Knowledge transfer key as senior leaders retire: Demographic report

Demographic patterns show an emerging need for knowledge transfer strategies while finding qualified people to fill vacated leadership and management positions due to retirement, according to a survey of industry HR professionals for the Insurance Institute of Canada’s 2022-23 industry demographics study.

“Eight-and-a-half percent of the workforce is expecting to retire in the next five years, particularly in management positions, senior management and mid-level managers,” Insurance Institute of Canada president and CEO Peter Hohman observed, commenting on the report results in an interview with Canadian Underwriter. “With the propensity of people over the age of 55 to consider early retirement, a lot of institutional knowledge is heading into retirement.

“And so there’s an opportunity…for employers to introduce proper succession planning tools to make sure that knowledge transfer is moved on to that next generation of leaders.”

In Demographic: Analysis of the P&C Insurance Industry in Canada 2022 to 2026, the Conference Board of Canada conducted a survey of more than 25 senior HR professionals in the P&C industry during the spring of 2022. The board asked a variety of questions focusing on recruitment and retention challenges, evolving workforce skill requirements, and the presence of specific labour cohorts such as immigrants, BIPOCs and youth in the industry’s workforce.

The report noted the Canadian P&C insurance industry is hiring more entry-level positions, with recruits having one or two years’ experience. But about 8% of the workforce is slated to retire over the next five years, which will bring a dearth of senior management level experience.

“Efforts by the industry to replace an ageing workforce corresponds to an observed larger share of external hires and a continued focus on finding entry-level candidates,” the report states. “This continues a trend that was also seen in the 2017 survey results.

“Over the past two years, 37% of job openings were for entry level roles (roles needing less than two years of experience). This is a four-percentage-point increase from the 2017 survey.

“On the other hand, mid-level positions (roles requiring between two and five years’ experience) saw an eight percentage point decline in the 2022 survey. Shares of senior positions (roles requiring five years or more of experience) also saw a decline of about 2 percentage points in the 2022 survey.”

Given the current composition of the industry and its current recruitment strategies, the question becomes whether the industry has enough qualified leadership experience to replace those who are retiring. Hohman suggested a number of mentoring roles are available for senior leaders retiring form the industry.

“There’s a more senior group that’s going to be retiring in the next handful of years,” Hohman said. “One interesting approach the industry and employers could take is to [call up] someone who may have just recently retired, and bring them back on a part-time basis only to mentor that next generation coming through. They could help [the next generation] move forward in their career.”

Related: Institute report shows P&C industry ‘hiding its light under a bushel’

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a series of articles that will discuss the findings of the Insurance Institute of Canada’s demographics research study.

Feature image courtesy of iStock.com/exdez