Strength from within

Richard Adams: To what extent are the Financial Services Authority's requirements for continued professional devel-opment bringing the issue to the fore?

Graham Coates: It is the recordkeeping that is the practical difference. The biggest practical problem among the majority of insurance brokers is recording, following up and actually demonstrating training and CPD, should there be an audit by the FSA.

I don't think FSA regulation will make a big difference to the amount of training we do. We are increasing the amount of training we provide, not because of the FSA but because we want to be better at broking. We need to demonstrate the impact the training has had, so it is the practical side that will change.

Amanda Blanc: It's about bringing some discipline to what is already being done. I agree it is about documenting training so you have a clear record, and there are various facilities on the market that you can use.

Paul Bryant: It is the size of the broker that makes the difference. Small brokerages often do little or no training and the FSA requirement has brought this issue to the fore.

It is the time factor. At small firms, the managing director is more likely to be involved in every aspect of the business and unable to delegate work so they have less time to spend specifically on training. For those employing upwards of ten people, it has not made that much difference.

Richard Adams: What is your view on the FSA prescription for CPD?

Is there a danger that training will be undertaken to fulfil regulatory requirements on a 'tick-box' basis and will therefore be devalued?

Tony Tudor: The General Insurance Standards Council identified the problem of recordkeeping and this is an ongoing problem. We talk of 'continued professional development', whereas GISC referred to 'continued personal development', which is broader and is probably the right emphasis. It is not just insurance-related skills, it is about identifying what is appropriate for the individual.

Stephanie Willbond-Hill: I recently did an audit on an in-house programme.

We had someone who had done a French language course, which is personal development, but as a company we are not looking at any (French-speaking) markets, and I have to question: does that help the person do the job any better?

Tony Tudor: It is about business skills and what helps the business operate, which is what the FSA is probably looking for.

Stephanie Willbond-Hill: It is a case of opening up your mind. It is not necessarily structured learning, but it is a case of determining what is a development opportunity.

Gary Head: The outcome of the training is important. You have to look back - for example, six months after the individual has undertaken training - and measure its effectiveness. It is the business application of that training that matters. If you just force someone to attend a course and tick a box, it is not good for the industry. Brokers and underwriters need to create a culture and an environment in which people want to learn.

Danielle Bennett: It is crucial to evaluate training. We test people to find out if they have learnt anything. This has proved beneficial and a lot of our employees say that they enjoy being assessed, as it means they listen and learn more.

Amanda Blanc: If you have to spend time evaluating, and your employees have to spend time being tested, you must be clear that you are going to get something out of it and the training must be more focused than before.

Stephanie Willbond-Hill: We have started doing training 'bites' on a fortnightly basis, which last between 20 and 30 minutes. As a result, I am getting more people approaching me saying that these are subjects that they would like to communicate to other people. Companies send out a huge number of memos and e-mails to disseminate information but how many people read them? We have seen a different attitude to these training bites.

David Cooper: From a recruitment point of view, candidates want to find out about a company's commitment to training and development. Individuals, especially those in their 30s, are keen to develop their careers and want to see that an organisation has a clearly structured training programme.

It is not just about focusing on the FSA's requirements - it is about putting wider opportunities in place. For example, a Master of Business Admini-stration degree could benefit a business five years down the line.

There is a dwindling talent pool and if you want to attract the top 5% of individuals you have to offer something that is right up there with the best of them.

Paul Bryant: In interviews nowadays, it is as much about trying to impress the interviewee as it is them trying to impress you.

David Cooper: The FSA has said you should monitor people's competence to do the job they were appointed to do.

Graham Coates: When people come for interviews, we get them to do a technical test and the level of knowledge is frighteningly low. Yet, when you see their CV, they have lots of relevant experience. On a day-to-day basis they can probably sit down and do the job. But if you ask them to think outside the narrow parameters of what they are doing - for example, 'why have we declined this claim?' - there is very little evidence of training having gone on.

Amanda Blanc: That is because a lot of companies focus more on the process. People can do the process really well, but are not thinking - which is really frightening.

Graham Coates: A good example recently, on an interview form we asked 'when would you suggest retrospective cover?' and the answer was: 'to avoid getting any claims in the future.'

Richard Adams: Many brokers would admit that, traditionally, they have been poor at training and recruiting. Is this considered to be largely a resource issue, which is likely to be rectified by the FSA's requirements?

Paul Bryant: The FSA won't force the issue - but whether in practical terms the smaller brokers have the time and resources, I don't know. A lot of small brokers will be relying on online learning for their assessment and training needs.

The problem is, it is only one way of training and not everyone can assimilate information just by sitting at a computer screen and, in reality, they aren't going to have a lot of other opportunities. If you only have a handful of people in an organisation, sending one out for a day on a training course can be more damaging than beneficial to a brokerage.

Danielle Bennett: Training is more than just going on courses. Training encompasses a lot more. It is about your induction programme, shadowing people, reading, going to seminars and presentations - this will all go towards your CPD.

Richard Adams: Is there a particular generation of staff that is hard to acquire? Graduates, for example?

