How the P&C industry compares globally on talent risk

It’s not just the P&C industry that’s struggling to find recruits.

Failure to attract and retain talent now ranks as the fourth biggest business risk — its highest ever ranking — in Aon’s Global Risk Management Survey, which gathered responses from almost 3,000 risk managers, C-suite leaders and executives globally.

In first and second place are cyber risk and business interruption. Third is an economic slowdown or slow recovery.

It’s clear these pains are being felt equally in the P&C industry as in other business sectors. Yet the survey’s top four issues eclipsed pressing P&C industry concerns like climate change and AI integration by wide margins.

Talent woes

Failure to attract and retain talent jumped nine spots higher on Aon’s global survey compared to the year previous. The P&C industry’s no stranger to this; its leaders have long lamented the struggle to find and keep recruits.

Globally, 32% of respondents said they’d suffered a loss from attracting or retaining talent in the 12 months prior to the survey. That’s despite 74% of respondents stating their organizations were prepared for this risk.

Pay inflation and employee experience, both keyed to retention, are two leading impediments on businesses globally.

“The global rise in inflation since early 2022 has spurred employees to seek higher pay. In addition, many countries and jurisdictions are implementing regulations around pay equity and transparency, giving employees visibility into salaries,” the survey report read.

In Ontario, the government has introduced legislation that would mandate employers to disclose wages or salaries, as well as the use of AI recruiting tools, on job postings. The impact this could have on recruitment has yet to be seen.

Employee experience has drastically changed in the last few years. Now, 91% of P&C employees report working from home at least one day a week — a far cry from the five day in-office standard three years ago — according to a Canadian Underwriter survey.

And the workplace isn’t done evolving. Despite AI ranking 49th on Aon’s risk management survey, this emerging tech will, without a doubt, change the way we work.

This means recruiters will have to take a fresh look at their employee value propositions (EVPs), Aon wrote. In defining their EVPs, AON suggested companies consider:

Is our EVP aligned with our business strategy?
Does our EVP support our growth ambitions?
Is our EVP helping us to attract and retain the talent we want?
What do HR data tell us about our employees’ needs?
How can we balance employee expectations and business requirements?
Do we have a plan to implement a data-driven EVP?”