Hiring is both the most difficult and most important managerial task. This is a difficult thing because hiring is not an exact science, yet one hiring mistake is extremely expensive.

If you are not attracting and keeping top talent, your agency or brokerage is going backwards. Strong employees are the backbone of any business and can propel your agency forward. Hiring failures can drag you down, as can hiring right but managing incorrectly. If your agency or brokerage is not focused on managing, developing and engaging top talent, that talent will ultimately leave for a better package. Using the Omnia assessment helps managers understand the intrinsic motivators of their staff so they can build best practices for not only hiring but also retaining employees.

The most surprising thing about hiring in the insurance industry is the often existing ignorance of the vast opportunities that insurance brings and the career stability. Insurance agencies or brokerages tend to be steady. Insurance is a complex business, but the depth and intensity of most training or mentoring programs is not as robust as it should be. There needs to be more formal training programs that are targeted and relevant. Also, agencies and brokerages encounter stiff competition for top talent and often must overcome an unfavorable industry stigma. The industry has a reputation for being dull, bureaucratic and slow moving; it’s not considered a "sexy" business and many Millennials lack an understanding of the industry. That’s another reason why branding and reputation are so important.

In 2020, there will likely continue to be intense competition for getting and keeping top talent. To improve your business's chances of attracting the candidates you need, explore new talent pools and different demographics that you may  have overlooked before. It is important to utilize both social and traditional media to reach potential candidates, increase benefits (such as more vacation time) and offer more money. And, because everyone will be doing those things, make sure you take advantage of informational tools to customize training, development and engagement strategies that will give you a competitive advantage. Understanding people and really diving into what motivates each employee, then focusing management strategies on meeting those needs is a great way to set your agency or brokerage apart from the competition.

What follows are my top tips to help leaders position themselves so as to ensure agency or brokerage hiring success.

• Be an employer of choice by creating a strong reputation as an agency that cares about its employees; culture matters to attract top performers.
• Use your existing top employees to find and attract the candidates. It is also very advantageous to have a sense regarding what the competition is in the marketplace (their work culture, compensation, pros and cons of working there).
• And finally, use tools. Information is power and the more information an agency or brokerage has when hiring people, the better. My team's assessments provide multiple data points for making well-informed hiring decisions and creating an employee development strategy that will resonate with the individual.

Carletta Clyatt is senior vice president of The Omnia Group and brings over 19 years of business-to-business consulting experience to help companies effectively select, manage and engage their biggest asset - people.  She understands that the more you invest in people's success, the more you get back. Carletta specializes in employee behavioral assessments for companies of any size in any industry, and is a frequent speaker at corporate meetings, associations and conventions, such as American Collectors Association, HR Florida (SHRM), Credit Union National Association, Recreational Vehicle Dealers Association, Auto Success Best Practices Summit, Association of Insurance Management Consultants, American Staffing Association, Honeywell, the National Association of Broadcasters and many more. She holds a B.S. in social work from the University of South Florida and a certification in negotiation for senior executives from Harvard Law School. Using her leadership and sales experience, she is dedicated to working with companies to hire right, decrease turnover, increase profitability and manage more effectively. She is continually seeking out new and innovative tools to help drive businesses forward.