In this rebroadcast episode, ADJUSTED welcomes Chris Moore, Managing Partner at Insure National. Chris shares his thoughts on what employers can do to help attract and retain employees.
Season 5 is brought to you by Berkley Industrial Comp. This episode is hosted by Greg Hamlin and guest co-host Matt Yehling, Directory of Claims at Midwest Employers Casualty.
Visit the Berkley Industrial Comp blog for more!
Got questions? Send them to marketing@berkindcomp.com
For music inquiries, contact Cameron Runyan at camrunyan9@gmail.com
In this rebroadcast episode, ADJUSTED welcomes Chris Moore, Managing Partner at Insure National. Chris shares his thoughts on what employers can do to help attract and retain employees.
Season 5 is brought to you by Berkley Industrial Comp. This episode is hosted by Greg Hamlin and guest co-host Matt Yehling, Directory of Claims at Midwest Employers Casualty.
Visit the Berkley Industrial Comp blog for more!
Got questions? Send them to marketing@berkindcomp.com
For music inquiries, contact Cameron Runyan at camrunyan9@gmail.com
Hello, everybody and welcome to adjusted. I'm your host, Greg Hanlon coming at you from beautiful Birmingham, Alabama and Berkley industrial comp. And I'm excited that you're here to join us for one of our rebroadcast. In this episode, I had the opportunity to talk with Chris Moore managing partner at insurer national. And we talked about what causes some employees to stay and what causes others to lead. And this is another one that's near and dear to my heart as and one of the reasons we picked this one to rebroadcast throughout my career, one of the things that I've had to tackle and manage has been how to bring stability to a Claims Department. And obviously, one of the things that causes some of the greatest struggle within a department is turnover. And so we tackled this topic together. And it was interesting to hear from Chris's point of view, who works on the staffing side, evaluating what those factors are. So I hope you'll enjoy this episode and have a few takeaways of what your organization can do to help your employees stay versus losing them. Well, welcome everyone to adjust it. I'm your host, Greg Hanlon coming at you from beautiful Birmingham, Alabama, and Berkeley industrial cop, and with me is my co host for the day. That yelling, Matt, you want introduce yourself.
Matthew Yehling:Hello, everyone. This is Matt Yaling. I'm coming from St. Louis, Missouri along the banks of the Big Muddy Mississippi River. Welcome.
Greg Hamlin:Glad to have you, Matt. Matt's with MEC, one of our fellow Berkeley companies. So if you've listened to a few of these before, you've heard us team up and do a few of these. And he offers an interesting perspective coming from an excess carrier. So it's always good to have a couple different viewpoints with us for the day as our special guest, Chris Moore, who's managing partner at insurer national. Chris, do you want to introduce yourself for everybody?
Chris Moore:Yeah, my name is Chris Moore. I am based out of Dallas, Texas. So right in downtown born and raised here, and I am one of the owners here at International.
Greg Hamlin:Excellent. We're glad to have you, Chris. The topic we want to tackle today is why do some employees stay and what causes them to leave? And I think people in the industry right now I've seen a lot of change in general. We've talked about it in some of the other episodes, I think the COVID caused a lot of people to reevaluate their priorities. And so we've seen a lot of shifting going on in the industry and outside of it. But I thought we'd start by you just talking a little bit, Chris, about how did you end up in the insurance industry?
Chris Moore:Yeah, so it's actually an interesting story. So I spent about seven years and IT staffing back in my early days. And at the time, my boss is the one that hired me actually met the original owner of international on a plane. And at the time we did it, we did all contracts and contract to hire staffing for different industries across the board. And they had met on the plane and she was looking to grow her business. She was only doing direct hire, and she was like, I want to grow this into a different division and new contracts contract to hire. Long story short, my boss is like, I know what my old boss is like, I know a guy that can might be able to help you out. We connected on Utah of all places we met in the middle because I'm in Dallas, and she's in California. I met for honestly probably a whole day and just kind of got to know each other looked at the vision of what she was wanting to do. You know, honestly, I fell in love with her and kind of urges passion for the industry. She has an insurance background. And yeah, just kind of long story short, that's how I got in and started up our Dallas office in this new division. About a year, year and four months ago now. So it feels like a month ago, but it's been a year already a year. So it's been a fun ride. But that's kind of how I got into insurance. I guess I stumbled upon it.
Greg Hamlin:I think that's how most of us most of us got here. What was your just out of curiosity? What was your background in college? What did you study?
