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.

You know that saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” Well, that’s 100 percent false. Not only can seasoned insurance agents learn new things, but they should. For one thing, that allows them to continue playing a key role in an insurance agency’s success. For another, it lets them enhance their teaching and mentoring skills.

There’s another phrase that pretty much sums it up: “Do you have 20 years of insurance experience or one year of insurance experience 20 times?” Think about that for a second. Sure, you might have two decades working as an agent. However, if you’re unwilling to learn something new, an agent with just one year of experience, yet who’s motivated to gain as much knowledge as possible, would add more value.

Take Advantage of Technology

Without question, the insurance industry is highly competitive. That means as an agent, you have to work to secure and then retain new clients. Fortunately, you have multiple ways to do that without expending too much time and effort.

For starters, invest in an insurance agency management system. The right software will simplify tasks but also help you keep better records. As a result, you’ll work more efficiently and effectively.

Just about every client will have a good handle on computers. So, as part of your sales pitch, you can advise them that you use a state-of-the-art program specifically for the insurance industry. If you want to make a good impression, this is one way to do it.

At the same time, working with the right software will make your life as an insurance agent easier. You can create and safely store client information in the cloud, listen to podcasts that further benefit your career, and much more.

Fine Tune Your Sales and Communication Skills

Regardless of the number of years you’ve worked as an insurance agent, you should hone your sales skills periodically. Remember that a lot of today’s clients are significantly different from those 20 years ago. They’re more savvy and now have far more options for insurance protection. This is another area in which a good agency management system can help.

With years in the industry, you’ve probably developed a specific way to communicate with both potential and current clients. However, times have changed and you need to change along with them. Years ago, agents spoke in a more professional manner, using a lot of insurance jargon.

Today, most people want to have an easy conversation. They prefer to discuss business matters in a more relaxed way. Simply put, prospects don’t like complicated conversations. That means you need to avoid “insurance language.” Believe it or not, learning to communicate differently takes some practice, but ultimately, it’ll pay off.

Improve Time Management

Currently, it’s common for both parents to work. Considering that, combined with the daily responsibilities of raising kids, the average parent has little spare time. To show that you respect your clients’ tight schedules, work on your time management.

When you first started working as an insurance agent, people might’ve been a little more laid-back when it came to setting up meetings. Now, even showing up a minute late to meet with a prospect could cost you the account. There’s a definite art to this, but with the right tools and perseverance, you’ll nail it.

Become a Better Problem-Solver

It never hurts to learn how to solve problems yourself. That way, you can reach resolutions quickly and prevent an issue from spiraling out of control. For that reason, you can expect to achieve a higher level of client satisfaction. Also, there’s a sense of pride in solving problems yourself.

Depending on when you started your career, the internet might not have even existed at the time. Now, you have access to thousands upon thousands of websites with valuable information specific to insurance. Use reputable sources to learn better problem-solving for billing, policies, client retention, marketing, networking, and the list goes on.

Develop Better Emotional Intelligence

Some people may have to let go of pride to do this, but to become a better insurance agent, it’s important. What this entails is learning how to recognize emotions in other individuals. As you become more and more emotionally intelligent, you’ll gain an understanding of why some prospects won’t do business with you.

That opens the door for you to make some necessary changes on your end. By reading people’s emotions, relating to them, and then responding in the right way, you can turn the tables. It won’t take long for you to see a difference in how potential clients react to your sales pitch.

The Bottom Line

It’s a good idea to learn how to connect with potential and current clients in today’s world as opposed to how you connected years ago. You can still use many of the skills you already possess. However, adding to those or enhancing some of them will help take the success of your insurance agency or career to a new level.

Whether you work as part of a management leadership team for an insurance agency or you own an insurance agency, you carry tremendous responsibility on your shoulders. Even when hiring highly qualified agents, you still need to stay on top of things.

That’s just one aspect of working as an insurance agency leader. Even with hard-working agents, you need to make sure that every client receives superior service. That means they’re treated with respect, provided with information so they can select the correct policy, and given all applicable discounts to keep the premiums affordable.

