The insurance industry has been around for hundreds (some people would even say thousands) of years. It’s a people-centric industry that relies on finding customers a policy that best fits their wants and needs.
This is something that MJ Insurance knows all too well. The company, which was founded more than 50 years ago, exists to inspire the success of every person they serve—including its associates. This means providing them with the tools and resources they need to do their very best in both their personal and professional lives.
In order to support team members in their jobs, the organization formed its own learning and development department. In the earlier days, training took place through peer-to-peer learning and on-the-job shadowing. But, as the team continued to grow and evolve, MJ Insurance set out to find a new training partner that would help them deliver a seamless and consistent learning experience to their associates.
“We needed a way to provide consistent and effective training,” explained Sarah Hanson who serves as the Learning Development Specialist for MJ Insurance. “Because if you were trained by one person, you may have had a totally different experience than if you were trained by another person.”
MJ Insurance also needed to address another trend that’s happening across the insurance industry. As a whole, a large number of insurance professionals are retiring, which means companies, like MJ Insurance, have to find an effective way to secure important knowledge from their experts and share it with new hires. “We needed a way to take the knowledge of the people who are getting ready to retire, capture it, and then transfer it to the people who are coming in so they can continue to grow and develop,” explained Sarah.
The importance of consistent and effective training
MJ Insurance realized that it was important to find a way to consistently and effectively train new hires who had little to no experience. From there it was also just as important to give them a career path within the organization.
Now with the help of Lessonly by Seismic, MJ Insurance delivers an entire onboarding path to new hires that starts before their first official day with the company. This helps new associates familiarize themselves with the company and the nuances of the insurance industry.
In addition to delivering a consistent onboarding experience to the entire team, MJ Insurance also uses the Practice feature to give sales reps on-demand access to practice exercises that help them hone their skills. This is beneficial as reps learn new concepts and policies that they need to understand. With Practice, new members actually apply new knowledge and concepts without any pressure. “Practice has been a game-changer for our sales team,” explained Sarah. “That on-demand piece was really missing with the tool we used before, and reps really only had one chance to get it. But, that’s not realistic. The more times you practice, the more you gain that experience and confidence.”
And MJ Insurance isn’t stopping there. The company plans to double in size over the next 10 years and has set out to create career paths for all of its associates. This is one area where they’re excited to use Lessonly’s newest product, Skills. “I really see Skills being a huge asset to our strategic workforce planning and career pathing. We’re going to be able to very clearly define the skills our team members need, how to achieve them, and how they can get to the next level to achieve a promotion or growth,” explained Sarah.
The partnership
Lessonly by Seismic isn’t just a software tool for MJ Insurance—it’s an entire training solution and partnership. Sarah joined Lessonly’s customer community, LlamaNation, which gives her the opportunity to connect and network with other Lessonly users.
“I love sharing my ideas with my peers in LlamaNation, whether that be virtually or at live, in-person events, like Yellowship,” exclaimed Sarah. “To be able to develop relationships with people who have been doing this for a long time, share ideas, and learn from each other has been invaluable in my career growth.”
MJ Insurance has also partnered with Lessonly Services to help create and transform its existing training content, which has been extremely beneficial for Sarah as she oversees creating training content for the entire organization that now includes 180 associates. Additionally, other subject matter experts at MJ Insurance can easily load content into Lessonly that Lessonly’s Services team then works with to transform into engaging and effective lessons.
“As a one-woman team, Services has been huge because it’s just me,” shared Sarah. “So, for me to be able to leverage the Services team, send them content, and have them build it saves me so much money and time. And, I know that it’s going to be high-quality.”
The results
Since implementing Lessonly by Seismic, MJ Insurance notes that employee engagement is higher than it once was, which Sarah attributes to the company’s onboarding process. And, from creating an engaging onboarding experience to becoming a member of the LlamaNation community, MJ Insurance has enjoyed the entire journey. “There’s no way I would be where I am today without all of Lessonly and the support we have,” Sarah concluded. “It’s been incredible.”