Gary Head: The quality of the individuals you are recruiting becomes essential if you are putting them into an environment where they have access to a more comprehensive training structure and where they can help themselves to develop personal and technical skills.

The industry needs to improve the general quality of people and compete with the banking and accounting industries, which is the more natural place for top graduates to have gone in the past. We need to get the message across that insurance can be fun and interesting and exciting.

Danielle Bennett: Image is the biggest problem. Everybody seems to fall into insurance, rather than it being a career of choice. We need to work with the universities to raise the profile of the insurance industry.

Stephanie Willbond-Hill: That can happen. I come from the waste industry, which nobody wanted to go into and, like insurance, people fell into. However, nowadays you have specific degrees tailored around that sector. It is a matter of choice.

Gary Head: We do not do enough collectively to sell the industry. In some instances, we've got it but we don't flaunt it. Hiscox was in the Sunday Times Top 100 Places To Work in the UK. All the big corporates applied and we came 10th in 2002 and 11th in 2003.

Graham Coates: It wasn't always like that. When I was looking for my first job, insurance wasn't at the top of my list - but when we did the university 'rounds', there were insurers such as Royal and Commercial Union offering equally good training and opportunities as the banking and accounting industries. The year I joined the Royal, there were up to 50 graduates joining, with six from Oxbridge.

Amanda Blanc: Industry consolidation has meant that companies have become more inward-looking. Where companies have merged, if they already have a group of graduates, they may not take in any more because they become superfluous to their cost base. Employing graduates is expensive and I bet the number of graduates being recruited has been reduced.

Tony Tudor: One of the problems is retention in the graduate market. You have to interest them and offer them something that is of value. It is all about transferable skills nowadays. People want something that they can use throughout their career.

David Cooper: There is no doubt that in the past certain insurers had a good reputation for providing a good grounding. There aren't as many insurers now, so there are going to be fewer graduates coming into the industry.

Paul Bryant: The Independent was probably the sexiest insurance company. It had a great image, and was committed to training, and staff enjoyed working there despite the long hours.

I would hesitate to take people on from a insurance company background, with the exception of the Independent, because the insurance industry tends to have a nine-to-five mentality, whereas the Independent tended to be about longer hours and more dynamic people.

Gary Head: Times have changed; the business environment is more competitive now, which has affected us all, and it is difficult to get good people.

With regard to the Independent, we must remember that we are delivering services to consumers and we need their trust and for them to feel that we are a valued part of their lives or businesses. Where they only see insurance letting them down again, it takes a lot to recover from that.

So it is about consistent delivery of good service and trustworthy advice.

Graham Coates: The larger insurers tend to appoint the high-powered quality people who come in at the head-office level and have very little exposure to what happens on the ground. As a small to medium-sized broker, we see a big gap in skills at the day-to-day training level.

Amanda Blanc: Graduates only like to do the sexy projects, whereas as the old CU/Royal programmes would have put graduates through all the basics, and they would have been the type of people you would be looking for.

Graduate expectations are a big issue - they want to do the exciting strategic projects but not necessarily learn about the business, which is fundamental.

Danielle Bennett: We are starting to recruit school-leavers at the age of 16 and putting them through a fast-track training programme where they can do modern apprenticeships that take them through NVQs and onto more professional exams.

Graduates have high expectations, but it is not like years ago when there were fewer graduates. Nowadays, everybody is a graduate and the standards have come down. Some of the graduates we interview have no common sense and are not able to communicate. So we thought it was better to take on school leavers and 'grow our own'.

Paul Bryant: People skills, the ability to communicate properly and to fit into the company is more important than technical knowledge, which is easier to teach.

Amanda Blanc: There has to be a balance between people skills and intellectual capability.

Richard Adams: Does there need to be more individual brokers taking the initiative or does there need to be a more uniform industry approach?

Gary Head: The key now is management buying in. If training is just part of a tick-box environment and the organisation does not embrace it, then it is a waste of time.

Mark Boon: Training has to be appropriate for the role. I'd have thought that, for the people at the end of the line at Norwich Union Direct, a tick-box approach is more appropriate.

Tony Tudor: Management must analyse training and development needs. This is where it tends to fall down. There isn't the ongoing analysis of how it can make this business better or how it can develop this person.

This is a key requirement for a business and will help it to meet FSA requirements.

Danielle Bennett: The biggest problem is going to be managers. They will think they have already done the training and have qualifications, but they will not necessarily be up-to-date.

Mark Boon: Some may be ACII-qualified but often they won't be involved in broking or underwriting and will be managing - but won't have had formal management training.

Richard Adams: As an industry, has there generally been a greater emphasis on recruiting than retaining? If so, what is this due to?

Paul Bryant: In the past, maybe. People nowadays are a bit more cute about their business costs and realise how much it costs to take someone on - especially if they leave after a year.

Danielle Bennett: There is a skills gap at the moment. The growing problem with retention comes from recruitment difficulties, which go across all sectors. People can swap jobs now and know they are a marketable product; salaries are going up and people are demanding higher salaries with not a lot of experience. The only way to tackle this is by recruiting younger people and training them up.

