Company Updates

EPIC SYSTEM UPDATE

We reviewed the EPIC transition and discussed how teams are adjusting to the new system. Workflows and BRDs are actively being updated as we refine our processes. The EB team is leveraging CLD’s experience to incorporate key learnings.

A huge thank-you to those who dedicated weekends and late hours to help us catch up—your efforts have made a significant impact. Our top priority remains client-facing items that could impact our service level standards or introduce E&O risk due to delays. While proper file documentation is important, ensuring timely client service takes precedence.

Spotlight on a 10-Year Vision: 3-Year Goal: Move to a single, company-wide system.

SPIRIT GUIDE CHECK-IN

With the addition of many new producers in the past 18 months, this was a great time to assess the Spirit Guide program and explore ways to improve. As a leadership team, we reviewed the process and made some modifications to the quarterly Spirit Guide check-ins.

Quick refresher: Every new, unvalidated producer at CG is paired with a Spirit Guide—a mentor/coach who supports them through onboarding, process understanding, and integration into our operations. Spirit Guides play a key role in helping new producers navigate their roles effectively.

Each quarter, we gather all Spirit Guides to discuss producer progress and identify areas where additional support is needed. This ongoing collaboration ensures our producers receive the right guidance to grow and succeed.

Spotlight on a 10-Year Vision: 3-Year Goal: Invest time and resources to professionalize our approach to people.

Reminder:

If you haven’t reviewed our 2025 Strategic Plan, take a moment to see how our daily work, monthly check-ins, and action items align with our long-term vision. View the plan here.

Each January, we bring CG leaders together to align on our path forward. This year’s Leadership Offsite focused on where we’re headed over the next 10 years—and more importantly, what we need to do now to reach our 1-year and 3-year goals.

The result? Our Annual Strategic Initiatives, which outline key priorities for 2025 and beyond. These initiatives are designed to help us grow, improve efficiency, and reinforce our culture as an employee-owned company.

Key focus areas this year include: ✔ Optimizing our processes now that EPIC is fully implemented ✔ Investing in training and development to support scalable growth ✔ Strengthening our hiring approach to bring in the right talent and set them up for success

🔗 You can find the full 2025 Strategic Initiatives document here: 2025 Strategic Initiatives.pdf

Our culture drives how we achieve these goals—whether it’s acting with a Team-First Mentality, caring deeply for one another, or maintaining a growth mindset. Let’s continue working together to bring these initiatives to life!

EPIC SYSTEM During our recent discussion, we reflected on the team’s readiness for the EPIC migration. We are truly impressed by the dedication and effort our team has shown in preparing for the 2/3/25 go-live date. While we feel as ready as possible, we acknowledge that challenges and unexpected situations will inevitably arise in the first year. A heartfelt thank you goes to everyone who has contributed to the process. Whether reviewing and cleaning data for conversion, evaluating workflows, or participating in various activities, each effort has helped us get as prepared as we can be.   We would like to remind all employees about an important upcoming training session. Derek Avera will be joining us on 1/13/25 at the Eden Prairie office to help prepare our mindsets for the system conversion. We strongly encourage everyone within driving distance to attend in person, though an online option will be available. If possible, we highly recommend attending in person—the more you engage in the learning experience, the more you’ll gain from it.   ‍

Spotlight on a 10-Year Vision:

• Go/No Go decision for a single system. If "Go," select and begin implementation.
• Clean up our data and establish consistent processes and protocols.

  ASSUREX UPDATE Charlie Christensen recently participated in a CEO Roundtable with over 10 other CEOs from different agencies. During the session, Charlie shared insights on how other teams are structured, how they recruit new producers, and how they maintain clean systems. Several organizations discussed conducting E&O audits to ensure their processes are functioning as intended. When issues arise, it’s either an opportunity for additional training or a chance to reset expectations. We’ll be sharing more details during our 1/13 Leadership Offsite and determining what (knowledge) nuggets we’d like to apply in our workflows.   ‍

Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within the Products & Service Category:

• Engage and utilize benchmarking groups.
• Attend segment/department conferences to learn and build relationships with thought leaders in the insurance agency industry.

