Changing with the times
More than 25 years ago, Penn Mutual was like a lot of businesses that needed to process large amounts of information in a hurry, and it had a typing pool.
For those not old enough to remember, a typing pool was a group of clerical staffers that would take written notes or voice recordings and turn them into typed letters and memorandums.
They were the word processors of their era. Then the personal computer rendered typing pools obsolete, and those workers had to be re-trained.
Companies have to be able to adapt to shifts in the business landscape, and a big part of that is adapting your workers. Without properly trained workers, there can be no innovative ideas
that push the company forward.
Chappell says keeping employees up-to-date is an ongoing task. It starts when an associate is hired and continues yearly.
Penn Mutual runs a learning center for ongoing employee training that includes classroom, seminars and online training on both new product specifics and new skill requirements. Penn
Mutual associates spend between 20 and 40 hours a year in formal training.
“What we look at for any associate in the future is what are the skills that will be required, what kind of skills will be needed for the job,” he says. “Then the job changes as new technology
comes in and new products are developed, and a different set of skills is needed.”
Chappell says the advent of computers has turned more jobs into “thinking jobs.” More jobs now require a higher level of technological sophistication, along with an increased emphasis on
communication and organization.
Employees need to be trained not only in how to handle new technology but also in the peripheral skills that go along with it. Chappell says that as information moves faster and the variety of the products and services you offer becomes more complex, the workload will require your employees to develop interdisciplinary abilities.
“In some of our new products, we’re guaranteeing the equity values,” he says. “What that requires is for us to have a crossover of skills between the investment people and the actuarial people.
“We’ve told them that we need skills that are not normally in either one of your disciplines. We need a set of skills that transcends both of them. We’ll help teach you on it, and then we’ll
also need you to learn the language and communication of each of the different disciplines.”
If you have versatile people who are willing to learn the tricks of another department’s trade, it will make your company much more adaptable in the long run.
“Collectively, you can be much more effective than if you worked separately,” Chappell says.