Tend to Your Garden: A Vision of Claim Education
BY ANNETTE ROBINSON AND CARL VAN
Claims magazine, pg. 34, Feb. 2003

We must cultivate our garden.
-Voltaire (1694-1778)

John looked at the clock as the claim class was ending. Seeing that it was 5:05 p.m., he asked, “Weren’t we suppose to be done with this class by 5:00? I’ve got gardening at home to do.”

Over the years, we have seen claim managers and trainers use various techniques to develop their claim staffs. Some do a good job, some do a poor job, and some do a perfectly mediocre job. Not from lack of desire, however. Indeed, we have seen managers and trainers completely committed to the task of developing the minds and skills of their claim teams, working countless hours, trying the latest techniques, giving their all … yet, they still know that something is missing.

To those who come to us looking for the answer, we say, “Tend to your garden.”

Seeds of Success
A successful garden requires seeds, of course. In your claim garden, the seeds are the minds of the learners. As in any bag of seeds, you have good ones and bad ones. Even though all have the potential for growth, a good gardener knows that it certainly would be worth the effort to find the best seeds available. Yet, time and time again, we see mediocre seeds, and sometimes even bad seeds, hired because the claim manager did not have the time to invest in making sure that the seeds were the best possible.

What would you say to a gardener who complained that his garden had no consistency? Some plants did well, while others barely grew. If you knew that he had not taken the time necessary to find the best seeds possible, what would you say? Sometimes, we have seen claim people hired after only an hour interview. Sure, all seeds have the potential for growth, but why not start out with the best ones?

Good seeds in your claim garden are not just the strongest claim technicians or the most knowledgeable (which is what many managers focus on completely when hiring). We once worked with a manager who told us his philosophy on hiring: “Look for people who have extensive experience, lots of claim technical knowledge, who like to argue. That way they can get tough with people who won’t cooperate, and won’t get caught up in customers’ emotions.”

Knowledge and experience are valuable elements, to be sure, but good seeds, instead of fondness for arguing, enjoy resolving conflict. Instead of getting tough, they show empathy. Instead of making customers cooperate, they gain cooperation by showing customers how they can help them. In fact, the very best seeds you will ever find are the people with a positive attitude and a desire for excellence, who like learning, and enjoy helping others.*
Take a look at your garden. What is the quality of seed you are planting in your organization?

*See “The Eight Characteristics of Awesome Adjusters,” by Carl Van and Sue Tarrach, Claims, December 1996.

Rich Soil
The next thing you need is good, rich soil. Rich soil in your claim garden is the overall attitude toward training and self improvement. Do you constantly instill a desire to learn into your claim staff by talking to them about claim education and training as positive and essential elements in their success? Do you talk to your claim staff, before training takes place, to let them know why the information is important, and how they will use the new knowledge or skills in their jobs?

Before you send your people to training, are you letting them know that you are expecting them to pay attention in class? That you expect them to come back to you with at least a couple of things that they have learned and are going to try to implement? Or are you sending them off to training with no expectations other than that they need to go and get it over with?

Perhaps, John wants to get the class over with because the training is boring and the trainer has not looked for ways to make the information meaningful, practical, and interesting. It could also be that he is there with no insistence from his manager that he learn something. We have found that the claim people who get the most out of training are the ones who come to class with the desire and expectation of learning something. That is usually instilled by their managers before they come to class.

An outstanding way to get assistance in creating the good rich soil of positive self-improvement is with mentors. Do you have strong mentors with sturdy roots (solid experience) to help you reinforce a learning environment? Do you have mentors with expertise to help newer employees develop their full potential? Do you have mentors who are good seeds themselves?

Fertilization
We once were asked, “Where does the fertilizer come in?” That is quite simple. If you want good rich soil, you must fertilize. It is a smelly job, yes, but we all know how necessary it is if we want to ensure that our garden continues to grow year after year, each time with a fruitful harvest. In our claim garden, fertilizer is change.

It is up to the claim managers and trainers to help claim staff see change as the progress we need in order to keep growing and be competitive in today’s market. Change, on the surface, is not appealing to most. Quite honestly, it smells bad. However, once embraced and indoctrinated into an organization’s culture, it will help that organization grow stronger as new ideas and processes are adopted.

Planting
Now you must plant the seed. Ahh, here is where the actual training comes in. Think of training as taking that seed and planting it into your organization. The success of your organization will be determined by how well you have planted this seed (how well you have trained this person).

We have seen some trainers and managers do this planting well, and we have seen some struggle. To ensure future success and future growth, this planting needs to be just right, or all the hard work up to now will have been wasted.

Good planting means not just good training, but developing a good environment for the training. For instance, some seeds may fall on the walking path and get trampled (when people are not open to learning) or may be eaten by the birds (distractions by disruptive people in the organization who are unhappy and want company).