EPIC SYSTEM

The EPIC conversion remains our top priority for the entire organization. As outlined in our 2024 goals, we’ve committed to exploring a single system to improve decision-making through better data and streamline processes for future business operations. In November, we reviewed the progress of the conversion and discussed how to effectively communicate updates to the team, as well as how to support them in the months ahead.

We also explored leadership metrics to incorporate into EPIC dashboards, such as measuring sales velocity using EPIC data analytics. This idea was inspired by the Data presentation at the Assurex Global Leadership Conference (more on that below).

Spotlight on a 10-Year Vision:

• Go/No Go decision for a single system. If "Go," select and begin implementation.
• Clean up our data and establish consistent processes and protocols.

ASSUREX UPDATE

Tyler Simmons shared an update from the Assurex Global Leadership Conference he attended in October. During the conference, Tyler connected with leaders across the globe and deepened our relationship with Troy Johnson, a multinational leader at Assurex Global.

The conference highlighted the growing importance of segmentation and specialization as agencies scale. Key insights were also shared during the November Sales Meeting to further educate our sales team on the resources available through our Assurex Global partnership.

Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within the Products & Service Category:

• Engage and leverage benchmarking groups.
• Attend segment/department conferences to foster learning and strengthen relationships with thought leaders in the insurance agency space.

In lieu of an Leadership October Update, we hosted the Fall Business Meeting on October 10.

For those who missed it, you can find the presentation here: 2024 Fall Business Meeting.pdf or watch the recording here: Fall Business Meeting-20241010_092746-Meeting Recording.mp4

GROWTH We continued our discussion about growth at Christensen Group. What things are working well as we grow and what things should we build better processes around to support our growth. While we don’t have any immediate decisions from this conversation, we landed on some questions that need more research.  We have built strong partnerships with Assurex Global companies and will use that network to continue to understand how other agencies support new and growing markets.

*Spotlight on a 10 Year Vision_: Adaptive Org Structure to Support Growth & Efficient Branch Operations _

FALL BUSINESS MEETING As a team, we determined key messages for our upcoming Fall Business Meeting on October 10. If you don’t have an invite, please ask Laura Wilde to forward it to you. We’re excited to share updates on CG’s Performance, progress towards the 10 year vision and 2024 initiatives, EPIC project updates and kickoff the 2024 Annual Review process. 

GROWTH We had an open discussion about growth at Christensen Group. What things are working well as we grow and what things should we build better processes around to support our growth. While we don’t have any immediate decisions from this conversation, we decided to bring the topic back to our September meeting. We’ll revisit again with more framework around sales, new markets, carrier relationships and employee onboarding.

*Spotlight on a 10 Year Vision_: Adaptive Org Structure to Support Growth & Efficient Branch Operations _

THE LAB UPDATE Each department leadership team will meet with The Lab to discuss findings on our Phase 1 work with the lab. This includes reviewing process maps and understanding where there is room for process improvements. Our goal is to understand what’s possible through both EPIC workflows and future automations. If we decide to explore an automated workflow, we’d likely pause on doing this work until after EPIC go-live. This is intentional to ensure we don’t add too much work and extra meetings during an already busy renewal season and EPIC project timeline.

*Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within Operations category: Clean up our data and create consistent process and protocol.

ASSUREX UPDATE Ashley Kellerman, Kyle Simmons and Sam Olinger provided an update from the Assurex Operations conference they attended in June. Through the conference, they were able to learn about security practices, find other agencies to learn from in our EPIC transition and explore cultural and developmental tools used at other agencies. Sam Olinger presented on career pathing and development at Christensen Group. Sam recently shared the presentation with all the leaders at CG and you can expect an update from your manager on development opportunities in your area. *Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within Products & Service category: _Assurex: Engage and utilize benchmarking groups, attend segment/department conferences to learn and build relationships with insurance agency thought leaders. _

ARDELLE UPDATE We discussed our nominees at the June Leadership meeting. We were thrilled with the amount of meaningful submissions and it was a difficult decision to make for the Leadership team. We can’t wait to celebrate all the nominees on the July 25 State of CG meeting. We will announce the winners during the meeting!   *Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within People & Culture category: Launch a Service Recognition Incentive (to align with Sales Growth/Recognition incentives).

