“There is no bigger failure than a bored, disengaged intern,” says leader
Last month, global reinsurer Ariel Re introduced a new wave of summer interns to its Bermuda office. Now in its fourth year, the initiative underscores the importance of making the right – and early – investments to secure the future talent pipeline of a market.
So, how is the Bermuda reinsurance talent pipeline shaping up? And what does a great reinsurance internship program entail? Ariel Re’s head of human resources Lindsay Hyland (pictured left) and chief operating officer and chief information officer Gavin Bishop (pictured right) joined Re-Insurance Business to offer their insights.
Understanding the lay of the talent landscape in Bermuda
What marks Bermuda as unique is that it has such a small population and its economy is dominated by re/insurance and other financial services. “We tend to see many of our students planning for, and excited about, a career in the industry,” Bishop said. “In larger jurisdictions, there isn’t the same awareness of re/insurance and the opportunities it provides.”
Hyland noted that Bermuda has several organisations supporting talent at multiple stages of career development. Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies (BFIS), The Association of International Companies (ABIC), and The Association of Bermuda Insurer and Reinsurers (ABIR) are particularly instrumental in terms of their focus on students and interns.
“Students are focusing more on relevant degree courses than ever before,” she said, “and many institutions (including our own Bermuda College) are creating courses that incorporate taking steps towards completing parts of professional designations as part of the university courses.”
Personal experience rooted the development of Ariel Re’s summer internship program as several of its leadership team had participated in internship schemes at other employers. This ensured that the firm had a solid collective knowledge base on which to build a strong initiative.
“We tend to host events for BFIS interns and other industry groups, invite our own interns and try to make it a little different from just a generic ‘this department has underwriters who underwrite’,” Hyland said.
“This year we considered the impact of Godzilla attacking New York from the angle of each of our key departments, from actuarial to infrastructure. This worked really well from an engagement perspective with the students, who asked some fantastic questions, leading to great debate.”
How the internship program has evolved
Bishop and Hyland identified the move to hire a former summer intern as a full-time employee this year was a landmark moment for the team. They noted that, as a smaller organisation, Ariel Re can manage a robust intern summer programme, but can often struggle with having the entry level roles available in which to place them when they graduate.
“This year, everything aligned,” Bishop said, “and we were so pleased to welcome a student back for her first full-time role. Other than that, we don’t really measure milestones per se, although we have assisted many students in their early steps for careers. We try to match student skill sets with business needs and get as much alignment as possible to assist with future career planning.”
What’s behind a successful internship program?
On what an internship entails, Hyland noted that it varies depending on the department and the projects in progress. However, she said, it is very important that interns are engaged in meaningful work and are learning things that give them real industry experience – “there are no ‘counting paperclips’ assignments here!”
“Sometimes, however, students can find themselves looking for extra assignments, so we encourage them to engage with industry exams,” she said. “Our COO teaches ‘delivering insurance services’ from the American Institutes on an annual basis and interns are expected to participate and then we cover the cost of the exam for them.
“This course provides knowledge on continuous improvement initiatives and can be applied in and out of the office by the students. It also provides something to study if workloads permit. A successful experience can be seen when our students progress onwards to other opportunities, or if they finally understand which area they wish to work in.”
The success of any long-running internal program hinges on learning from the failures – and building on the successes – from prior iterations. Bishop emphasized that it’s very important that whomever the intern is assigned to has both the time and energy to teach, train, explain and mentor the student.
“There is no bigger failure than a bored, disengaged intern,” he said. “Additionally, it is very important early in the summer to expose our students to the whole of what we do. Working in one department can have a siloing effect and make it harder for a student to understand how their work impacts not only their team, but the work of the downstream and upstream departments.”
With that in mind, he said, it’s essential to have at least one session where the firm deliberately connects the dots for its students. Finally, it is important that leaders impart the value of all tasks.
“We have been challenged in the sense that sometimes students don’t really appreciate the value of understanding lower value tasks inside out,” he said. “Until automation is completely implemented, there will still be cash to pair, payments to setup and authorise. The world has changed dramatically, but getting to the roots of a process is something that is foundational to understanding the more complex issues.”
