The Insurity/Microsoft "Millennials in Insurance Survey 2008," conducted by Washington, D.C.-based KRC Research, found that not only are millennials expecting to use newer, more innovative technologies in the workplace — such as company portals, instant messaging, and virtual meetings — but also have heightened expectations as to how insurance companies should interact with them as consumers – such as the ability to view their full accounts online, access web-based support, and instant message agents directly.
"This is an industry still struggling with ‘green screens' on desks, legacy mainframes in the back office, and an employee population rapidly approaching retirement age," said Bill Hartnett, U.S. insurance industry solutions director for Microsoft Corp. "Insurance companies face serious challenges in attracting millennials into their workforces and interacting with them as consumers. We believe technology can play a constructive role in addressing these issues."
Millennials as insurance workers
As expected, millennials who were queried in the Insurity/Microsoft "Millennials in Insurance Survey 2008" reported using a wide variety of technology tools in their day-to-day lives, including social networking sites (77 percent), instant messaging (71 percent), Wikis (59 percent), and more. Nearly one-third subscribed to more than one social networking site – 64 percent frequented them daily; and 17 percent reported spending 30 minutes to an hour each visit.
"Millennials have been marinated in digital technology almost since birth,” said Rob Salkowitz, workplace expert and “Generation Blend” author. “When they come to work, their expectations are shaped by their experiences as students and consumers, and access to social computing technology is a big part of that. Employers should factor in those expectations when trying to recruit, retain, and motivate young workers.”
Because of this proclivity to use technology in their personal lives, millennials who were surveyed had expectations of their employers providing similar technologies for their use in the workplace. These included company-provided PCs (76 percent), mobile/smart phones (48 percent), internal company instant messenger (50 percent), social networking sites (40 percent), company intranet/portals (62 percent), and company-provided virtual meetings (42 percent).
More importantly, particularly for the insurance industry — which is facing a shortage of new workers and nearly 60 percent of its current employees over the age of 45 — 91 percent of millennials stated that being able to work with newer, innovative technologies in the workplace would make them more likely to consider a job opportunity. Other recruitment drivers included the ability to telecommute/work from home (77 percent), flexible work schedules and locations (91 percent), and opportunities to work on collaborative team projects (72 percent).
However, a clear hurdle for recruiting younger workers into the insurance industry is the millennials’ perception of the industry itself, the survey found. Seventy-one percent of millennials want to "work with people their own age;" yet, large percentages of respondents stated that the industry "has older workers" (58 percent), is "old in general" (63 percent), is "not innovative" (53 percent), and has a "poor public image" (65 percent).
"Insurers already face a shortage of qualified staff and the gap that retiring baby boomers will create could be crippling," said Karen Pauli, senior analyst covering the insurance in