Chris Moore:I played basketball at Tulane University down in New Orleans. I got a degree in media arts. My whole goal was to start my own business. I didn't know what. But basically, I wanted to handle all the communications and marketing and digital stuff myself. I minored in web design. So I wanted to kind of take my web design experience and create my own website, my own business. And but yeah, I didn't, I guess I'm kind of running my own business. I'm not doing any of the marketing or digital stuff. And then I fell into sales, basically my whole careers, how it ended up professionally. But yeah, that's kind of my college background, I guess, if you will. That's awesome. What
Greg Hamlin:did you play in college?
Chris Moore:So I was a shooting guard. So I always tell the story. I was at Tulane two years before Hurricane Katrina for the insurance people and two years after Hurricane Katrina so Orleans was a Have a night and day place after and before. So it was pretty quite, it was pretty crazy time. But you know, it was an experiential. It's needless to say,
Greg Hamlin:I went to Indiana University. So it's a big basketball school and we're not we die for somebody could shoot right now we've had some great, great teams, but we haven't had good shooting in probably six or eight years or so
Chris Moore:which is rare for people from Indiana because that's right. And it drives people crazy
Greg Hamlin:in the state.
Matthew Yehling:Where you're happy with the recent outcome, Chris?
Chris Moore:Well, I can there's two ways I can go about this. My bracket was busted. So no, I'm a massive Texas Tech fan. So because Kansas is in the big 12 I was rooting for them. So I didn't really care who won. But they won. So I guess I was happy about it. But it was a great game to watch. So I was happy about just it was a good game.
Unknown:Yeah. Good game.
Greg Hamlin:I'm always rooting for the big 10 Once we get to the tournament, but we seem to be the conference everybody goes through to get to the championship, but we can't figure out a winner that you want.
Matthew Yehling:Yeah. You'll figure it out. We'll get there. In Chris, for those that listen to this podcast that don't know ensure national, why don't you introduce the what you do for them and what the organization does for the insurance industry?
Chris Moore:Yeah, so International is basically a national staffing firm. Our sole focus is the insurance industry. So we partner with insurance organizations of all sizes all over the country. And basically what we do is we help them find talent for direct hire, contract contract to hire and insurance consulting. So I think one of our benefits that we like to explain to organizations is our whole network of people are from the insurance world already. But we're also trying to find folks, which I think is a big challenge, which we may get into later, but that aren't from the insurance world and get them into the insurance industry to help kind of fill a gap that we're seeing in that world. But yeah, that's basically our sole focus and how we help those organizations and kind of just pitch that as a unique selling point, I guess, if you will, to these insurance companies.
Greg Hamlin:And do you guys do all lines, then?
Chris Moore:Yes, yeah. So basically anything if you're an insurance company, you have an in house litigation team, you have a IT team, if you have marketing, sales, claims underwriting, if you're an insurance company, our sole focus is kind of focusing in that space. That's
Greg Hamlin:fantastic. So now, did you I know you were mentioning you went to Dallas, or that you're from Dallas, and that you so did you start the offices in Dallas? With Yeah, sure. So what was that like?
Chris Moore:Yeah, so I've never I've been in an organization where I was sent to another city to start up with, I guess, the office, but I was more on the sales side. So I was going out getting a business, but the operations, the finances, all that stuff, I didn't see what was going on behind the scenes. So this is kind of my first glimpse into all that type of stuff. I saw financials with that company, and I kind of looked at them. But it's interesting, because I know staffing. I've been through a lot of situations and I've been doing it for a while. So I understand the business. But as you start diving into actually opening a business putting money down of your own money to invest in it to get it is it was a was fun. And but now to see the growth of it. It's actually pretty cool. But yeah, we had an office in California Chelsea on the owner of international started in Florida, she moved out to California with her husband, so we have an office and basically Boca Raton, Florida, kind of Dana Point area in California, and then now Dallas, Texas. So we can come to cover essentially all regions all time zones in the US.
Greg Hamlin:That's great. It seems like everybody's got an office in Florida, in the insurance industry.
Matthew Yehling:What's the most rewarding part of running your own organization?
Chris Moore:You know, it's funny, we started this a year and it's literally December of 2020 is when we opened it. And then I made my first hire in March, just trying to get business. And so my first employee has been here literally months, a little over a month now. And we now have seven in our office. So I think the rewarding part is seeing and my focus with a lot of people that we bring in or you know, younger professionals that have some professional experience, not necessarily in recruiting, it doesn't have to be but I've been through the professional ranks. But also we are seeing kids out of college as well. And training them and kind of coaching them and seeing the progression that they've done in the last year is kind of the most rewarding for me because I like seeing people grow very fast, selfishly, it kind of makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing because they're doing the right thing. And they pick up on things very quickly. But just watching the office grow, how fast it's grown, but also seeing our employees being rewarded for the hard work we put in because recruiting is not easy. It's a lot of time, a lot of effort and you're dealing with a lot of people and so just seeing their growth and seeing them having having fun. I've been in their shoes, so I took pieces I didn't like and I took pieces that I did like and I kind of mold of that and kind of try to create a culture here that we're trying to build and make people wanted to be a part of because I think that's the biggest thing in selling an organization is the culture and do you like working with the people and all that Good stuff. So, yeah, just the growth of the employees so far to date is kind of the most rewarding thing right now.
