, you never want to come across as pushy. Instead, rely on the trust you’ve built and only contact them about new products that would prove beneficial.

Take Calculated Risks

Usually, companies trying to increase growth don’t take risks. However, for your agency, you should as long as they’re calculated risks. What that means is to think outside of the box. Considering the market as it is today, you need to come up with innovative ideas that get attention and work. That could be something as simple as having a new website created that better aligns with your goals and the clients’ needs.

Personalize Your Services

Sadly, we live in an era where very few businesses give clients a personalized experience. As an independent insurance agent, not only do you want to get to know your clients but also better understand their needs. That way, you can personalize the products you introduce.

There are several ways to do this. For instance, add a video on your insurance agency’s website. Speak to the camera as though you were sitting in front of one of your most valued clients. Don’t hesitate to share a little bit of information about your life, interests, and family. Breaking down the wall and communicating honestly will go a long way in achieving growth.

Another option is to personalize your marketing strategies. The last thing you want is to spend precious time and money focusing on people and businesses that don’t want what you offer. So, you need to market in a way that reaches your targeted audience. Again, this is where advanced technology can help.

Remain Flexible

With such a broad range of clients, you can’t back yourself into a corner. Instead, you need to stay flexible to new ideas. Adopting innovative marketing strategies, using software designed specifically for independent agencies, and showing a willingness to do things differently than before will make a huge difference.

Following an extremely chaotic year, which included isolation periods and wearing masks, people want more flexibility in their lives. You can add to that by making your insurance agency more flexible. To identify the best way to do that, you might consider communicating with your clients online, via email or letter, or by calling them to ask what they would like to see differently in 2021.

Of course, you can’t meet the expectations of everyone, but this will give you insight that you can use to make your business overall more flexible. Rather than adding to the stress that so many people experienced, you can help eliminate it. With that alone, your current clients will gladly refer you to others, and getting your message across using technology will resonate with prospects.

Tap Into Emotions

To help grow your insurance agency, you can also tap into the emotions of both current and potential clients. A lot of successful insurers use what’s called “nostalgia marketing.” This involves a unique strategy that jogs people’s memories about experiences or even products they forgot about.

For this to work, you don’t want to do anything cheesy. Instead, subtlety will create a better connection between your agency and target market.

Embrace Technology and Enjoy the Benefits

There are so many ways to grow your insurance agency in 2021. While it might entail a little bit of trial and error, it won’t take long for you to master a plan. Of all the different options, embracing technology is the most powerful. For a cutting-edge insurance agency management system, contact the experts at Jenesis Software today.