Focus: Learning to succeed

The profession has often struggled to create a consistent, recognised approach to training that places it on the same professional footing as others in the commercial world.

This is changing dramatically: The Aldermanbury Declaration, published in March by the Insurance Profession Task Force, is perhaps the clearest indication that, across the insurance market, aspirations and ambitions are actually changing rather than just being knocked back and forth across the boardroom.

The very fact that a cross-section of individuals from a host of companies, associations and organisations has been able to come together under the guise of the Insurance Profession Task Force to create, publish and garner significant support for The Aldermanbury Declaration is a sign of how important professionalism is now becoming to a market that is desperate to throw off the 'industry' moniker it has dragged around with it for so long.

The advent of regulation under the Financial Services Authority also helped to drive a new attitude to training in the market and up-to-date technical abilities are now monitored closely, with significant penalties for those unable to show that they are competent in the job they are tasked with.

Beyond the regulatory demand for competency, commercial forces are also at work, pushing brokers to become more capable in both staff and client management.

For a long time, there was a latent belief that if someone was a good practitioner then they were a good manager. In fact, their managerial skills were not really considered and those working with them simply had either to bend to their way of thinking or find themselves the subject of their boss' wrath.

While these individuals may have been successful as individual practitioners, their inability to work effectively with those around them or to impart the knowledge and skills they had garnered throughout their careers actually served to hinder the businesses for which they worked.

Gap filling
This is not an issue that is unique to broking but it is certainly one that has held it back. Mark Redfern, director at Marlborough Training & Consultancy, comments: "The common theme, not just in broking but in businesses across the board, is that senior people in organisations tend to reach that position through technical knowledge and not because they are natural inspirational leaders. What a lot of organisations do is try to fill the gap: help their managers learn more about people's behaviour and the culture of their organisation as well as to understand a little more about how to get the best out of people, to make them an integral part of the business and help them to engage in it."

There was a time when such training was seen as utter nonsense. Now, it seems there is a more sophisticated perception of the benefits that effective leadership can bring and improved understanding of the role that managers play in the long-term success and viability of a broker.

This view has swung into fashion alongside the changing landscape of UK broking in which regional firms, run almost along the lines of local insurance consultancies and headed by experienced individuals with a high profile in the local market, are being replaced or at the very least challenged by businesses cutting their cloth to a more modern design.

These newer brokers seek not to be reliant on the individual who set them up but instead to operate as commercial organisations that are not necessarily tied to geographical locations or specific product lines.

Naturally, they have their centres of geographical influence and product expertise but they are pushing harder to extend these boundaries and push into the markets of other brokers around them.

Ian Jerrum, managing director at Searchlight Insurance Training, says: "In the past, we couldn't get management and leadership training courses up and running and brokers were not interested. In the last year that has changed and brokers now appreciate that, when the Financial Services Authority says that a member of staff has to be competent for the role they perform, this is not just a technical point but also one of management."

This is something that Steve White, head of compliance and training at the British Insurance Brokers' Association, agrees with: "Training has an important part to play in the development of staff, especially those at managerial level. Remember that the FSA rules require that firms employ personnel with the skills, knowledge and expertise necessary for the discharge of the responsibilities allocated to them, which of course extends to managers."

The changing structural and regulatory scenery of the insurance market has driven the push into the managerial training classroom, though the wretched economy of the last two years has also had its part to play.

As brokers have had to cope with falling revenues from struggling clients that have cut back on their insurance spends, many have sought to position themselves for the recovery to ensure that they come flying out of the stalls as soon as there are opportunities to chase.

Ready to roll
Redfern comments: "A Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development poll in the middle of 2009 across business sectors showed that directors were saying they had increased spending on training so they could keep staff reassured, motivated and believing in the business. They also had the view that, as a country, we were going to buy our way out of recession and they wanted to be ready when the upturn came to be first out of the blocks. To do that, their managers have to be ready."

While most executive management boards now accept the need for managerial training, there are still a number of barriers that many firms have to vault.

In the first instance, smaller firms will have worries over time and resources, as Redfern points out: "Typically, larger brokers will factor training in more easily because they either have the budget or because they are of a size where they feel it is necessary. Smaller brokers may find it difficult to organise a programme that does not then impact on the day-to-day business too much."