Greg Hamlin:That's great. So I know, in your industry, you're talking about recruiting and the and the challenges of that we're in the middle of what's being dubbed the great resignation. And so that's been talked about a lot, because there's just people changing jobs. We've even companies with good cultures, especially ones that don't have good cultures are seeing it, but everybody's having to deal with it a little bit. As one whole generation retires. And then we've had a lot, just a lot of changes. In your opinion, how do we get here? How do we get to a place where all at once we're seeing so much movement?
Chris Moore:Yeah, there's a there's a big shift, obviously, the pandemic COVID is what did I think three years ago, I think we can all agree, unless you are leadership, and you had leaders in different regions of the US zoom wasn't really a thing, teams wasn't really a thing. It was in person, you're in office. And I think what happened, the pandemic forced everybody, you know, companies, whether they were ready or not to send everybody home to work remote, there were challenges around it, if you weren't a really good IT company, and could do things virtually, there was a lot of setup and headaches with that. But I think it also on the flip side employees, because they were getting to work from home, which I don't think was a thing really couple years ago as well. Some companies had hybrid models, but the organization's the bigger ones that we've seen today, really were in office Monday through Friday, eight to five. And once those employees started getting to work from home, they started seeing how much flexibility they had working from home. And I think it was, it was something where there's a big shift in that year, two years that we've had and COVID. And basically, employees are realizing kind of a I don't wanna say they have the power, that's probably not the right word. But the cards are kind of in their hands and are saying, Okay, what organizations are going to fit my like my criteria, you know, whether it's work from home, or a hybrid schedule, or better pay is it better benefits? I don't know what that looks like. And I think it's funny, if employers had the answer, we wouldn't be having this issue. But I think that's the gold question. I guess, if you can figure out what these employees want in a job, you can start trying to retain some of these folks and keep them around, but also employ them and make sure they stick. But it's funny, because my previous jobs with Qualtrics. And they're all customer experience and employee experience surveys. So I learned a lot from that industry, just in how important it is for the employee to have a great experience working for an organization, whether it's a remote, you go through a pandemic, are they going to stick around because you know, they liked their manager, they're not burnt out, all that type of stuff plays into the end of the whole scheme of is this person going to stick around? Are they going to leave us and go somewhere else? But it's an interesting conversation, just because I think it's been a big shift in the way who's in control, basically. And right now, I think a lot of employees are in control. And they can determine, you know, like I said, what they're what the requirements are and where they want to go work. And if a company doesn't match it, they have other jobs, they can go look for some Yeah, it's that it's the question that I don't think anybody has the answer to right now. And I wish I did, because I really have to hire a lot of people.
Matthew Yehling:If you could tell the C suite of an org and insurance organization, anything to help retain talent, what would be your top three items, you'd tell an organization for talent retention?
Chris Moore:Yeah, great question. So we've talked to a lot of candidates, and I'm gonna call them candidates, mostly employees. But you know, we talked to a lot of people for opportunities. And I think the three biggest things they're looking for are flexibility. So whether that's a hybrid model, you know, if they're in office, or work from home 100%. Secondly, it's going to be a lot of sign on bonuses, or some type of bonuses throughout their career that they're paid out on, and then also just the exploit experience as a whole. So, you know, working, I think that's the challenging part is working, virtually, you're not going to have that social interaction that face to face, it's all going to be virtual, but how does that person feeling important within the organization, how are they contributing, and seeing their contributions go to work, instead of just being like, you sit in that desk, you do your job eight to five, and then you go home, and you may get rewarded a little bit, but that kind of goes to Hey, the cards in the hand have changed a little bit. And I would say those are probably the top three things that we're hearing from employees that they want in a new opportunity. And I think organizations are having to adjust to that a little bit and coming up with creative ways to kind of keep those people engaged, or more, hire them and put those in offer letters and things of that nature.
Greg Hamlin:I think you hit on some really important things there. And I can think of my own journey to be where I am now. And when I started my career, you know, one of the places I worked I often felt like my employee number I had to log in every day and 0140409 and I felt like that's pretty much what I was to the company was that number and as long as my work product was getting pumped out, life was good. And I was as mobile as a laptop or a monitor. There wasn't really much thought of the fact that I was a human being that had a family and had desires of my own and had ideas that could help them you know, the there wasn't really interested in that and so you know, I think that's a challenge.
