People & Culture Series EP02 - Insurance Coffee House: Building the Enterprise Recruiting Model of the Future for Today’s Talent Market, With Anne Arnold, Director of Talent Acquisition at Farmers Insurance®

Speaker A: The Insurance Coffee House. The place where you get to meet and be inspired by the most successful insurance business leaders from across the world. Hosted by Nick Hoadley, CEO of Insurance Search.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Insurance Coffee House podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Ann Arnold. Anne is the director of Talent Acquisition at Farmers Insurance and it's a pleasure to have and join me on the line today. Welcome to the show, Ann.

Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Speaker B: It's a pleasure and really looking forward to hearing more about some of the really interesting things that you've been doing there at Farmers. Before we get into that, though, I know you're based in Los Angeles, I know it's the start of the morning over there. It's certainly afternoon here in the UK at the moment. What's your coffee of choice for today?

Speaker C: Coffee, uh, of choice is my same coffee every day. I have an espresso machine here at home. Basically a latte, I guess.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, we're different sides of the pond, but I've got the same thing actually today and I'm looking forward to hearing more about everything that's going on there at Farmers, and especially what you've been doing within the talent acquisition division there. To give our listeners a bit of context though, would you mind sharing a bit more about your career journey and what's led you into the role there at ah, Farmers?

Speaker C: Sure. I, like many people in Talent Acquisition, it found me more than I found it. My early career, I worked in the entertainment industry in a totally unrelated position to HR or talent acquisition. And after several years I worked for a couple different film studios here in the Los Angeles area at the corporate level. And, um, at a certain point in my career decided to take a step back, be, uh, a stay at home mom for a little while with my son. And after doing that for a few years, I had decided to go back into the workforce. And I was fortunate enough to interview with somebody who owned a recruiting agency. He was interviewing me for a position in the entertainment industry and we just, we really hit it off. He saw something in me that I clearly didn't see in myself. And he asked me if I would be interested in doing what he does for a living, which was recruiting. And I had never really thought about it and I decided to just take a leap, give it a shot. And it was really probably the best thing I ever did in my career. He taught me everything I owe, uh, he gave me a very good foundation. I did agency recruiting for about six or seven years and then decided I Wanted to work in house a little bit more stability, you know, networking on commission, being part of a company where I could understand and learn the culture and, and sell that opportunity to candidates. So I did take a, uh, position with a real estate investment trust. It was a small company but public and very well funded. And so that was a great opportunity to really learn about working in house and being part of a team. They had previously not had anyone in talent acquisition. They were using M external resources exclusively. So I was able to build the function out from scratch, including getting an applicant tracking system, M, developing the policies, procedures and ultimately hiring quite a few people for the company. I really enjoyed that position. And the person who hired me there, she ended up leaving and going to Farmers. And I think she'd been at Farmers for about two or three months when she called me and asked me come join her there. And um, interestingly, I had never thought about working in the insurance industry. It was just like I came from entertainment and it seemed like a big stretch for me and I had all these preconceived notions of what it would be like working in insurance. But Farmers happens to be very close to where I live. They're corporate headquarters. And I thought I really liked working for her, so I figured I'd give that a shot. So that was 10 years ago. I came over here to Farmers as an executive recruiter. They really didn't have a formal executive recruiting function at the time. So I was uh, again able to build something from scratch. It was really interesting. I got to work, you know, with our CEO at the time and his direct reports and I was able to bring some C level executives into the company and it was just a really great opportunity for me to learn a new industry. And um, when you're in executive recruiting, you get to learn all the different types of roles. I've placed everything from our general counsel to, you know, president of distribution to the head of learning and development, you know, so all different types of roles. I did that for a few months and, and then I was put into a people leader position as a manager managing a small team. Did that for about two years. And then about five years ago I was promoted into the role that I'm in now, which is leading the entire function, um, across the enterprise. All of our recruiting, across all of Farmers, with the exception of executive recruiting, which is done, um, sort of with a separate small group. That's where I'm at now. Thank you.

Speaker B: Well, that's great story and a really interesting point that you make about, I suppose Being in la, there's so many different opportunities there. You've got the film and entertainment industry. Yeah, you've got so much going on. I think sometimes if you're brought up somewhere like near London or if you're in maybe New York, certainly a little place like Bermuda where you've got all these insurance companies, that exposure to insurance from an early age, you know, it can possibly be the career path, but maybe not. So if you're in la, right? Yeah, there's other shiny things.

