Managing to learn

The sun is shining and the office is deserted. The phones are ringing and suddenly the manager of a small broker faces a major challenge: the 10 staff that the company employs are out pitching to new clients or schmoozing the old ones. The biggest headache when competing with the larger national brokers is finding and retaining staff with the range of skills and motivation to run a modern business.

Regulatory and compliance burdens aside, there is the ever-present pressure to unwind the red tape surrounding health and safety requirements, employment law and the like. In large organisations there is the capacity to devote full-time members of staff to these areas, a luxury not afforded to the smaller operator.

In addition, in a typical small broker firm, there are likely to be a maximum of three or four people in the management team, meaning that these very small teams need to contain a very large range of skills collectively.

Often, these management teams will contain good relationship management and sales skills in addition to strong technical skills, though there is also a need for expertise in: marketing and public relations; information technology; organisational and process functions; human resources; project management skills; and training, coaching, mentoring and development programmes - and the list goes on. So, where does the manager of the small broker go to obtain, enhance or develop these competencies?

There is a range of possible sources. The Chartered Insurance Institute, via its Broker Academy, seeks to provide training that is shaped by brokers for that very same audience. The training is completed online, meaning that it can be done at your desk during the day or evening. Alternatively, many insurers offer specific broker training or may make spaces available to brokers on their internal courses.

Another approach to consider is formal face-to-face training on a range of topics; courses include leadership development modules and successful project management. The Broker Academy can again offer this service but perhaps there is someone known to the manager that could act as a mentor or coach - there may be advantages in this person being inside or outside the traditional insurance broking field, depending on the needs of the staff involved. Although quite expensive, a professional facilitator could be used where the management team wants to stretch its strategic thinking; such professionals are excellent at bringing out previously unrealised or recognised skills in teams.

In some cases, it may be beneficial to team up with like-minded organisations locally to share the costs, which has the added benefit of bringing a wider range of skills together and the opportunity to share them across businesses. An often-overlooked source of knowledge and training is that of clients: do you have a commercial or personal client with whom you have an excellent relationship that could help out?

It may be that the missing skills need to be bought in for a period but, if so, make sure that the skills are transferred into the organisation as much as possible and not left with the provider.

There are numerous routes by which the smaller broker can enhance the skills of its management team, many of which are low cost and close to home.

Peter Knowles, Chartered Insurance Institute director of GI markets.