Dinesh Weerakkody Managing Director, Cornucopia Lanka Ltd speaking at the Annual National Insurance Congress on the Talent challenges for the Industry observed the Insurance Industry was not attracting the best and the brightest Talent in the market and entering the labour market for the first time and therefore it was in the interest of the industry to get together to rebrand the industry and offer an attractive Employment Value Proposition, Weerakkody observed that a few years ago the Talent scenario was totally different to what it is now, A few years ago Talent was is in short supply, there was shift in occupation and employment from Manufacturing to services.

People could work from anywhere. There were many opportunities so job security was rarely an issue. Then the proportion of younger people in the workforce skewed the priorities towards risk taking, the Inter-generational difference in work force values forced many seniors to go for early retirement and in general, there was a huge increase in pay packets.

But to day after the economic crisis, Job Hopping had reduced drastically because after many many years "the Job" is being valued, off shoring for work has reduced, Talent has become less demanding, people are willing to stay at work beyond retirement to support their households, less promotional opportunities as staff do not wish to leave, companies are moving towards coaching and on the job training over classroom training to save money, lucrative stock options went under water, many firms lost their culture because executives reverted to command and control environment and also because of state involvement, more and more hybrid roles were created at the top to reduce head count and many executives took voluntarily pay cuts to stay in employment.

Weerakkody who shared some research done by his company observed the insurance industry had to be made more attractive to attract and retain the right talent by rebranding the Industry and offering an attractive Employment Value Proposition.

Weerakkody also observed that more and more women would enter the job market to pursue a career and to support their households. In addition, there will be a big pool of retired people willing to work. In conclusion, Weerakkody said make sure to retain your key people because economic/skilled Migration is bound to continue, so have more pay at risk to reward superior performance and have appraisal systems that differentiate high/low performance.