ASSUREX UPDATE Lynn Pettis and Tony Larson provided an update from the Assurex Private Client conference they attended in April. Through the conference, they were able to find a partner agency to assist with Florida placements, and resources available for difficult markets in California and Colorado.

Lynn & Tony will be sharing more specific and relevant information to the Personal Lines department.

This conference checked off two 2024 Initiatives! *Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within Market & Customers category: Find new markets in hard-to-place locations (FL, CA, CO, WY, TX). *Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within Products & Service category: _Assurex: Engage and utilize benchmarking groups, attend segment/department conferences to learn and build relationships with insurance agency thought leaders. _

MOCK STATEMENT Are you going to receive your first statement on Wednesday or need a refresher on how to read it? Check out this knowledge center article: ESOP Mock Statement

Our goal is to recruit 6 or more producers a year. We reviewed the 3 producer hires this year. We have a few more producer candidates in the pipeline. We’re confident we’ll reach our 2024 goal by June. We are excited to have already welcomed these producers and apprentices in 2024: David Steenstra, Ralph Solis, and Mark Alt.

We’ll continue to explore candidates and remain opportunistic. As with every producer hire, we are carefully reviewing each candidate to ensure they fit with our service model and CG values.

*Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within People & Culture category:

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We spent most of the Leadership Council meeting discussing the single-system project. We received an update on the Applied Epic exploration from our project leaders, Kyle Simmons, Sarina Khariwala and Linda Jackson.

*Spotlight on a 2024 Initiative within Operations category:

What we’re doing: Currently completing our due diligence before deciding. 

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…If you’re still reading this, thank you. We’re open to feedback on these updates. Share your thoughts with anyone on Leadership Council. Are these hitting the mark? Are you wanting something else? Let us know. 

ASSUREX CONFERENCES Assurex hosted two conferences in March. Employee Benefits Leaders Conference was attended by Kelli Kaup and Eric Svobodny. The North America Leaders Conference was attended by Charlie Christensen.

Kelli, Eric and Charlie provided a recap of their learnings and a-ha moments from the conferences. Our biggest takeaways included:

• Assurex is a network of talented individuals and agencies that are growth-focused and willing to share their expertise.
• The conferences are limited to a small group of attendees, mostly from brokers. Conferences are focused on building connections and fostering relationships to call on when you need thought partners. Each person walked away with a few folks they’ll call on to talk about Operations, Sales, Technology, etc.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a continued hot topic. Some brokers shared how AI is creating workflow efficiencies and automating the manual work. A key point for us “AI won’t eliminate the broker. But brokers who don’t use AI will become eliminated.”

*The above topic aligns to a 2024 Initiative within Products & Service category: Assurex: Engage and utilize benchmarking groups, attend segment/department conferences to learn and build relationships with insurance agency thought leaders.

What we’re doing: We will send 1-3 people to each Assurex conference. People are chosen based on their role and expertise. These folks will make connections with other Assurex leaders and identify opportunities for CG.

After each conference, they will report out their learning to the Leadership Council. This information will allow us to understand the best ways to engage with Assurex and ensure we’re reaping the benefits of this network.

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10 YEAR VISION DOCUMENT & 2024 INITIATIVES We discussed our cadence to review the 2024 Initiatives progress, and Leadership Team owners for each initiative. You can expect to hear updates on department-specific initiatives during your all-department meetings (i.e. State of P&C, State of PLD, EB Department Meeting). In July, we’ll share overall updates at the State of CG.

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RECOGNITION We mentioned at February’s State of CG that we were working on a Recognition program for all non-sales employees. We continued our work on this project and decided on a program that we’re excited about. There are a few details to coordinate before we can announce and launch. Expect news in April!

*The above topic aligns to a 2024 Initiative within People & Culture category: Launch a Service Recognition Incentive (to align with Sales Growth/Recognition Incentives).

What we’re doing: Making something happen!

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SYSTEM UPDATE We discussed general thoughts from the Applied Epic demos conducted earlier this month. We paused the conversation and review on the system until April. This allows our project leaders, Kyle Simmons, Sarina Khariwala and Linda Jackson time to roll-up all department feedback into a final proposal. We’ll discuss in April’s Leadership Meeting.