Speaker C: But you know what's funny is actually my first job in the entertainment industry. I lived in New York for two years. I got my first job in the entertainment industry when I lived in New York. It was with TriStar Pictures. And um, when I moved back to LA, coincidentally the production company also moved back to LA. So I went back to work for them there. But then I sort of stayed in the entertainment industry from that point on. But yeah, when you grew up here in Los Angeles, a lot of people end up doing something in the entertainment industry. A lot of terrestrial industries around it.

Speaker B: Absolutely. In terms of your role there, so you head up a uh, talent acquisition across the business apart from the executive recruiting function. Tell us a little bit more about that. Is that completely nationwide? How many sort of positions are you looking at a year? What's the sort of overview of the TA team there?

Speaker C: Yeah, so I have a very lean team, total of, I think there's 20 of us total on the team and we do cover the entire United States to hiring positions across the board. Everything from like core talent acquisition type roles, which are your corporate function roles, to our high volume customer facing type roles. We hire on average I would say between four and five thousand people a year. But I say the bulk of that is in the high volume space which would be your customer service type of roles, agent facing or customer facing type of roles.

Speaker B: And we're going to come back to that point because I think that's exceptional. 20 in the team in recruiting four to 5,000 people, that's nothing to gloss over. Uh, and we're going to take a deeper dive into that. But before we do, in terms of them farmers as a whole, obviously you've been very, very successful with recruiting. Obviously there's no secret there. What is it about Farmers or what do you think sort of 20, 26, what do you think like the career opportunities are at Farmers for uh, either insurance professionals or you know, non insurance professionals, but with a uh, very successful

Speaker C: and established business, Farmers is doing very well and I think we're really positioned well for the future and there are so many opportunities. One of the things that when we go to a career fair or like a college, you know, career fair type of thing, it's always interesting what people think of when they think of a career in insurance. And we spend a lot of time trying to educate people on the opportunities. I mean, we have everything from IT positions to claims adjusters out in the field to, you know, all of the finance, accounting, marketing. You know, there's just so many opportunities across the board and farmers, like I said, we're poised for growth and we have all sorts of entry level type opportunities as a company. We're focused on developing our workforce. There's so many opportunities, once you're here internally to develop your career, you know, get cross functional experience and, you know, that's really a focus going forward.

Speaker B: Yeah, awesome. So we'll get to it then. 4,5000 hires a year. I'm sure you get a lot more in applications than that. How do you go about recruiting that volume, but also with the accuracy you're doing that, you know, I know the turnover rate's low as well. So how are you doing that? Is there some um, framework or some foundations, some structure to that that you can share by listeners?

Speaker C: Yes, there's no magic to it. It's definitely hard work. But I have a very accomplished team. I think the average tenure on my team is eight to 10 years. I think over the years we've developed our processes to be as efficient as possible. We've started incorporating AI into our um process which has really helped us not only improve efficiencies, but find and um, engage with the most qualified talent for, you know, whatever particular role that we're working on. I think that has helped us continue to do this job, do it well. And you know, clearly having 16 recruiters filling four to 5,000 roles a year sounds, I tell that to people, they can't believe it. But, um, I think, you know, just having a good process put in place, we have an AI solution that is a platform that sits on top of our ATS system, basically, which really helps us find and um, engage with the talent right away. Because to your point, a lot of applicants. Yeah, we probably get, you know, 150, 200,000 applicants a year for these roles.

Speaker B: If we take a step back, what was the first sort of step into this? I know there'll be a lot of HR executives, a lot of talent acquisition leaders who are in that position at the moment, but haven't really started enabling AI. Yet maybe because they're too busy spinning a lot of plates. Right. Doing things manually. What was the first step in that process for you?

Speaker C: Well, we had to identify a platform, first of all, we had to identify what do we need it for. I think, you know, everyone's talking about AI and uh, there's a lot of ways you can use AI in your personal life, in work, whatever. And I think our first step is to really identify, well, what do we need help with, what do we need to augment our current team and our processes. And for us I think it was just the sheer volume of applicants that we get and you know, looking at what can we do to help the recruiters, you know, manage that volume but also find those gems within the number of applicants that we're getting. So I think it's first thing you have to do is really identify what's the need and you know, why would you be wanting to uh, implement an AI solution? And the one that we have does exactly that for us. It basically will look at requirements are for skills. That's a skills based platform. So we have any particular role out there and we have skills that we are looking for and it's basically what a recruiter would do anyway. Looking at a resume, they sort of look through there and find, okay, this person has, you know, they can do pivot tables, are they know, Python or they have insurance skills. Whatever we're looking for, the AI can do that for us immediately. And then it will look at the resume and see if that person has those skills and gives us a better insight into who we should engage with right away, um, so we can find the best qualified talent without them getting lost in the shuffle somehow.