Chris Moore:It is and and going back to my younger my first job and just being an ad I always had the mindset of someone could take your job. And I think nowadays, it's flipped, where it's like, now the company is like, we need people to find the right person. And don't get me wrong, someone can always take your job no matter where you're in. But I think that mindset now is like, Oh, if I don't perform, someone's going to take my job, it alleviates some of the stress. And then I honestly think it's gonna help people perform better. You know, if they're gonna get a job, like, obviously, you're gonna perform, but if they're bummed out, when they're not happy, and they're mistreated by their manager, they're gonna they're gonna leave ship really quickly.
Greg Hamlin:I absolutely agree with everything you said there, I think there's a lot that we can do better to make sure people feel like they're part of the team. And we've got some work to do. And that's for sure. Yeah, that's for sure.
Matthew Yehling:I'm, I'm in zero 11, eight man.
Greg Hamlin:We both have scars. Yeah. You know, we
Matthew Yehling:talked about this last year with one of Greg's employees about, you know, in the claims industry, Greg and I both work in claims, obviously, for an insurance carrier. So kind of shift in the discussion to claims that there's a customer service focus that we are adapting more regularly now. So how do we find staff for those positions? And how do you guys help us find staff for those positions?
Chris Moore:Yeah, so it's funny, I've actually, there's some interesting concepts I've heard talking to, you know, different claims leaders to the workers comp, it could be PNC, whatever it may look like. And they're looking at different ways to do service type of roles, because there are certain they're obviously as a service type of role and claims, and a lot of them looking at like social workers, or previous customers, grants professionals that aren't from the insurance world, and bringing them in and helping them get them licensed and all that good stuff to kind of move them into the insurance world. Typically, if you're a CSR, customer service rep or social worker probably could get them a little more money if we can get them licensed. And it was an interesting concept that I had with a few conversations with some companies that we're looking to try to help them with, because they came to us that, hey, we typically just hire a customer service rep or a claims adjuster who has service experience, but we're trying to figure out a way to bring in younger professionals into the industry to kind of help have them mold them into our way and how we want them to fit into our organization or culture, but then only someone that's going to stick around for a while. And I think one of the things that they had brought up to us, which I thought was pretty interesting. Looking at it from a social worker standpoint, it was always having conversations with people, they're always handling some different types of situations, you can always think on their feet, but also just a customer service rep that, you know, may work at American Airlines or something like that, that may want to switch careers and go into this world where they'll train them up on everything, no, get them licensed, it really helped them kind of bring in a diverse group of people and help them train them in the claims world. But on the flip side, as a employer, you have to be able to take the time and understand it's gonna take time to get people ramped up. But you have to put that time in to make sure that someone is going to work out and stick around. Because if you just bring him in and throw him into the fire, you know, people are gonna get burnt out if they have a good work ethic, and they're gonna go somewhere else. And you literally just train them to go and pay them to go be a great class or their company. And it was an interesting concept that I never thought of, but just trying to think of ways to bring people from different organizations or different industries into the claims world and help like the claims adjuster start helping these organizations with different talents.
Greg Hamlin:I've seen that play out in our company quite a bit where we've had some really great success with bringing people and we we hired a flight attendant at one point, she was amazing, we've hired a customer service person from, you know, grocery store that was really known for their white glove, you know, care of their. And so I think those skills are transferable and you're hitting on something that's important because we were facing the other buzzword is the silver tsunami, all the baby boomers are retiring. And there's not enough people to fill those spots if we don't get creative. And I've seen the challenge. And I don't know, if you have Matt, where sometimes if we put a lot of time and energy, we take a model where we're only looking at recent college grads, we can end up putting a lot of time and effort into people that constantly leave. And you know, after three to five years, they're ready for the next thing or they're not sure that this is what they wanted to do. But by the time you've invested a year of your time to train them, you know, it's like now you'd be starting all the way back over. They were just getting to the point they were helpful. So I think you do need to look a lot of different ways and have a nice popery like as a group of different skill sets from different places.
