Remote work really came into the scene for the insurance industry since 2019, and the trend hasn’t stopped.
In a recent survey by the Insurance Information Institute (III) of employees in the insurance industry, they found “68 percent of participants said they work remotely more than three days a week.”
With that in mind, as your insurance agency grows and moves into the future of technology, you might be considering a move to more remote work opportunities. With remote work comes its own rewards and challenges to overcome.
I wanted to take this opportunity to give you some strategic advice from a business standpoint in setting your agency up for success in a work environment that’s becoming more and more remote.
We’ve been fully remote since I began here at Agency Revolution, and while your agency will likely not fit the “fully remote” bracket, it’s still important to be adaptable for your team to have the ability work from home and have more flexibility—even if it’s just as simple as making one Friday a month a remote workday for your team.
The benefits of remote work for insurance agencies.
Before you can consider the concept of offering remote work opportunities to your team, you need to think about the potential benefits. It not only adds a nice bonus for your team to look forward to, but it also can help your business in the long run. Here’s how.
1. Flexibility and work-life balance.
With remote work comes flexibility, and this is key for team members at your agency to have an even more positive work experience. Whether it’s appointments, taking the kids to/from school, or just needing that quiet time to get work done in peace, we’ve all been there.
This works well for our team at Agency Revolution, where we have our set schedules, but our team being remote means they are able to handle the personal things life throws our way responsibly—all while making sure we are available to our clients and that the ball is not dropped on projects the team is working on.
Providing that flexibility is great, and it means you won’t lose as much productivity if that team member could work remotely and catch up instead of having to take an entire day off to take care of an errand.
2. New talent attraction.
As you work towards growing your business revenue and client retention, hiring new staff will almost always come into play, and having remote or hybrid work options available can be a great selling point to new talent looking to work at your agency.
Offering remote or hybrid work as an option gives your business a cutting edge when adding to your growing team so you can find the right high-performing talent with this competitive perk.
Expectations are shifting for job seekers to have access to more perks like remote work, so it’s worth considering it as a way to bring new team members into the fold and compete with other employers in the space.
Setting your agency up for success in a remote environment.
While remote work sounds great, I’m sure you’re wondering how any work will get done without people being in the physical office. Offering the perk of remote or hybrid work needs to have set standards in place to make sure it’s a mutually beneficial solution for the employee and your business.
1. Remote work policies to put in place.
Setting clear expectations and guidelines from the very beginning is a crucial first step to take when implementing remote work.
The goal here is to set realistic standards that ensure consistency in work performance and accountability to get the job done just as they would if they were working from the office that day.
Here are some ideas to consider adding to your remote workplace policy:
- Team communication standards. Set expectations for regular check-ins and video conferencing meetings to keep tabs on productivity.
- Work hours and availability. Specify working hours for remote or hybrid team members so there is a clear schedule to follow in order to be available to the team and your clients.
- Collaboration and teamwork. Encourage the use of internal communication tools to allow conversations between the team to happen in real time.
- Data security and privacy. Establish rules around handling sensitive client data by following best practices and adhering to your agency’s cybersecurity policies.
- Home office expectations. Set the requirement that anyone working remotely should have a dedicated quiet space with good internet to conduct business without interruptions.
By putting these core pieces of the puzzle in place, you’ll have clear expectations to share with your team to maximize the impact of remote work, with the goal of being just as productive from home as the team would be at the office.
2. Essential technology your team needs.
I alluded to this earlier, but having the right technology solutions are essential to conducting work remotely. Here’s a checklist of technology to consider having in place or available to your team to be successful:
- Headset and webcam. The vast majority of your team are likely client-facing at your agency, so make sure they can be seen and heard! Make sure your team has access to a quality-sounding headset, and bonus points if there are webcams built into the team’s work computers.
- Internal chat system. Your team needs to continue to collaborate, whether some or all are working remotely. We use Slack for instant communications between our team, but you could use something like Microsoft Teams to great success as well.
- Lead generation forms. From new quote submissions to client service requests, your team needs to get access to these as quickly as possible to respond to your clients. Our Forge website platform includes instant notifications for every form submission, so you never miss an opportunity.
- Lead management tools. Your team will need to manage those new leads and service requests, so having a lead management system and process in place is a must. Our Fuse marketing automation platform has built-in Lead Management Pipelines that empower your team to work on leads the moment they come through.
- Live chat solutions. Not only does your team need to communicate with your clients over email and phone, but they also should be available through instant messages, such as text messages and live chat on your website to stay connected. Our Business Texting solution allows you to communicate with clients and leads with one-to-one messaging so your team can respond quickly.
Top strategies to make remote work more productive.
To hit home on the impact remote work can have on your agency and team, I’ll first point to the way Agency Revolution manages to be a high-performing team whilst being a fully remote company. You can take what’s worked for us, and use that as part of your own agency’s strategy for creating successful remote work standards and processes.
1. Teamwork makes the dream work.
The first point is our team. Not to be cliché, but they are who make us who we are as a brand and our position as leaders in the insurance marketing space.
In fact, we just recently hit an amazing milestone of winning the Top Remote Workplaces award for the second year in a row. This goes to show that our team is full of hardworking rock stars who are passionate about what they do.
So, get team buy-in to remote and hybrid work. If you are considering offering this as a perk for working at your agency, ask around and see what the feeling is from others. You could be surprised who might raise their hand and say they would prefer working remotely from time to time.
The second part is our company culture. We value the close-knit ties our teams have (despite being remote), and we celebrate that in the way we communicate and cheer each other on. Whether that’s sharing shout-outs in a team meeting, sending a nice thank-you message, or posting accomplishments with everyone, it’s truly a special place to work.
You still need to have that team spirit, especially when working remotely. There is no one-size-fits-all approach—it needs to fit the team you have and work for your agency.
My point is that your agency has its own unique team and work culture. The way you weave remote work into the mix needs to take all of that into consideration first and foremost to make sure it’s a success.
2. We set high standards for a reason.
When we train new employees, we always review our core fundamentals that we live and work by here at Agency Revolution. Much like my mention of creating standards, we’ve done the same, and we set expectations from the beginning on how to help our team be successful in their role whilst working remotely.
- Follow the process. We create clearly defined steps to approach our projects, and it’s important for our team to know the process—and how to adapt it should the need arise.
- Be an effective communicator. Whether we are communicating with each other or one of our clients, we put the focus on listening and collaborating to not leave room for speculation or misunderstandings.
- Practice efficient time management and be accountable. By showing respect for others’ time and meeting deadlines, we can ensure the team or clients are not impacted.
- Stay curious and think critically. We encourage our team to ask questions and apply critical thinking to solving problems and managing projects.
- Have a positive attitude and participate. Our company culture is built around positivity, and we push that notion forward in the work we do, plus we take teamwork seriously here to be fully present for our team and clients.
I believe these core fundamentals can be used by any business, including yours, in building effective remote work standards.
Is your agency ready to take on remote work?
Now that you have these tips and tricks behind what makes a successful remote workplace, try putting a strategy into action to make it a reality. Like the recent draw to AI, I can see more and more agencies begin to look toward remote and hybrid work options, and you’ll want to at least have a plan in place to see if the concept can become a reality.
Remember, there is not a single right way to do remote work, but there are best practices to follow to make sure productivity and efficiency are maintained.
Hopefully, this insight from outside of the scope of an independent agency has given you some food for thought on the subject of remote work so you can make it…well, work! By the way, if you are interested in modernizing your agency through technology solutions, I think you’ll find this article on Investing in Technology helpful.
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