Speaker B: Is that a tool that you've developed internally or is that an off the shelf product?

Speaker C: Yeah, implemented it and when we first implemented it, of course it was new to everybody. We, we had ideas on how to use it, but I think my team in particular has really embraced all of the functionality. In addition to the res, the value of it being able to help us find the most qualified people in the resume pool, it also has automated scheduling and a lot of other automations that all of which help us do our jobs better and quicker. And when you have a smaller team, it's really important that you don't get bogged down in the administrative stuff and that you have time to really do what's important, which is engage with the talent, speak with them and get them, um, into the process as soon as possible.

Speaker B: Say, how was that for you? You know, Big company, big insurance company, like farmers. That must have been a big decision to make.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I personally have always been an early adopter of any kind of technology. I love technology. So when I was, uh, talking to my leadership about how we can, you know, improve talent acquisition, we're always looking to improve, but I really wanted to look at AI, because that looked promising, that this platform is one of them.

Speaker B: And recruiting traditionally, and I think still is the case now, it's very much. And people value liaising, speaking, talking to a human about potentially new job, role.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: It's a massive decision for someone's life. How far does the AI go in terms of the process, in terms of hiring a candidate? How much interaction with AI and how much interaction do they get with people?

Speaker C: Well, my personal philosophy on recruiting, and I don't know if this is because I've been doing it for so long, is that I don't see a way of doing it without human interaction, like a lot of human interaction. So our AI solutions are on the back end. They're internal facing therapy used to help us with our efficiencies and, um, to find the best talent. An example I give people is I posted a position not long ago that within 48 hours had a thousand applicants. And there is no way that I could go through a thousand resumes. I had to close the post down, um, just so I could have time to go through the resume.

Speaker B: That's huge, isn't it? Because rather than it just being a time game, you can just choose best of the best of everyone who's applied.

Speaker C: That increases quality and then, you know, we're talking about, like, the human element. Then we're able to very quickly engage with that person, get them on the phone, have that conversation, you know, um, talk about farmers and really sell the opportunity. Talk about who we are as an employer and, you know, get that opportunity to get in front of the best talent and get them engaged and then move them to a hiring manager. It's been really helpful, I think, in our ability, um, to just find and retain some of the best talent.

Speaker B: Amazing. And it brings us nicely onto the espresso round. Now we're where the questions are short, sharp, to the point. We've both got our Nespressos in front of us. Are you ready for the espresso round?

Speaker C: Okay, the espresso round on the executive side.

Speaker B: So I know that's, you know, not exactly like, where you are in terms of leading talent acquisition, but across the years, what would be your advice or recommendation for someone Coming in to interview there. At Farmers for a leadership position, authenticity,

Speaker C: I think it's so important at all levels, just be your authentic self. And that's kind of, I know a high level, but I could tell anybody anything. That's what I would tell them. With Farmers in particular, obviously we're a high performance culture. I say that. But we also, we like to drive change. We promote curiosity, thinking outside of the box. And you know, also just looking at us, I know we're almost 100 years old, this company, but I feel like we are so forward facing and poised for even another hundred years, you know, in the future. And I think coming into it with an energy and um, optimism and um, ideas for change. That's one of the things that I really, really appreciate about our senior leadership is just their openness and willingness to look at things differently and change and evolve. And that's kind of like the culture that that is promoted here.

Speaker B: And we've really taken a deep dive on how you go about making recruiting a lot more efficient. What would your advice be to other talent acquisition leaders? When it comes to hiring leaders and best practice for hiring really good talent,

Speaker C: I would say human interaction is so important, especially now. And again I say authenticity in your conversations, connecting with people. You know, we're all looking in the same areas, especially when our competitors, we're all looking in the same areas for talent. I think to stand out you do have to be authentic. You have to be able to listen to people and again, just have that human interaction. Just let them know that they've been seen, they've been heard.