Management training is available as courses lasting days and weeks or hours and minutes and can be completed off site, in the office or online: as such, brokers should not discount it before looking to see how they might make it work.

The Chartered Insurance Institute has, through its Broker Academy, recently brought two-day and five-day managerial courses to market, which are delivered by Searchlight.

The five-day course covers: succession planning, financial accounting, sales and relationships management, strategy and business planning and leadership. Scott Grimmer, Broker Academy manager at the CII, says: "The two-day course is all about how you get the team behind you, how you set the right objectives so they are smart, measurable, achievable and sensible. We also look at how you do effective appraisals. A lot of people might have learned from a manager that never had any training themselves and so it is worth taking time out to get some."

The two-day course costs £350 and the five-day course costs £1,500, although delegates do not have to take the full five days and can opt for them separately at a cost of £350 a day.

Through the Train To Gain initiative (www.traintogain.gov.uk), there is also funding of up to £1,000 available for qualifying brokers. To lay their hands on this money, they have to be based in England, have between five and 250 staff and be sending genuine decision-makers on the training.

The website gives full details of who is eligible as well as links to the training help that is available to companies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

While this funding is available in England, it is not always easy to sort out immediately. Alison Piercy, director at Scarborough-based broker A S Green, explains: "The problem was actually getting someone who had heard about the scheme and could deal with it. You have to be tenacious and you will eventually get through to someone who will hold their hands up and say they know something about it. The trick is just finding that person."

Networking advantage
The training offered through the Broker Academy tends to be open-market training where delegates from different firms will get together for the day and go through the course.

Although these courses are open to managers from different firms, they are sector specific and so it is only insurance professionals that attend, a distinct advantage according to Grimmer: "One of the big benefits we have found is around networking. A number of brokers can do management training in the open market but it isn't always very insurance-focused and they are meeting people from the likes of Argos or Tesco. What they want is to meet fellow brokers and work around examples that resonate back in the office."

This is also the approach taken by Marlborough Training & Consultancy, which believes that keeping managers from the same sector together allows trainers to use examples that strike a chord with all of the delegates: trainers can speak in the language that attendees use everyday with their clients.

Whether brokers want to attend an open-market course, arrange for a trainer to come to their office or team up with other brokers in the area and obtain training that meets all their needs, there is something available to suit.

When highlighting what brokers should look for in their trainers, Redfern says that accreditation from a leading body such as the Institute of Leadership and Management is important, though he also says that there is no alternative to speaking to providers in person: "The most important thing is to talk to whoever you are thinking of using. There is no substitute for having a discussion about what the business is looking for and listening to what the provider says about how they would meet these needs."

Thereafter, it is also important that brokers take the time and effort to measure the impact the training has had and how it has affected the managers that attended, those that work alongside them and the entire business.

As Redfern says: "Measuring the results is always an interesting issue: organisations have differing levels of sophistication as to how they measure things. That could be as simple as measuring the motivation of their managers and taking feedback on how happy they are with their careers, right through to quite sophisticated measurements. The Kirkpatrick model is an industry standard and, often, people will use parts of this, although it is rare for people to use all four in-depth stages."

The four-level Kirkpatrick method has become one of the accepted means by which organisations can measure the effectiveness of training. However they do it, brokers will want to be as clear about how they judge the merits of a course as they are about the training they decide to take, otherwise the exercise is impossible to evaluate meaningfully.

Yet just how have brokers that have decided to adopt management training as part of their strategy fared?

Confidence
Piercy praises the five-day course she did with the Broker Academy. She comments: "The course was very relevant to real working cases and a lot of things I was not sure about, I have learned. I also have a lot of information I can refer to.

She continues: "I have looked at bringing in new measures over the coming years from things I've learned and I feel a lot more confident. One of the courses was financial accounting and how to actually read into accounts rather than just being able to note the profit and loss. Looking at business accounts is going to be a lot easier for me in the future."

Piercy says that her time on the course has also led to the feedback process on appraisals being tweaked and that more effort is now going into making sure that people can speak their minds and contribute ideas to help her firm evolve.
She says: "We are encouraging staff to come forward with ideas and play a greater part in the company."

Further up the broking ladder, a consolidator has been implementing management training to good effect in positioning itself for the future.

Bluefin has fast developed into one of the larger players in broking, acquiring many businesses during its rapid growth. This super-evolution has meant that the business has many different cultures sitting under the one roof and it is now trying to unify them.