Chris Moore:I think, you know, Chelsea, she started international because as you mentioned, she saw kind of a gap in that world where the talent gap is what we call it on our side is you have the folks who are retiring 30% of the workforce is going to be retiring and Pandemic actually push people out sooner. What I'm just gonna go ahead and retire, you know, there's no I don't know what the future holds. And so that was that number probably increased a little bit, but then you have some of those, you know, the middle generation that are now getting promoted into new roles, but what is that younger generation coming in? And I've been in several industries. Previously before this, I was at Uber where we did trucking for Uber and Uber for trucking and the trucking shortage drivers. It's there's a gap. The younger talent does not want to go be a trucker. The younger talent isn't just falling into the insurance world because it's sexy. It's insurances. So it's, I look at it, I want technology, I want cool gadgets. And I want all this. And, you know, I think they're trying to get there with insurtechs. And, you know, evolving and some of the technology to make it kind of cool some of the marketing with the bigger like state farms and bring in named people that you may recognize on TV, and it connects with that brand. But yeah, it's a challenge to bring in younger people that understand that we want to invest in this person, but also, are they going to be around for 10 years? Are they going to, they're going to leave on us after a year or two. And we just spent all that time, as you mentioned, training them, and now they're gonna they're a great employee at another company. We just lost all this money. So I think that's the it's a challenge. And it's not easy. And like I said earlier on if if I had the answer, I probably making a lot more money and providing a lot of advice and consulting to companies, but I don't unfortunately,
Matthew Yehling:what's your opinion on? I mean, we talked about the great resignations, and silver tsunami, but you know, for those, those young people that we are bringing in, why did they leave? So quickly? You know, what can we do as an organization? And what can other organizations do to retain them? I know, you said, but what have you seen successfully happen, you know, maybe, and then counter that, like, what, what generally keeps people to leave what keeps them staying, you know, in your, in your opinion, and what you've experienced?
Chris Moore:Yeah, so I think a few things. So on our end, you know, as I mentioned early on, we do a lot in the contract contract to hire for the insurance world. So we employ people and place them on a project, they're employed by insure nationals that are actually our employee, we're taking on all the risk and everything of that nature by putting this person on a project, but my job is to keep that person retained for our customer. And, you know, it's not as easy to keep a contractor if you're gonna go to a full time job. And so it's actually a little harder to keep those people interested. So just staying engaged with them, and honestly, communicating with them, not to the point where you're annoying, like a used car salesman, but also not. Um, so you're going to want to make sure that you're keeping in touch with them and giving them updates and feedback from how their performance is doing, how things are working out there. But also engaging them in terms of, hey, if you're doing well, let's let's talk about some type of raise, or a bonus, or some sort of that nature to make sure that their efforts that they're putting in are being noticed, I think the biggest thing working from home, you can feel like you're on an island, and a lot of our jobs are remote. I mean, when you're on an island, you don't know if you're doing great, you don't know if you're doing bad. And a lot of times, you can get A Surprise Phone Call that you weren't expecting, and it doesn't work out. But also on the flip side, you get a surprise call to say, Hey, I took another opportunity. And all you have to do is look yourself in the mirror, like what could we have done better. So to your point, you know, making sure that the employee is happy, making sure that you're doing performance reviews with and making sure you're understanding how you can help them proceed in their career, because I think a lot of it is burnt out, I think a lot of people just maybe aren't happy. But sometimes it is just money. I don't want to say it's always about money. But if another type of job comes crawling, or you know knocking at the door, and it's offering you a lot more money, anybody in the right mind, you're gonna consider that. Um, however, if they're happy in their current job, they like their management, they like the team, they like the work that's being noticed from you know, they're being you know, I guess rewarded for their hard work, it's gonna make it a lot harder for that person to leave. And they'll second guess leaving versus just being like, Okay, I'm out of here, if I'm just a number to your guys points, I'm gonna go somewhere where I feel valued. And any interview, someone's gonna make you feel valid value, they're gonna be like, Oh, you're amazing, we want you here, they're gonna try to sell you come. So when you you're really looking for that type of feedback. If a recruiter calls you and gives you that feedback, you're gonna, you're going to kind of steer toward that if you're not getting it from your current employee, kind of like dating, I guess, if you will?
Greg Hamlin:No, I think you're making a great point. And it reminds me when I was about 10 years ago, I was working for a company that went through a reorg. And my team was assigned in Boston, Massachusetts, so and I was in Cincinnati at the time, so I had to manage them remotely before managing people remotely was a thing. You know, so I'd read a book on I was trying to figure out like how to do this because it was all new. And one of the things I learned early on, and I think it's easy to forget, we really should do it all the time was just build in time, like I would schedule time with my people every week, even if it was just to check in and talk, make the watercooler talk that isn't happening naturally. Make sure it's happening. Because if you don't do those little things, two things happen. You don't build those relationships. But the other thing and people don't feel wanted are part of the team. But I think that other piece you hit on is so important feedback that there has to be a regular channel. If the only time I hear from my boss is when I'm in trouble, then that's not good. But if we're talking every week, and there's already something set up or every two weeks, there's already something set up then when there is some kind of difficult conversation. There's already a challenge channel for that. Yeah, and we're talking all the time anyway. And I'm getting positive feedback also
Chris Moore:broken down when you have a lot of Congress that communication with your employees and when you don't, if you're not going to get that conversation and I think when you build a relationship where it's easier for them to come you say hey, I got a call about This interview, I had an interview with coming, I'm really considering it like, and it's almost like what I wanted to bring this to your attention to I like it here, but is there instead of just being like, hey, peace, I'm out, it's like, at that point, you can go save it and say, Hey guys, we have this employee, that's amazing. She has an offer on the table, she informed me because I have a relationship with my employee, we need to keep her or him. What can we do to do this? And you know, from that standpoint, like, what do you need to stay here from us and we can, I can't guarantee let's go try to make this happen and gives you some time to save that employee versus the other way where you don't communicate with them, you don't have a relationship, and that's when they jump ship and go somewhere else. So I think that's a great point, just having that communication open dialogue with your employees is big, especially in a virtual environment.
