Continuing Education

Tracey organized a round table this fall to talk about training. She brought together a group of people concerned with professional development in our industry and asked me to facilitate a conversation. We met and had tea at Dartmouth Crossing in early November. There were two sets of direct competitors at the table, yet everybody was 100% on board to discuss ways to develop the insurance industry as a whole.

It was a sunny day and we had a lot of laughs. Present along with Tracey (on the left) and myself (on the right) were Jenny Reyno, Manager of the Insurance Institute of Nova Scotia (center); Keri Foley, Professional Development Coordinator at IBANS (beside me); and Karen LeBlanc, IT Manager at Huestis Insurance and ASNET Chair, Applied Client Network (beside Tracey).

 

 

ANGUS

I wrote an article for our internal company newsletter recently with the title, “Making Time for Training”. How do you make the time for training? Is it a set of habits? Is it a set of relationships? Do you find goals are important?

JENNY

The experience that I see with the students through the Insurance Institute is making it a priority. We get requests from people after courses have started and they’re like oh well this that or the other thing has come up and I don’t think I can continue, but really they’re just everyday situations that everybody has to deal with so you need to make your education a priority. I mean obviously there are extenuating circumstance all the time where it’s understandable that you can’t continue but that’s what I find with our students is that they need to make it a priority and they need to want to do it for themselves. They need to want to do it not because their employer says they need to do it but because they recognise the value of what that education will do for them now and in the future.

KERI

I think motivation is key too. What I see is that a lot of students will be motivated to do, for example, Module 1 of the CAIB program if they work in personal lines, but if they don’t work in commercial lines, they get frustrated with doing Modules 2 and 3 because those are focused mainly on commercial lines. I find that the motivation sort of goes downhill because they say I don’t need it I don’t need it. Well you do need it. You know, you should have a basic knowledge in it. I find that’s one thing that a lot of students have trouble with.

KAREN

I like the term, “Work smarter, not harder.” It’s a changing world, so to keep up with the trends you need to understand technology. You work smarter. You learn the tools. You learn what’s out there so you don’t have to work harder. And you make the technology work for you.

TRACEY

That’s something that we find the user groups for ASNET are good for. You know, it’s been a long time trying to get the user groups up and running because a lot of people don’t want to take the time or put the resources into doing that training. But maybe one or two days of training can save you so much time on the other end right?

JENNY

I find too we have a lot of students who really appreciate having a mentor, somebody that they can go to if they have questions who can encourage them in their educational journey and say you know yes I’ve been through this before I know exactly what you’re going through but this is why you want to continue.

TRACEY

I would agree with that.

KAREN

The thing with is mentoring, how do you get the people who are willing to take the step to be a mentor? I mean how do you find them?

ANGUS

Could I ask what’s been each of your journeys toward becoming a mentor?

KERI

One of the main things I sell and market is the CAIB, so I took the program myself so I could know exactly what it was that I was selling and I could try and help people along the way as best I could and kind of guide them into what helped me when I studied.

KAREN

I find most trainers enjoy, and it comes down to enjoyment, they enjoy showing people how to do things. To me you have teachers who are teachers because it’s their passion. You need to have passion. You need to be able to open up people’s eyes. For a trainer it’s seeing that lightbulb in the eyes, seeing oh yeah I understand it now and it’s the thrill of all of a sudden, regardless through any media that you do it, through webinar or face to face, it’s being able to hear it in their voice, “hey it makes sense”. Teachers have a passion for the material and getting their information across.

JENNY

Well I’m not an instructor myself. I run the administration end of organising the educational sessions that we do so I can’t really speak to it that way but I can speak to trying to encourage when I have students contact me about wanting to take courses. The funniest thing that ever happened to me at work was that I had a fellow come in one day and he actually said, “I want to work in the insurance industry.” I almost fell off my chair because you never have people say that!

[Everybody laughs]

KERI

No not very often.

JENNY

Everybody just sort of falls into the insurance industry.

KERI

Yep.

JENNY

And here was a person who had actually researched the industry and decided that this was what he wanted to do. So I got all excited. I was a mentor for him because he wasn’t working in the industry but I was able to make it easier for him to start taking the courses on his own. When he got his first job finally in the industry I was his first phone call.