*The above topic aligns to a 2024 Initiative within Operations category: Go/No Go on single-system - 5/1. If "Go," select and begin implementation.

What we’re doing: Currently completing our due diligence before deciding.    

…If you’re still reading this, thank you. We’re open to feedback on these updates. Share your thoughts with anyone on Leadership Council. Are these hitting the mark? Are you wanting something else? Let us know. 

We discussed the kick off to the "Single System" project. Our goal is to have every department, save QP, all working from one system (CL, PL, EB, Producers, Accounting, Life). Qualified Plans (401k) will remain outside of the system to ensure their client data, which is highly regulated by the SEC, is outside of our system and domain. That said, we do plan to track which clients are 401(k) clients, so we can run better reporting and find cross-sell opportunities from this single system.

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This initiative marks a significant step in our long term commitment to enhancing our operational efficiency and ensuring we have the best tools in place to support our work.

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Over the next two months, we will be conducting an in-depth comparison of the systems offered by two leading companies in our industry: Vertafore and Applied. Our aim is to perform an "apples to apples" comparison of these platforms. This is a comprehensive evaluation to determine which system best meets the needs of our entire company.

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The outcome of this project will play a crucial role in shaping our long-term operational capabilities and, ultimately, our success.

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We reviewed a draft of our 10-year vision and the 2024 initiatives that were provided by managers and teams. Thanks for everyone who has shared ideas! We will be sharing the final copy of the document at our February 29 State of CG meeting.

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We believe recognition is important to motivating individuals and rewarding our team for work well done. We talked about ways we could increase recognition across the company. We brainstormed ideas and decided to continue the conversation in the next month. 

PERSONAL LINES As a follow up to our December meeting, we discussed our approach with Personal Lines. As a reminder, Personal Lines clients are facing challenging times. There is less of an appetite from carriers to write new business. Carriers renewing business are giving major increases, if they decide to renew at all. Our Personal Lines team is staffed with amazingly talented folks. We have an opportunity to win business or plant seeds to win business in the future.   At a recent Sales Meeting, Tony Larson (Personal Lines Practice Leader) reiterated the market conditions and talked to producers about how they might set expectations with Personal Lines referrals. We are open to consulting and advising clients, however we need to understand most clients won’t have options to move now. We believe having consulting and advising conversations with prospective clients now, and then consistently following up when the market softens, is a smart long-term growth opportunity.

2024 STRATEGY PLANNING SESSION We hosted a session on January 22 with all managers (leaders of people) to discuss our 10-year vision for Christensen Group. It was an energizing day to hear ideas and what obstacles we may have to grow our business. On January 23, the Leadership Council met to refine and finalize the 10-year vision and 3-year goals.   Over the next 2 weeks, your manager will be connecting with your team to recap what we talked about and gather your ideas on 2024 initiatives/projects to tackle to assist in achieving the 10-year vision and 3-year goals.   We will host a State of CG in February or March and share the finalized 10-year vision, 3-year goals and 2024 Initiatives. We look forward to hearing from the team what ideas you have!

MN SAFE & SICK TIME We reviewed the additions to our PTO policy with the new MN law going into effect on January 1. We decided that all employees will receive the Safe & Sick time, even those who live in another state. Watch for an email from Alicia Williams in the coming weeks with what this means for you. 

PERSONAL LINES This is no surprise to the team – Personal Lines clients are facing challenging times. There is less of an appetite from carriers to write new business. Carriers renewing business are giving major increases, if they decide to renew at all. Our Personal Lines team is staffed with amazingly talented folks. We started discussing, what if we were to open our doors for more business. Ultimately, we decided this would be a better-suited conversation for the Personal Lines leadership group. The PLD leadership team (Lynn Pettis, Laura Falconer, Tony Larson, Charlie Christensen and Sam Olinger) will be discussing and coming back with a strategy and game plan.

P&C CARRIER APPRECIATION We discussed the P&C Carrier Appreciation event. It was a great success with high turnout from carriers and CG employees. We see the benefit from doing this event every year, because it strengthens our relationships with carriers and it’s a way to differentiate ourselves from other agencies. We explored if we should expand the event to Employee Benefits and 401k. Our initial thought was to host department specific events every year and come together for an All-Carrier event, once every 5 years. We decided to revisit this in the coming months.