Gary Head: There is a lot of new capacity around that needs people quickly - and the way they get that is to pay people more.

Graham Coates: If brokers need new staff, it tends to be an immediate need and you do not have to time to train someone. If you can plan this three years in advance, great - but in reality it isn't like that.

We are spending more time 'growing our own', but we still have gaps - especially in management capability, which often means pinching somebody else's.

Amanda Blanc: It isn't just about money. It is about whether a company has the right culture and values. Does it take training seriously? Are there career opportunities? In some instances, insurers have lost sight of this.

David Cooper: If the only reason people were moving was for money, then we would go out of business very quickly. Insurers have become much better at retaining people over the last few years, with good benefits packages and long-term bonus strategies. It is more difficult to prise someone out of an organisation.

Richard Adams: Traditionally, many brokers sourced staff from insurance companies - a fact that many agree is no longer the case. Is this due to the period of de-skilling that insurers went through in the 1980s?

Mark Boon: Up until the early 1990s, every top-10 insurer had a branch in Cambridge and there was a constant flux of people between insurers and brokers. Now there are only two insurers and they have satellite offices.

As a broker, it is not an option to recruit from insurance companies, as they have a certain way of doing things and a mindset that isn't as entrepreneurial as brokers need to be.

Paul Bryant: Insurers also tend to compartmentalise skills. As a broker you need more all-round skills.

Graham Coates: It depends on the job. When we need someone for compliance, the natural place to look is to insurance companies. When it comes to a sales role, we may look outside the market. When it comes to day-to-day broking and account handling, we go to brokers 99% of the time.

Richard Adams: Is the movement of high-level staff from banking into insurance significant enough to be called a trend? If so, could this replace the traditional insurance company pool as the place where brokers fish for talent?

David Cooper: There has been a trend over the years for people to come from the investment banking community. If you look at insurance companies now, investor relations are a hugely important part of the chief executive's role. That has had a lot to do with some of those appointments.

Tony Tudor: At the higher level, bankers do have skills that are transferable.

IFS has moved away from technical emphasis to managerial emphasis in the qualifications it offers. The technical side you can put in fairly quickly, but when you get to managing a business longer term, the higher-level skills are crucial.

A number of the banking industry appointments are due to the fact that there is a history of regulation that is similar to that coming in for insurance, particularly with regard to operational risk.

Danielle Bennett: A lot of school-leavers are looking for work after A-levels rather than going to university because that has become so expensive.

We can offer employment and the opportunity to work towards a professional qualification so they will be in a better position in three years' time than if they went to university. We are also working with universities to promote insurance.

David Cooper: We have found that, rather than telling a client that we have struggled to get the list of possible candidates down three or four, we have to tell them we have struggled to get three or four people on the list.

Amanda Blanc: Some organisations have got it sorted. Their employees are happy and motivated and, therefore, they are not looking to leave.

If they are happy, they won't put themselves out there.

Gary Head: Empowerment is key. If they are held back, and are not able to have new ideas, challenge the status quo and do things differently, they will feel undervalued. We have a 'new hires' lunch where new recruits meet the CEO, the chairman and the underwriting director. During the lunch, they are asked what they would change about Hiscox. One new recruit a few years ago said that we should have a trading coffee shop - this later became the Hiscox Art Cafe. You need to try new things and be innovative.

Richard Adams: Do you think enough is being done at the moment to ensure there will be enough good-quality staff in future? If so, what initiatives stand out? And if not, what ought to be happening?

Danielle Bennett: Yes, in terms of current staff. No, in terms of new people coming into the industry.

Mark Boon: Insurance is associated with bad news and so is not a great brand. To attract people to the industry you have to have a strong, distinctive brand.

Richard Adams: Is it the job of training organisations to ensure pre-university careers advice promotes insurance along with banking, accounting, etc.?

Amanda Blanc: There are a lot of good things happening if you look at all the young achievement awards and the training academies, which really help get young people into the industry. But there is a bad image, and we need to promote the industry as it is diverse and offers many opportunities.

Paul Bryant: We will be wasting our time trying to make it sexy for incomers.

Once they are in, we should be trying to make it sexy going forward to keep them in the industry.

David Cooper: It is down to each individual firm to promote the industry.

It is not down to organisations such as the CII or BIBA to do that for us.

AT THE ROUND TABLE

GUESTS

Danielle Bennett, group human resources manager, Alec Finch

Amanda Blanc, customer services and distribution director, Groupama

Mark Boon, managing director, La Playa

Paul Bryant, director, human resources and training, Truman Lincoln

Graham Coates, group operations director, Stuart Alexander

David Cooper, director, Mansion House

Gary Head, professions underwriting director, Hiscox

Tony Tudor, director and company secretary, Institute of Financial Services

Stephanie Willbond-Hill, human resources and training manager, Miles Smith

HOSTS

Professional Broking

Richard Adams, editor

Nicolle Farthing, deputy editor.