Unfortunately, even the best leaders make mistakes. On the bright side, it’s possible to recover from some of these. However, certain errors can prove disastrous. So, the best plan is to identify the most common errors that agency leaders make and then avoid them at all costs.

The following are the 10 mistakes most often made by insurance agency leaders and owners and how to avoid them.

Spending Inadequate Time With People

For any insurance agency to grow and prosper, those in charge need to set an example. That includes spending quality time with clients, as well as with their agents. Make sure that you take the time to cover both professional and personal issues. Ask about their business, their families, their plans for the summer – remember, the goal is to form a bond with both your employees and your customers. People like to work for, and do business with, people that they like and trust.

Missing Opportunities to Develop Talent

Insurance agencies always try to hire the best insurance agents. Sometimes, that entails bringing someone on board who has years of experience and a ton of knowledge about the industry. Other times, it involves recognizing that someone new has incredible potential. All they need is a mentor.

You’ll even find hidden talent among your top agents. So, when an opportunity presents itself, take full advantage of it. Provide your team with the tools and support they need to succeed. After all, the better they do, the better the agency does.

Maintaining a “Closed Door Policy”

If you’re looking for a way to bring down office morale and turn clients away, then take an inaccessible approach to how you lead the agency. Well, you don’t want that. So, you need to be available and approachable to both your employees and your clients.

For the internal staff, you want them to know they can come to you any time to discuss anything. As for the clients, the focus is to make them feel that regardless of an issue, big or small, that you’re always accessible to them.

Failing to Provide Feedback

Insurance agency leaders who excel in their jobs understand the importance of providing their team with frequent feedback on their performance. Keep in mind that, at times, you’ll need to address a problem. However, you also want to point out when they excel. While constructive criticism will help them hone their skills, positive reinforcement will give them a sense of pride that encourages them to perform even better.

Ineffective Conflict Management

It doesn’t matter how many skilled agents work for your insurance agency; conflicts will arise. If not handled appropriately and effectively, a small issue could quickly turn into a serious situation. Within no time, the entire office would feel stressed and anxious.

Remember, an open-door policy combined with accessibility is a great way to prevent problems from occurring. However, the second you realize that something’s amiss, you need to take action, and not just any action—effective action. As an insurance agency leader, it’s up to you to get things out in the open and then to determine the right resolution.

Running a Stagnant Agency

With the insurance industry facing fierce competition, you can’t run an agency the same way you did 10 years ago. For one thing, that’ll prevent the agents from providing the clients with outstanding service. For another thing, it won’t take long before the members of your team look for work elsewhere.

Over the past several years, multiple things within this industry changed. As a prime example, agents now rely on advanced technology to maintain client records, schedule appointments, and even see trends that can help build a stronger agent/client relationship.

Now isn’t the time to cut corners. By investing in an insurance agency management system, you’ll quickly notice an improvement in the agents’ performance and the clients’ satisfaction.

Forgetting People Are Human

There’s a saying that “business is business,” but sometimes, it’s not. Yes, as an insurance agency leader, you need to run a tight ship, but at the same time, remember that every team member is a human being. As such, they have emotions triggered by good and bad experiences.

Sometimes, those experiences have to do with losing a client. You expect the agent to feel frustrated and disappointed. In your position, you don’t want to ignore those emotions. Rather, take time to listen to them and talk about what happened. Investing in the ups and downs of your staff will go a long way in helping them overcome challenges.

Failing to Motivate

If you want to see your agents go into overdrive, motivate them. Along with recognizing their incredible performance, let them attend a seminar, develop new talent, increase their pay, and so on. It’s amazing how insurance agents, and people in general, respond to the right motivation.

Not Encouraging Risk

Usually, the word “risk” relates to something bad or dangerous. However, there’s also such a thing as “good risk.” When selling insurance, you want your agents to take some risks. Otherwise, they’ll never beat the competition. It’s all about teaching them to push but without going outside of the safety zone. This is where you, as an insurance agency leader, can set attainable goals and boundaries.

Managing Without Leading

There’s a big difference between managing and leading. As a leader, you need to succeed at both. To manage your team, you need to organize, plan, control, and administer. To lead, you want to motivate, encourage, and inspire. If you can merge those two skills and apply them to your team, you’ll see a remarkable change in the agency.