2024 STRATEGY SESSION PLANNING & APPROACH Every 3-5 years we’ve done a deeper dive on our long-term vision. In 2024, its time for our leaders to gather to focus on the long-term view of our organization. It’s an exciting opportunity to pause and envision the future state of CG. One thing is for certain – protecting our team and culture will remain a priority for us.   This January we will bring together all managers and Leadership Council members to an offsite to discuss what’s ahead. As an outcome of this strategy session, all employees will receive updates on our long term vision and shorter term goals (2024 initiatives). This offsite will be held in late January and our launch of the 2024 Strategic Plan will be delayed. You can expect to hear more information at the State of CG in February or March. If you have any questions, please ask your manager, department leader or anyone on the Leadership Council.   Currently, leaders are filling out a pre-session survey to help us collect everyone’s input and insight to today’s realities and our future goals. 

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MN Safe & Sick Time We reviewed the additions to our PTO policy with the new MN law going into effect on January 1. We decided that all employees will receive the Safe & Sick time, even those who live in another state. Watch for an email from Alicia Williams in the coming weeks with what this means for you.  

Personal Lines This is no surprise to the team – Personal Lines clients are facing challenging times. There is less of an appetite from carriers to write new business in MN. Carriers renewing business are giving major increases, if they decide to renew at all. Our Personal Lines team is staffed with amazingly talented folks. We started discussing, what if we were to open our doors for more business? Ultimately, we decided this would be a better-suited conversation for the Personal Lines leadership group. The PLD leadership team (Lynn Pettis, Laura Falconer, Tony Larson, Charlie Christensen and Sam Olinger) will be discussing and coming back with a strategy and game plan.   P&C Carrier Appreciation We discussed the P&C Carrier Appreciation event. It was a great success with high turnout from carriers and CG employees. We see the benefit from doing this event every year, because it strengthens our relationships with carriers and it’s a way to differentiate ourselves from other agencies. We explored if we should expand the event to Employee Benefits and 401k. Our initial thought was to host department specific events every year and come together for an All-Carrier event, once every 5 years. We decided to revisit this in the coming months.   2024 Strategy planning session & approach Every 3-5 years we’ve done a deeper dive on our long-term vision. In 2024, its time for our leaders to gather to focus on the long-term view of our organization. It’s an exciting opportunity to pause and envision the future state of CG. One thing is for certain – protecting our team and culture will remain a priority for us.   This January we will bring together all managers and Leadership Council members to an offsite to discuss what’s ahead. As an outcome of this strategy session, all employees will receive updates on our long term vision and shorter term goals (2024 initiatives). This offsite will be held in late January and our launch of the 2024 Strategic Plan will be delayed. You can expect to hear more information at the State of CG in February or March. If you have any questions, please ask your manager, department leader or anyone on the Leadership Council.   Currently, leaders are filling out a pre-session survey to help us collect everyone’s input and insight to today’s realities and our future goals. 

2024 STRATEGY SESSION AND APPROACH Every 3-5 years we’ve done a deeper dive on our long-term vision. In 2024, its time for our leaders to gather to focus on the long-term view of our organization. It’s an exciting opportunity to pause and envision the future state of CG. One thing is for certain – protecting our team and culture will remain a priority for us.   This January we will bring together all managers and Leadership Council members to an offsite to discuss what’s ahead. As an outcome of this strategy session, all employees will receive updates on our long term vision and shorter term goals (2024 initiatives). This offsite will be held in late January and our launch of the 2024 Strategic Plan will be delayed. You can expect to hear more information at the State of CG in February or March. If you have any questions, please ask your manager, department leader or anyone on the Leadership Council.   BEST PLACES TO WORK IN INSURANCE SURVEY RESULTS We reviewed the trends on our latest Best Places to Work in Insurance Survey. We reviewed the upward momentum in some places and discussed some areas where we strive to improve upon. We look forward to share some key points with you during the Fall Business Meeting.  