Speaker B: And I'd love to know what you find as important when it comes to partnering. We usually ask about partnering with external firms, with recruitment firms, executive search firms. I don't know if you, whether you do a lot of that or if it's different partnerships that you have for talent acquisitions. But what's the most important thing when it comes to a partnership? There is you look to hire great people into the business.

Speaker C: We do occasionally use external resources. Not as much in my space, but I think in the executive side they do. And I think just communication is so important. And partnership, you know, working with agencies is really having a partnership and communicating and a, uh, true understanding of what we need as a company for whatever executive position, you know, they're working on, how it fits into the organization, what the goals are and really just focusing on those types of skills and technology

Speaker B: wise technology that you use to support your talent and hiring processes.

Speaker C: Man.

Speaker B: Um, is there any other technology that you use within the hiring process or across your division that you think's been helpful to you as a tool.

Speaker C: We, uh, actually have Farmer's chat function, which is similar to. It's a generative AI function that we use quite a bit internally. I try to give my team a North Star of the year, or at least some sort of goal that I think we all should hit as a team. And one of the things I've challenged them with this year is utilizing the existing AI functionality that we have at our fingertips. You know, using it to help them do their jobs better, to help them work with their hiring managers and their lives of business and, um, just sharing ideas. And I think that's as far as technology goes again, you know, I think it's there to help us that I think if you master AI and if you understand how it can help you do your job better, I think that just positions you for the future. You need to incorporate to not be afraid of technology. You need to harness the technology to help you do your job better.

Speaker B: Yeah. The key technology in AI that we use as part of our executive, uh, search process is on the assessment side. And the technology that we use basically mimics a partner of ours who's a leadership performance executive. And it's like he's sitting in on all of the interviews. He's not. But that we've run it through the technology that we've created together. And I think it just allows that amplification of really high quality people with an organization. They can be in different places, they can be in more than one place at the same time, which hasn't been something that's been able to be figured out before. So there's a lot of great opportunities and just using it in the right way and using it to benefit the talent acquisition process without replacing the human element which you've touched upon there. I think that's so important and so key.

Speaker C: I really do firmly believe that the human element should never go away in the recruiting process.

Speaker B: Final question of the espresso round. Now, this is a bit of a side question. What's the one lesson your job has taught you that you think everybody should learn at some point in their lives?

Speaker C: Well, as a leader, I would say this job has taught me to listen and support and to be transparent. I think as a professional, I think trusting my knowledge, my expertise, my experience, I have a lot of experience, I think trusting it and not being afraid to use my voice and use my opinion. I always tell people, never feel like that everyone in the room is smarter than you. When I was younger in my career, I always thought, oh, I'm not going to say anything because all these people all know more than I do. But I think trusting your experience and your knowledge, and if you have an idea that pops into your head, say it. Especially if you're in an environment that encourages that. I've learned in this role to encourage my team to try things that are new, to make mistakes and to learn from them. I encourage them actually to make mistakes because I think that's how you learn. So. And, uh, that's something I've developed here. The Farmers, for sure.

Speaker B: I think you make a great point there about. You can really learn a lot, obviously from listening, but also by speaking as well. You can learn, articulate your thoughts and how you're putting things together. I think that's very, very valuable. And, uh, the time has actually flown past today. It's gone really quickly, but it's been a really interesting conversation. Clearly what you're doing there at Farmers is way ahead of most insurance companies at the moment. Final piece of advice, if you would, and if someone would like to reach out, maybe talk to you a little bit more about some of those processes or some of the things you're doing there, or potentially if they're candidates, people interested in working at Farmers, what would be the best way for them to reach out to you?

Speaker C: Oh, uh, through LinkedIn for sure. I do get a lot of people reaching out to me on LinkedIn that are interested in roles or that have, um, applied for. I try to always make the time to respond, but, yeah, absolutely. If anybody mentions that podcast for you and says they heard this and had a question, that's probably the best way to reach.

Speaker B: We'll be sure to post your LinkedIn profile on the show notes so people can hit straight through to you. And, um, thanks so much for your time today. It's been a really great discussion. I really, really enjoyed it. I know we've been speaking for a little while now, so thank you for your time and thank you for sharing so much.

Speaker C: Thank you, Nick. It's been really fun. Appreciate it.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Insurance Coffee House with Nick Hoadley. Join us next time for another episode packed with insights and advice for senior leaders, C Suite executives and ambitious insurance professionals. Stream all episodes@insurance search.com.