What’s happening at Joshu?

Today’s Employees

The shape of the workforce has changed dramatically over the past few years. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed people to look inward and question what they really want out of their careers and lives. The “great resignation” and “quiet quitting” phenomena have set the tone for employees, making it difficult for companies to attract and retain talent. Unfortunately, the insurance industry is not immune to this problem. Some sources estimate that almost half a million employees quit their insurance or finance jobs in the first half of 2022.

To hire and engage a strong workforce, companies need to think more deeply about employee motivation and how they impact it. Self-determination theory, which focuses on the science of intrinsic motivation, provides a framework for thinking about what drives motivation for individual employees, and teams more broadly. Specifically, this theory outlines that employee motivation is fueled by:

• Autonomy
  Do I have the free will I need to make impactful decisions?
• Competence
  Do I have the knowledge and skills to do my job?
• Relatedness
  Do I feel connected to my customer, team, and company goals?

While it’s natural to lean on a strong corporate culture and the HR team to ensure that employees experience these things, more needs to be done. Leaders must think about the whole employee experience, and what each individual is confronted with on a daily basis. Like it or not — and especially in a remote setting — the business tools employees to use play an important role.

Employees are regularly exposed to digital products in their personal lives that offer exceptional experiences and empower them to be more efficient, connect with others, and simply have fun outside of the office. These B2C platforms delight their users and set the bar for how technology, both in the office and at home, should work. However, most B2B tools miss this mark, leaving employees frustrated and unproductive.

For Carriers and MGAs

If you are an insurance carrier or MGA, your team likely uses or has considered using policy administration tools that are slow and monolithic, simply because that’s what’s been available up to this point. Be honest — how many times have you heard your team complain about limitations they experience due to antiquated systems?

• Does your product team feel empowered as the insurance experts to work independently of IT to build insurance products and make changes during the insurance product development lifecycle? (Autonomy, Competence)
• Is your product team able to leverage technology for successful digital implementations of insurance products that support day-to-day transactional underwriting and provide delightful experiences for underwriters and customers? (Relatedness)
• Do your underwriters feel they can effectively translate their insurance experience into practice using their current tools? (Competence)
• Do the policy admin tools your team works with adequately reflect the level of support you want to provide your team to drive towards company goals? (Relatedness)

Joshu Can Help

If the answer to any or all of these questions is “no,” then Joshu may be able to help. Joshu is an insurance product development and distribution platform that touches all the front-end elements of the insurance value chain.

• The Joshu Builder™ enables product owners to quickly and easily build insurance products online without reliance on IT teams for development, aligning capability with business expertise
• The Underwriting Desk supports strong decision-making with optional 3rd party integrations and workflows that mirror actual policy lifecycles
• Joshu’s white-labeled Store approach to digital distribution offers a straightforward way to connect with potential insureds

And the entire Joshu platform provides a modern, friendly user experience to make all aspects of building, underwriting, distributing and buying insurance simpler and — dare I say it — even delightful. Ultimately, Joshu can drive employee motivation and retention by helping your team feel more independent, more capable, and more connected.

Sources:

• Center for Self-Determination Theory US
• Bureau of Labor Statistics