2024 HEALTH PLAN We discussed our plan for 2024 CG Medical Plan. We will share updates at the Fall Business Meeting. Heads up: Open Enrollment is mid-November for the 1/1/24 plan.   **2024 SALES GOALS ** Tyler Simmons, leader of Producer Council, provided an update on the 2024 Sales goals process. Going forward the sales team will have a larger focus on our CG sales velocity and how each individual contributes to this number. Sales velocity will be used as a common term in sales meetings and check-ins with producers on their personal goals.   Sales Velocity is a metric used by Reagan Consulting to compare an agency's new business against other firms and report it in the Best Practices Study. Expressed as a percentage, sales velocity is calculated by dividing the new business written in the current year by the prior year's commissions and fees. A strong sales velocity metric is 15%.

Assurex

Now, we can share more updates about this secret networking group we’ve been discussing over the summer. We’ve officially joined Assurex. We’re excited to continue our onboarding processes with the Assurex team.

We have been partnered with a Mentoring agency, DeFendis, to introduce our team to the resources now available. Our department leaders are currently learning and understanding the benefits. Each department leader will be sharing information in the coming months. Specifically in P&C, we’re thrilled to introduce our Segment leaders to practice groups (focused groups of sales/leaders in that industry) in the next few months.

We are still early in the process. We will share more as we know more.  

Personal Lines Update

We previewed the email message Bruce will be sending to all Personal Lines clients. All employees received a preview of the message on September 22. This is anticipated to be sent the first week of October.

2024 Health Plan

We discussed our initial plans for 2024 CG Medical Plan. Our final decisions will be made in the next 6-8 weeks. Heads up: Open Enrollment is mid-November for the 1/1/24 plan.

NETWORKING GROUPS
We continue to discuss how we are leveraging the knowledge and network of other large privately-owned independent agencies. Connecting with other strong privately-owned players can support us as we strive to win new business or retain business against the larger insurance brokers (like Marsh, Aon, Gallagher, etc.) We discussed what topics would be most beneficial for us to brainstorm and discuss with other key players. The topics included building out a Segment strategy, Systems, International Placement, AI, and automation.
 
Expect more updates in the coming months on this topic. 

Segmentation
As we continue to grow our segments, we are reviewing ways to network and learn from other agencies. We meet with a partner group that offers segmentation benchmarking and networking groups. We’re currently evaluating if we’d like to join this group.

Training & Development
Each department discussed how we support our team and individuals in their continued growth and development. We believe an employee should own, or drive, their own development. Meaning they should talk with their manager and discuss what’s important to them and what skills they’d like to grow in. We as leaders are here to support, guide and coach. Our Leadership Council conversation was intended to ensure we’re all accountable to creating this developmental-focused culture in all departments.  
 
What does this mean for you? If you haven’t talked with your manager recently about what you are learning or what you want to learn next, speak up. It’s mid-year time and a great time to revisit your 2023 Goals. You can always modify your goals to meet where you’re at now.

2024 Strategic Planning
We are starting to plan for 2024 and beyond. Every 3-5 years, we do a bigger refresh on our long-term vision. In early 2024, after we get through our busy fourth quarter, we’ll spend 1-2 days offsite focused on our long-term plans. This work comes together in our Annual Strategic Plan.

It’s time for one of the best meetings of the year! On Wednesday night, following the meeting, all ESOP participants will electronically receive their 2022 ESOP statement. Expect this around 6pm.
 
Based on past ESOP Meeting Surveys, we noticed there’s an opportunity to better educate you on how to read your ESOP statement. You can find a mock statement here, and it outlines key parts of the statement.
 
Remember the ESOP Statements being delivered are for the 2022 ESOP Plan year.
 
Some of you won’t receive a statement. Here’s common reasons why:

1. You entered the ESOP on January 1, 2023. You are an ESOP participant; however your first ESOP contribution will occur as of 12/31/2023. Your first account statement will arrive during the next ESOP Annual Meeting (in May 2024).
2. You started at CG between January 1 2022- June 30, 2022. You aren’t yet in the ESOP plan. You will enter on July 1, 2023. We will host a “New Member Welcome Meeting” in July to share more information then. Your first ESOP contribution will occur as of 12/31/2023. Your first account statement will arrive during the next ESOP Annual Meeting (in May 2024).