KERI

Which makes us both motivators in that sense because we see people in the beginning where they’re starting their career and coming to the end of their education or finishing a designation or something like that and we’re kind of you know, I shouldn’t speak for you, but along the way people sometimes will be unsuccessful with things and they’ll call you upset and you’re the one to talk them down. You tell them let’s try this let’s do a different approach maybe do this and things like that.

JENNY

I’m always impressed at how excited they are and what a big thing it is for them when they do finally earn their designation.

TRACEY

Because they’re a lot of work.

KERI

Yeah!

JENNY

And it’s nice that they don’t just, it’s not just you know something they take lightly.

KERI

Yeah. It’s nice to see that path.

TRACEY

And they haven’t just finished a seminar: they’ve finished a challenge really.

KERI

Yep.

JENNY

Sure.

ANGUS

On the topic of mentoring, one of the challenges that we face is not just making the time but also making the travel time. We were talking about driving here today before we got started, for example. In my own life and my own education I’ve experienced different kinds of distance learning or in-person mentorship. What do you think? Is there any magic combination of in-person or on the phone or over the web?

KERI

I think it varies for different people, especially because we’re dealing with adult learners. It really does vary. Some people really need that face to face classroom style. But we find at least 70% of our students do a self-study. So whether they form little study groups within their own office or not, they mostly do it on their own.

TRACEY

When I did a review of folks and what type of training they preferred, about 25% wanted the webinars. But more want the classroom and one on one training. So how do you balance that out in this geographical area that we’re dealing with. You know, where you can’t always get together?

KAREN

But even with that I find different people learn different ways. Some people learn by seeing. Some people learn by hearing. Some people need to learn by asking questions and doing it themselves. The challenge is how do you get the different learning styles in each medium. How can people do hands on if they’re just listening through the screen you know? I’ve come up with some neat ways with dual monitors. I have done up webinars where people actually have a task, like different tasks on the screen. They’ll have five minutes to try to do it on the other screen so it’s actually a classroom but also they’re on a webinar. Some of them have no issues and they like this because they can do it right there. And it works out quite well because it’s kind of like a hands on plus you have the classroom style but it’s through distance and webinars so it works out quite well. Another thing is at the end of the section there’s polling. They have to do a simple ten question test at the end. And because they know there’s going to be questions at the end they really pay attention. So it’s a challenge but there are tricks to help people retain things.

TRACEY

To gather the knowledge, yeah! You know you may go through a webinar session and answer those ten questions now, perfect, but next week are you going to still retain that? Retaining it longer is the next thing.

KAREN

I find at least by doing those questions the retention is better. They’re not asking the questions as often.

JENNY

I agree 100% that people are going to like or embrace different styles of mentoring, for example. Almost all of our seminars that we do now have the webinar alternative and um the young people [laughs], people younger than me, you know your twenty somethings, they totally embrace that. I mean they totally embrace the online the virtual world. And I can easily see younger people in an office saying you know oh yeah like an online chat room after work with a bunch of people you know doing something together or taking a course together with somebody in there as the moderator or mentor to say what are our concerns today what are we all doing? But then you also need to have that face to face for the older people in the office who just can’t relate to the online virtual world.

TRACEY

Yeah, like say for our work flows or system access or system use. For those kinds of things you really want to have hands on. But it’s very difficult when you have offices spread out all over the province right? And you got one and two person offices, so you can’t you know basically pull them out, right? To take them into the training.

KAREN

It’s a challenge.

TRACEY

So what do you find most in your agency Karen, as far as what people prefer for training?

KAREN

It’s all across the board.

TRACEY

I think its all depends on the topic too doesn’t it?

KAREN

We’ve found for workflows that you have to go to the office, because for workflows you sometimes find things in the offices that not all offices do. So workflows have to be at the location. I find there’s always some type of structure if you really look in an office you will see where the users are helping users. You can probably see it in your offices that there’s someone who always helps the other users. If you have a printer issue you’ll know who that person is!

TRACEY

Oh yeah definitely!

