Where does the agent team go and what is the result? Ping An Life Zhou Weidong explained the transformation path in detail

21st Century Business Herald Li Zhihong Beijing reports that 2021 is coming to an end. Looking back at the development of the life insurance industry in 2021, "manpower decline" and "industry transformation" have become the keywords of the industry, and the reform and transformation has entered a tough period.

According to the data released by major listed insurance companies, in the first half of this year alone, the number of agents of listed insurance companies has decreased by more than 800,000 compared with the end of 2020, and the previous model of selling products through the "big in, big out" tactics of selling products has become unsustainable. Major life insurers are exploring reforms and transformations to adapt to changes in markets, industries and customer needs.

Where is the team of agents going? How to drive agent channel transformation? What kind of support can insurance companies provide to the agent team? How effective is the current transformation? Recently, Zhou Weidong, director of Ping An Life's basic law team, was interviewed by the media to explain in detail the development path and transformation strategy of the agent team.

Talking about the development direction of future agents, Zhou Weidong said, "It is a firm transformation to high quality", which is the result of the synergy between China's economic development entering a new stage and changes in the life insurance industry.

Zhou Weidong explained that on the one hand, China's economy has shifted from a stage of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development, and has become the consensus of regulators, insurance industries and insurance companies.

On the other hand, as far as the life insurance industry is concerned, the job market and customer needs have also changed dramatically. In terms of employment, China's labor force population is in short supply, the average wage level of society is constantly improving, flexible employment is rising, the previous extensive agent "sea of people tactics" has been unsustainable; in terms of customers, customers' education level and professionalism continue to increase, insurance protection needs are more diversified, especially high-end customers, agents need to continuously improve professional quality and service standards.

In order to adapt to changes in the economic environment, market and customers, the reform and transformation of the agent team is challenging but imperative. "Reform is not achieved overnight, although it is very difficult, we are willing to take the time to promote team transformation and structural optimization to lay the foundation for future healthy development." In this process, we adhere to long-term doctrine, work hard for a long time, and take the road of high-quality and sustainable development. ”

How to understand high-quality development? Zhou Weidong used the "three highs" to summarize the goal of Ping An Life's agent transformation, that is, "high quality, high performance, and high quality".

Zhou Weidong said that high quality is to allow the team to better meet the needs of increasingly young and professional customers; high performance is the premise of high income, only by achieving high income, can we gain advantages in the current fiercely competitive labor market and improve team retention; high quality is the basis for long-term and steady operation of the business.

Ping An's transformation path has attracted much market attention, "Is it possible in the end?" "It's the market's question.

According to Zhou Weidong, in order to achieve the goal of transforming to the "three highs", Ping An Life has adopted three core strategies: institutional classification development, lean management of teams and digital empowerment.

"Classified operation refers to adopting differentiated development strategies according to the differentiated economic development level and competitive situation of different cities and regions; group operation refers to matching targeted operation and support for different agents, such as newcomers, excellent performers, and supervisors, and we have designed different development models for them; digital empowerment refers to creating a series of digital tools to empower the team's daily operation, increase in personnel, training, activity management and other aspects." Zhou Weidong explained to reporters.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the digital transformation of the insurance industry has pressed the "acceleration button". Statistics show that in 2020, banking and insurance institutions invested more than 240 billion yuan in information technology, an increase of 21% year-on-year.

Among them, in terms of "digital staff increase", Ping An Life aims to standardize, facilitate and intelligentize the whole process of increasing staff, and realizes the digital management of the whole process and the intelligent support of the whole link. In terms of digital empowerment of sales department management, Ping An aims to save 90% of the management time of sales department managers and improve the management level of 95% of sales departments, and has developed a series of digital platform tools for the core links of organizational development, business development, skill training and daily management in the operation of departments and courses, empowering department supervisors and front-line agents.

Zhou Weidong introduced that the digital reform effectively helped the performance of the pilot business department to improve, the new business value of the pilot department increased by 5% in the third quarter, and the per capita new business value increased by 12% in the third quarter. In the third quarter, the per capita first-year premium of Ping An Life agents increased by 6% compared with the second quarter, and the diamond team (referring to high-performing agents who met certain assessment standards) maintained a stable trend.

The steady operation of the agent team is inseparable from the supporting policies and resources of insurance companies. Aiming at the differentiated and refined needs of agents, Ping An Life has created the "Three New, Three Strong and One Innovation" plan to guide the agent team towards high-quality development.

According to Zhou Weidong, "three new" refers to "new talents", "new marketing" and "new supervisors". Specifically, "new talents" refers to further improving the standards and requirements for the recruitment of new talents, while also providing better training, treatment and career development support. "New marketing" refers to the establishment of a longer-term mechanism to help the high-performing people to operate for a long time and stably. The "new supervisor" is an exclusive development channel for agents with high personal quality and good performance, encouraging them to build a "elite team" and become a lean military supervisor with strong independent management ability, high team performance and excellent business quality.

Whether the agent team can successfully transform to high quality is also inseparable from all-round and multi-dimensional management measures. Zhou Weidong said that Ping An Life is optimizing management actions and improving the overall quality of the team through the "three strong" measures of strong quality, strong assessment and strong standardization. Among them, "strong quality" emphasizes both quality and growth, and strengthens the control of the quality of the team's behavior; "strong assessment" strictly evaluates and manages the agent, gives play to the selection role of the Basic Law, and eliminates low-performance personnel; "strong standardization" refers to the effective standardization and guidance of the quality of the team's business operations.

At the same time, Ping An Life has created a special recruitment plan through "one innovation", that is, an innovative team development model, targeted training of high-quality executives and high-performing executives, and attracted sales and management elites from various industries to join.

Based on the needs of life insurance reform, operation and high-quality development of the team, Ping An Life upgraded the Basic Law last year. "So far, the new Basic Law has been upgraded, and the effect of helping to increase the number of excellent breeding, stabilize the performance platform, support the operation of the sales department, and enhance the sense of belonging of agents has initially emerged", Zhou Weidong gave an example, "In terms of treatment upgrades, increase support for new people, help new people pay attention to long-term operation, play a certain effect on the breeding excellence and new people retention, 1-2 years of agent retention improvement year-on-year; in terms of care and upgrading, we launched the elderly department manager care plan, and simultaneously strengthened the welfare protection of agents." ”

Zhou Weidong said, "The Basic Law is a long-term policy, and it is believed that with the gradual deepening of the implementation of the new law, the long-term utility of the upgrade will gradually be amplified." ”

For more information, please download the 21 Finance APP