I spend much of my time with senior executives from organizations in, shall we say, not the most glamorous fields: community banks, electrical distributors, heartland manufacturers, and, perhaps least glamorous of all, insurance companies. These executives are rightly proud of what their organizations do, and they can get people like me excited about their plans for growth and change. But they have one huge problem that literally keeps them up at night: Young people find their companies dull and don’t have much enthusiasm for a career in their field. I hear it time and again — How can we compete with Facebook or Google for young engineers? How can we attract digitally savvy marketers against Starbucks or Amazon?
Their challenge, in other words, is to make their “boring” companies “cool” — to persuade 20-somethings to join an organization or work in a field that doesn’t exactly sizzle. It’s a worthwhile challenge — indeed, a make-or-break challenge — but there are right and wrong ways to address it. Two recent articles, both chronicling efforts by insurance executives to make their field more alluring to the young crowd, show the promise and pitfalls of changing an industry’s image. They can help executives in lots of traditional fields think about how to battle for talent.
Let’s start with the pitfalls. A front-page article in the Wall Street Journal notes, insurance companies have to make 500,000 new hires over the next few years, as waves of industry lifers retire. Unfortunately, young people “just don’t want to work for insurance companies,” the Journal reports, which has led some companies to develop brash recruiting campaigns. One midsize company, based in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, built a recruiting video around a young actuary dressed as a zombie, to show that “we really like to have fun around here.” At college recruiting events, the company “served huge mounds of freshly cooked bacon” and installed a Ferris wheel at headquarters to entertain newcomers. Meanwhile, one life insurance giant opened an office in New York City featuring “spaces that feel start-uppy,” free beer any time, and weirdly named conference rooms such as “Asteroid Impact” and “Snake Bite.”