The broker has been involved in a managerial training pilot, delivered in part by Helix UK in partnership with Marlborough Training. Anne Entwistle, learning and development manager at Bluefin, explains: "We very much wanted to make this a national professional qualification and bring in all of the Bluefin identity stuff, including behaviours and cultures. We looked around at all of the materials and providers and spent a lot of time with various companies, eventually finding someone that was able to provide us with a professional qualification and was flexible enough to tailor it to what Bluefin needed."

She adds: "In coming together, we wanted to have a new professional qualification for our managers as well as bring to life all of the managerial requirements we needed internally. The great thing for us has been that managers who haven't met each other have had a chance to work together and see things from different perspectives. It has been a lot more than just generic leadership training.

"The proof will be in the differences that managers make following the training. They will be asked what they are going to do differently and then be measured on whether or not they are following these things through and the difference it makes to the people that work for them."

On the programme, Entwistle says that managers have done six days - one a month - as well as completing a project and two assignments. The final assignment is what they are going to do differently and their action plan following the course, enabling Bluefin to measure how successful the training has been.

It is not just brokers that are becoming involved in management training but also networks, which see it as a way of helping out members and enabling them to differentiate themselves from the competition.

Catherine Bragington, operations manager at independent broker alliance Unitas, says that the organisation regards training as a key area through which member companies can better the competition.

Front-line training
Discussing the type and content of training that has been sourced from Marlborough Training & Consultancy, she says: "Having identified the training company and trainer we wanted to work with in this area, the ILM-accredited course focused on three modules: leadership, self-management and personal effectiveness and communication skills. Delegates from across the member companies attended training and it has been so successful that we now run two courses each year."

She adds: "Line managers operate in the front line of the business and therefore need to be well trained so that they can keep their teams motivated and working at their best. A real benefit from the Unitas programme was the opportunity to learn alongside and network with other like-minded professionals facing the same challenges in their businesses."

The managerial training has proved so effective that Unitas aims to create its own training academy in due course.

Amid the finely weaved lattice of technical training requirements and regulatory responsibilities, it is easy for brokers to overlook some of the other areas in which focused training can improve their businesses.

Managerial training is an area that has grown significantly in popularity over recent years, matched by an understanding of both the short and medium-term benefits it can bring to a broker.

For those who eschew its usefulness, the question remains: "Are they really doing things as well as they could?" If not, how are they going to find out?

The Aldermanbury Declaration
The Aldermanbury Declaration requires that firms signing up to it commit to meet common professional standards covering:
• Commitment to excellence
• Training and development
• Professionalism within insurers
• Professionalism within brokers
• Broking, underwriting, claims and management standards
Taken as a package, the Task Force argued that these standards would lead to important improvements to the sector:
• Better outcomes for customers
• Improved standards of risk management
• A more confident, trusted profession
• More talented people attracted to a career in insurance
• Increasingly rewarding careers for those within insurance
• Reinforcing the reputation of the London wholesale market

The Kirkpatrick model
Donald Kirkpatrick, president at the American Society for Training and Development in 1975, devised four levels of training evaluation:
Reaction - Evaluate with verbal feedback, forms and a post-training survey
Learning - Measure the increase in knowledge with tests and interviews
Behaviour - Applied learning is to be judged through observation over time by line managers, measuring the relevance of change and its sustainability
Results - The effect on the business or environment made by a trainee, measured by normal management systems and reporting and relating to the trainee

Leadership Training
The next PB Leadership Training course, in association with Marlborough Training, will be held at PB's central London office on six days from 6 September.

Successful completion of the course and associated coursework will result in a Level 3 Award in First Line Management from the Institute of Leadership and Management.

The course covers topics such as problem solving and managing performance to selecting and influencing colleagues.

The cost per delegate for the six month course is £1250 plus VAT. The dates for the next Leadership Training course are: 6 September, 9 October, 9 November, 7 December, 11 January, 16 February.

TO BOOK YOUR PLACE please contact Mark Redfern at Marlborough Training and Consultancy on 01892 652646/Mark.redfern@mtc.tc or visit www.broking.co.uk/leadership-training for more information.

Useful websites
Institute of Leadership Management
Chartered Management Institute
Chartered Insurance Institute
Train to Gain
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

Source: PB – May 2010