Other seeds may be planted too deeply (expectations far too high on the new employee, evidenced by excessively long training programs of which students retain about 15 percent). Still other seeds may be left just lying on the ground with only a small chance at growth (when staff is left untrained and forced to educate themselves through trial and error, or rely solely upon “on-the-job training”).

Claim organizations without strong commitments to training are like gardeners who just throw out the seeds anywhere, knowing that most will never take root and grow. They know that some seeds, because of the strength of the seed and sheer luck, will overcome the odds and find a way to embed themselves in the soil and grow. (By the way, this is a huge time-saver for some gardeners. Gardeners with very little time, but lots of money to waste, use this technique quite often.) Do you know any gardeners like this?

Planting the seed is where the gardeners of the mediocre claim gardens stop. Isn’t water a key ingredient to a successful garden? In your claim garden, water is communication. Although realizing that water is a key ingredient, many claim organizations are like gardeners who rely solely on the rain to water their crops. They just let it happen, whenever it happens, and hope it does some good.

Can you water a seed just once? Of course not. You must water your seeds frequently and consistently. What does the communication channel look like in your organization or office? To ensure adequate watering, we need to develop sprinkler systems that meet the needs of our seeds. To ensure solid development of our claim staffs, we need communication systems that are credible, two way, and timely.

A very attentive communication approach can help shape the culture of an organization. We need to keep in touch with what is on people’s minds and in their hearts. In order to protect them from being flooded, we also must make sure we do not over-water our seeds (excessive guidelines, rules, policies, and procedures).

Let the Sun Shine in
Sunlight is fundamental to growing a garden. It sets everything into action. In your claim garden, sunlight is the staff’s knowing that the job is challenging and meaningful. Very few people want to be bored or overworked in their jobs. Most people want jobs that are significant and stimulating.

We once had a student tell us that he did not feel that his job as an adjuster was meaningful. He wanted a job where he could help people, where he had responsibility and the confidence of his employer to make important decisions. He wanted a job where he was the one to decide what he was going to work on that day. We felt very sorry for this claim adjuster.

Imagine a person who has the job of assisting customers, in often extremely stressful situations, who fails to understand that his job is to help people. Or that same person, who has so much confidence from his employer that he has the authority to make decisions of legal liability and accept that liability as he sees appropriate (and can even write checks with the company’s money!), yet feels that his employer does not trust him. Or that he, having the opportunity to decide what he is going to work on and make constant decisions of priority, feels as if he is not in control.

What an incredible waste of a valuable seed. Is it the seed’s fault it did not get enough sunlight, or the gardener’s fault for not taking the opportunity to let some extra sunlight when needed?

Do you only talk to your staff about what they did wrong on that file? Or do you at least once in a while let them know good work is being done? How often do you take the time to talk to each of your staff members about the importance of his job, both to the company and the customer? If you do not provide sunlight in this way, do not be surprised if your seeds stop growing, or even wither away.

Far too often, however, we have seen excessive amounts of sunlight, in the form of high workloads over long periods of time. The danger here is, of course, burnout. Good gardeners pay attention to the needs of the seeds and shelter them from excessive sunlight if long-term damage is possible.

Protection
Finally, a good gardener protects his seeds from severe weather. Harsh weather patterns that mimic the outside forces governing our business – regulators, legislators, politicians, economic woes – can negatively affect our business and employees. Protection from severe weather takes the form of maintaining focus; keeping focus that, in claims, we are customer service providers in a customer service environment.

Regardless of the pressures and high demands we face daily, we have a job to do, and we are going to focus on that job and do it well. That means keeping focused on providing high-quality customer service. That is not easy sometimes. Working in claims can be difficult; it is a very tough job. Then again, that is why we are in it. As they say, “The trouble with opportunity is that it is disguised as hard work.” Are you reminding your staff members, every once in a while, that, amongst all the difficulties and pitfalls, they may face daily, opportunity also exists? The opportunity to do a job most people could not do? After all, if claim handling were easy, we would not need talented people.

Tend to Your Garden
With the proper selection process, solid training programs, good internal communications, a positive attitude toward change, and challenging jobs that include protection from burnout, we can be ready to face the storms that lay ahead. We can grow, meet our customer’s needs, and ensure satisfying and gratifying livelihoods for our most valuable assets, our employees.

Once the garden is grown, what is the benefit? All this work was for the benefit of our customers. We need to nurture and develop our gardens to meet the needs of our customers, to help our employees manage the nervousness and anxiety our customers face. We give our customers the fruits of our labors: a competent, caring and accessible claim organization in their times of need. In return, they give us the opportunity to continue growing our gardens and to start new ones.?

Annette Robinson is a past claim education manager and is now an SIU frontline performance leader for Allstate Insurance. Carl Van is president and CEO of International Insurance Institute ^SM, and is the author of Teaching and Coaching Techniques for Claims Managers, a class offered through the School of Claims Performance. He may be reached at 888-414-8811, ext. 4.