Matthew Yehling:I had a similar example where I had an employee and she was she was a great employee was with us for a little over a year. And she she herself had a young family and one had had come from a large carrier and wanted to work remote, where she had been doing with the prior carrier. And at the time, this is pretty COVID We we did not allow remote work. And she left. And after she left I heard through the grapevine that all she was asking for was one day of remote work. And I said, If I would have known that we would have made that happen. But the communication didn't, didn't make its way through the appropriate channels until she had already made the decision and accepted another offer. So I mean, I agree with what Greg and what you were saying, Chris, as well, like, you know, communication is key. So many of our problems boil down, I feel like to communication between the parties when we're talking about workers comp plans, or when we're talking about employee relationship issues and things. So I mean, I would encourage you, if you're an employee out there to like, have that conversation with your supervisor, because as managers, you know, we get into these all these situations where we're texting, or we're emailing our employees, and you're like, did you really touch base with them? You have that one on one conversation with your employer this week, or today? Or when was the last time you actually talked to him? And it's like a Lago message. And now I'm like, yeah, just kind of roll back and like laugh a little bit. I'm like, no, like, you need to call them and have a conversation. And it doesn't always have to be about work. Like you were saying, Greg have a conversation about their life or what's going on in their situation. During COVID. I made it a point to call everyone in my department, you know, I tried to do it monthly, but when you have, you know, 45 people, it was like, Okay, well, I'm spending anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes on each call. So, you know, but I was pretty good about every six weeks, or every eight weeks, I funneled through the list. And I had a checklist of like, who I called, and I put a date back sort of like when I last spoke to him and and had that kind of conversation more more of the Connect conversation than, Hey, what's this month's results look like? Or how many claims that were settling or closing, then that was another conversation. But I think that communication breakdown continues to exist, we need to be better about that industry wide talking with our staff.
Chris Moore:I don't want to say people are lazy, but I think the virtual stuff has caused some laziness and to that, just emailing, oh, yeah, touch base with them. Or if you're in an office, it's like, hey, go talk to Chris or go talk to Matt, and you haven't, then you would go and do it versus just being like how things going. And it's like, it's not a touch point, really, it's less personable. And that's when people just feel like they're on an island. And it's already hard as it is virtually to do stuff like that. But so yeah, it's a great point.
Greg Hamlin:We talked a lot about what what causes people to stay? And what are some things we can do to keep them? And I think you've kind of talked about this some Chris, but just to make sure we've covered it. What are some of the things that you feel like when you've seen people leave? Because obviously you're trying to get people placed different places, when you see people leave? Or you have a company that you're working with? It's had problems with people leaving? What are some of the things that drive that?
Chris Moore:Yeah, so I think one of the big things I'm seeing right now is obviously after the pandemic, or during the pandemic, I should say a lot of there's tons of layoffs, tons of furloughs, tons of people leaving. And what happened was now things are relaxing a little bit, and people now companies are trying to employ. And so they're trying to employ either people back that they let go, or they're trying to find new talent to fill seats. And so what's happening is just because they had a pandemic projects didn't necessarily stop, they may have got delay, but now they have delivery dates. And so what's happening is they're bringing these people in, and they're not hiring enough people. So more work is getting put on the people that they're bringing in, that are fresh hires, and literally six months in their birth time. If there's not enough help here, I'm gonna go to another company that may be a little smaller who the workload may not be there. I mean, even on top of that, if you're making the person go into work, because there are some companies we partner with, like they have to be an office hybrid models or even sometimes hard. So when you're putting that much work on somebody to the point, it causes them to burnout very, very fast. So you know, making sure that you have enough employees to you know, spread out the workload, so that they're not getting burned out because they will leave very fast. Secondly, the thing that always comes up is always pay. If another company comes to pay more, they're going to consider that especially with the uncertainty of the pandemic, um, you never know it could always happen again, who knows what could happen at this point, and so you know, they're gonna take another higher paying off portunity Just because there's still some uncertainty, but also they probably were let go and didn't have a job for a year. So if someone's going to come calling, they need a job to pay the bills. But if someone's going to pay more money, they're really going to consider that opportunity. And then lastly, I kind of touched on it the work from home, obviously, if you break it down and work from home is number one, Monday through Friday, then you kind of go to the hybrid model, if they have a hybrid model, somewhat considerate, if it's flexible to their schedule, and not like you have to be your Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but if you're like, if you do come into the office two days a week, we don't care what days they are, just be in the office, and you have to be there all day, as much flexibility as you can provide that that employee, the better. So I would say those are the three things that I'm hearing, you know, everybody has their reasons, and everybody's probably heard everything. But that's kind of what I'm hearing on my end, just from the industry as a whole why people would leave, you know, from an opportunity, you know,
Matthew Yehling:and a company works with you guys. And you have a, you know, you're basically taking on the employment responsibility, you know, how are you guys getting them up in trained and not overwhelming them? How do you, you know, how do you guys work here, that own problem that you just said, you know, as a problem for new hires?