[Everybody laughs]

ANGUS

So one of the ways that a couple of people have talked to me about the training conversation recently is thinking about insurance in a new and more positive social light. Like how do people successfully inhabit their role of a broker or of a professionally trained qualified person so that you know you show up to a party and someone says what do you? And you say I’m in insurance …

[A big laugh of recognition]

JENNY

But there was a survey done and it was all around does the general public recognise the benefit of dealing with somebody in insurance who has a professional qualification. And when I read it I was amazed because it showed in very clear numbers that the general public does want to deal with someone in insurance who has a professional qualification. I think that one important thing is stressing professionalism in the industry and well, not the requirements because there isn’t a requirement for professional designation, but encouraging people to get a professional designation. Then you can show somebody okay you might just think I’m an insurance broker who takes your money and what do you get from it but this is the training that we’ve gone through and these are the standards we have. You know things like that so people like—my own husband’s a perfect example! When I first met him he knew nothing about the insurance industry and he was always just like “rarara” and I don’t take that from him anymore. You need to stand up for your industry and be proud about it and be proud about the qualifications that you’ve earned.

KAREN

And again it’s back to education. How do you educate the general public on what makes a good insurance broker?

TRACEY

And I think the more educated you are yourself the more you’re confident you are in explaining that to someone.

KERI

I wrote an article for Atlantic Broker magazine a while back and I just did a little informal research, you know asking friends and acquaintances, “Do you know if your insurance broker has any sort of education background in the insurance field?” All of them said no and all of them said it doesn’t bother us either way. Well it should bother you either way. You should want someone who has that knowledge and that background. I think it’s important to hang those designations on the wall in the workplace.

TRACEY

Yeah!

JENNY

Definitely. Like you say, hang your certificate up there loud and proud. At some point down the road people are going look CAIB or CIP or whatever the same way as they do a CA. Everybody knows Certified Accountants. They get respect all over the place. We’re working gradually to get that same type of respect for people in the insurance industry. 

ANGUS

The related conversation around that is to change the conversation about price to a conversation about what actually does insurance do and how does it function.

TRACEY

To talk about the value.

JENNY

I think the only people who ever complain about insurance are the people who have never had to have a claim. I’ve had enough claims in my life that I’m like are you kidding. I’d be in the poor house if it wasn’t for my insurance company, you know. Of course they never want to renew me! I’m kidding I’m kidding.

[A big laugh from everyone]

ANGUS

So, what makes somebody motivated to undertake a designation that’s not necessarily a requirement?

TRACEY

It goes beyond just the designation right. You don’t want to stop with the designation because there are lots of soft skills and business skills and all those other things that there’s really no designation for. It’s just increasing your knowledge, right, and how do you motivate people to want to do that?

KERI

I think you have to kind of show them you know, what’s it it for them? If someone is going to do something, well, what do they get out of it? One thing is the confidence that comes when you’re able to speak about a topic. But I think you’re right: it’s hard.

JENNY

And some people will just always be happy to coast.

KERI

Yes.

KAREN

I find you need to make it fun. You gotta have fun regardless of whether it’s a small kid or even an adult. It’s the same thing: you’ve got to make it fun and you’ve got to make whatever you do enjoyable. And a sense of competition helps too. It’s like university. When you learn you have luncheons or you meet at the library and you have a study session. You know a lot of times companies don’t find time for those good environments or have time for people to get together regardless where it is. This means the employers need to look at ways to make it fun, you know, sponsor an evening, you know pick up the tab for pizza coming in. Find ways that you could help people. Everyone needs help. I notice also that it’s not just about the people who are servicing the clients, but are the accountants encouraged or the administration too. You’ve got to look at the whole.

JENNY

Just having something internal to recognise that people have made this commitment to getting some more education, something that their co-workers can see and they can go oh look at so and so you know and I got nothing on my wall!

KERI

Sometimes that motivates.

JENNY

You know something to show that somebody has just achieved 10 hours of continuing education seminars or whatever.

TRACEY

Showing their knowledge.

KAREN

Like knowledge keys.

JENNY

Give it something a little more snappy than continuing education because that just sounds like “wan wan”.

[Another big laugh]

ANGUS

Well, that’s a good thought to end on. Thanks for making the time to talk about this today.

TRACEY

Yes everybody, it’s really really appreciated. Thank you all.