Chris Moore:Good question. So obviously, a lot of the onboarding still falls on or not the onboarding, onboarding is all on us the training and all that falls on whatever customer we've replaced that candidate. Wait, however, you know, obviously, we do all of our poor, I make my recruiters touch base with them, we have kind of an acronym that we utilize internally that basically the first thing you do in the morning is if you have an employee working on a customer, one of our projects, you're touching base with them, I wouldn't say it's every day, maybe two times a week just sees how things are going any questions, how's the work been? We want to get a pulse on how things are going. And there's certain ways we approach that. So going back to my point, you don't sound like a used car salesman, you're getting annoying, because again, these people are working and they have a job now and they have projects that they're working on. The last thing they want to do is have a conversation with the recruiter that doesn't make sense. But we have ways we approach those conversations and make sure things are going well on top of that we actually have an account, we have a ton of people that right now. And going back to my point where the workload is just being poured over top of them. And people are putting in a ton of hours, you know, it's stressful. So we basically rolled out a bonus plan to them. So any hours that they work over 40 hours a week, they will be incentivized in additional amount of money. That's not necessarily overtime. But you know, because they're you don't really qualify for the overtime piece based on how much they make. But we're just taking money out of our pocket to roll it out to help our customer because, one, I believe they deserve it. But we got to come up with creative ways internally on how we engage and retain our employees, for our customers, because they're relying on that person to do the job. And, you know, don't get me wrong, we still get called surprise calls all the time, no matter how many times we touch base somebody, no matter how much money we pay them that they're leaving for another opportunity. So that's the nature of the beast. And it's always been that way in the 10 years, I've been doing this, it's just how can you save, you know, that law of thirds, kind of that little piece of the pie that you know, that are on the fence? How can you save those people and make sure they're happy? And whether that's money or hybrid model or figuring out to your point? Do you just need a day a week? Let me go to my customer see if they're flexible with that, in today's world, they probably are. So it's a little bigger conversation than what it was three years ago. But yeah, that's that's that's some of the things that we do just on our end from a creative standpoint, or try to
Greg Hamlin:want to think what's hard from a claims perspective. And that you've probably seen this too, is I don't know that people who aren't in the industry really understand that it's a conveyor belt that's running all the time, you know, like it runs, whether there are you're fully staffed or not, the claims are getting reported, and they need to be handled, they need to be investigated, bills need to be paid. And so it's kind of sometimes like that Lucille Ball Chocolate Factory thing where you've got, you know, it just keeps common. And so I think one of the challenges that I've seen on our end is just making sure that we're prepared for the fact that if somebody resigns tomorrow, what are we what's our plan that we're going to have in place so that the rest of the team isn't getting overloaded? Because especially if you're talking about bringing somebody in without experience, or somebody from another industry, it may take them three months to a year before, they're actually really adding help? Because they got to get licensed, they got to learn the industry, or they got to learn the systems. So there's a lot of challenges involved in that man. Is there anything you'd want to add to that?
Matthew Yehling:I think you hit on and I, I do have one question. Just final final question for me. And I know you have a final question to Greg but, you know, we see these industries in claims. I don't see it as often I do occasionally when I get out in an audit, where there's the foosball table and popcorn machine and they bring in doughnuts and they have the basketball court. And I know you're Chris, you're a basketball player. And is that helpful for staff retention? How much of it is the atmosphere like it maybe COVID blew this all up? Because people don't want to be in the building as much anymore but how much is it the environment that contributes to you know, the feel and look and yes,
Chris Moore:yeah, so in my early days, I loved it. I was like, this is pretty cool. Like that's one of the reasons why I left my IT staffing job for a software job because The company I went to Qualtrics had an amazing, it was the coolest office ever seen coolest environment, they had drinks, snack food, all that. And I never had that I was like, Oh, this is an experience I've never had before. What I'm seeing today is the younger generation, they don't care about that stuff, I think the pandemic blew it up, they want flexibility, they want remote work, where they can run to the grocery store, whenever they ask, and still put in their hours, the younger generation works later into the night versus having to get up earlier. So it's kind of like, Hey, as long as you're getting your work done, you know, and you're not putting me in a box where I have to be somewhere eight to five, which is the professional world. And that's what I was raised on is you know, kind of that military, you know, structure type of thing. And that's what I'm known for. But I think these this younger generation coming in is I want flexibility. I want to be able to work from home, I don't want someone just micromanaging me, I guess, if you will, but also someone who's gonna provide me leadership and get me to the next level in my career. And so yeah, it's a I think the office environment kind of blew up a little bit. However, if you do have people coming into the office, no one's gonna want to go sit in a cubicle, it's not going to, you're it's gonna be awkward, you got to have some type of space, that's an I guess, inviting, but you know, our office, we do the snacks and stuff like that, but I don't, I don't do it. Because I think it's going to, like attracts people to our company more and less, probably for me, so I can drink Dr. Peppers all day. And he's, my employees like it too. And it goes really fast. So as long as it's going fast, I know they like it. But I don't think that's the thing that's gonna keep them here to be honest with you. So put it like, yeah, you're gonna have to have some people coming to the office, you got to have some type of cool environment. And if you're going to do a hybrid model, have other people in the office with that person, because you don't want people coming in on Thursday, the only person there on their floor, and then it's like, Why? Why am I here? So make sure there have some social interaction as well. That's great.
Matthew Yehling:What are you building?
Greg Hamlin:I think that's the number one takeaway is we know, we need to look at that and make sure we're being mindful that and of course, is always an issue.
Chris Moore:Especially basketball court. That's what I took away. Great.
Greg Hamlin:Well, Chris, as we wrap things up, one of the things I'm doing this season is there's just I felt like in general, the last three years have been hard for everybody in different ways. And it's hard not to turn on the TV and hear some pretty negative stuff, whether it's you know, wars that are going on or COVID disease, one of the things I wanted to focus on this year is some of the good things that are going on, because I really believe they're out there. We just had our sixth kid and I wouldn't have done that it was intentional, crazy, but intentional. Because I really do believe that this world is worth worth BNN. So, Chris, if you could I'd love it if you could share a memory of a time that you were truly happy. And what were you doing? And who are you with?
Chris Moore:Yeah, so it was probably my honeymoon to be honest with you. I was with my wife. I'm a huge I love the beach. I'm not a cold weather guy being in Texas, oh, and ice in the mountains. And that's not me. I love the heat and the beach and the ocean. So you know, my wife and I went on our honeymoon. And they got they gave me time to get away from everything. I'm usually always on event we get on other vacations, I'm always having my computer, she gives me a hard time I'm at the beach and I'm like computer open and I'm answering emails. And to me that's still relaxing, I'm not in an office, but we're gonna spend time together, get off of your computers. But at that time, that week we had together I literally turned it off. And that's that's hard for me. But I got to spend time with her. It was super relaxing. You know, I came back to a crap show. But it is and that's why I usually try to work. But honestly, just getting away turning off for a while was with my wife, you know, we had probably the best trip we've ever had. And it was just fun in general. And it got away from you know, even then it was there was a lot of stuff going on in the world. And you know, we just got away and had a good time. And we try to mimic that but as we've gotten older just isn't the same. And so that that always on my mind, every trip we go on, I try to that's the bar and we just haven't been able to surpass that yet. And I always bring that up when I talk to people about you know, what's your favorite trip, or this isn't kind of a time where you were happy in your life? Yep. Again, we were honeymooners and just married, so it was even better. But yeah, it was just a good time all around. And that's the vivid memory that sticks in my head. That's awesome.
Matthew Yehling:I Be Where Your Feet are. That's what we would say I had some friends and that's where we push each other. So if you're at work, be where your feet are. If you're at home, beware your feet or if you're on the beach, you know be where your feet are. So I like to manage that. I'm sure someone much brighter than me said it. I just feel the quote.
Greg Hamlin:Hey, man, I'm gonna keep that one I think I don't think we could end it any better. So I think that's a good message to wrap things up with is remember to be where your feet are. And Chris, appreciate you joining us. We had a great conversation today. Just remind people again, if they want to follow us on the blog, it releases on the off weeks