Tuesday, April 25th at 7pm EST. FREE workshop to help you feel more confident CONNECTING, HEALING, and GROWING with Indigenous culture.

This workshop is a MUST attend if
You often suffer from imposter syndrome with your Indigenous heritage, feeling detached, and misrepresented of who you really are.
You’re an ally of Indigenous peoples, seeking to listen, learn, and build connections in a respectful way that values and honors the all
You want to connect with others who are on the same journey as you to build supportive relationships based on positivity, inclusion, and like-minded values.

Sign up here: https://malloryrose.mykajabi.com/workshop
malloryrose.mykajabi.com

Thank you all who attended the Power of Awareness Based Leadership & Decision Making sessions this week. Ramon Pastrano did a great job facilitating the event.
 
There is still time for anyone to join the April 10th virtual session. Encourage others who are on the fence to join for the last session.
 
I’d like to hear your feedback and suggestions for future topics. Please fill out this feedback survey. Your input will help shape future leadership and DEI courses we bring to the team.
 
Unconscious Bias Workshop resources and references:
 
Six Photographers
https://youtu.be/F-TyPfYMDK8
 
Blind Spots
https://youtu.be/BFcjfqmVah8
 
**IAT – Why/how it was created. **
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWa09tUzqf4
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr9xAcWv790
 
**IAT Assessment: **https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
 
Peanut Butter, Jelly & Racism
https://youtu.be/1JVN2qWSJF4
 
Google: Making the Unconscious Conscious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW5s_-Nl3JE
 
**Trusted 10 Exercise: How diverse is your trusted network of people?: **https://tomorrowtodayglobal.com/2019/03/05/whose-in-your-top-ten/

An update on our progress towards the 3 focus areas outlined in our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) roadmap. As you may recall, these three focus areas were created through hearing employees’ ideas during Listening Sessions in 2020. The roadmap was developed to guide our efforts towards creating a move diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace.

Over the past few months, our Diversity Task Force has been hard at work defining next steps and implementing initiatives outlined in the roadmap. We have made significant strides in areas such as:

Have a more diverse candidate slate and hire the best, qualified candidates.

• Designed a program for Women Interested in Sales. Hosted an overview session on International Women’s Day.
• Created a Job Shadow Policy to host individuals interested in learning about a career in insurance. Why did we decide this was a good next step? You can read more on the DEI Page.
• Reached out to 7 community colleges and universities career centers for a partnership.
• Posting entry level jobs at 19 universities and community colleges, increasing our outreach by more than 50%.

Have an inclusive culture.

• Hosted 5 CG Women’s Network events. Next event, April 5, Roundtable Event.
• Added a cultural floating holiday to our company holidays.
• Added pronouns (optional) to our signature templates.
• Providing (optional) Unconscious Bias training for all employees, April 2023. Event Calendar.

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Next, we will focus on defining next steps in our third focus area: **Give back to organizations that support our diverse communities. **We encourage you to share ideas or suggestions directly with the Diversity Task Force or through this feedback channel.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
We discussed an offsite for our Leadership Team. Every 3+ years we meet to discuss the long-term vision and strategy for our agency. The last exercise was in 2019, prior to the pandemic. One of the key decisions from that offsite was hiring a Digital Automation Director. With the hiring our Kyle Simmons, we’ve made huge strides in our internal automation and have ceased some outside partnerships that were a bottleneck to process and expensive to outsource the work. Our next Leadership Team offsite is tentatively scheduled for Summer 2023.
 
We also discussed the ongoing development of our Manager Group. Did you know we have 16 managers across CG? These managers meet every few months to focus on their development and brainstorm issues together. They also meet 1-2x a year for a Leadership Book Club. The next book is Start with Why, by Simon Sinek, which discusses the importance of “sharing the why” in communications to inspire action.
 
Managers also receive 1:1 development experiences such as attending Hanover Business School, attending leadership training sessions locally or nationally, and connect with HR quarterly for support and leadership coaching. 

During a recent Diversity Task Force Meeting, we discussed the hurdles to getting students interested in insurance.

We tried to partner with Career Centers at colleges to present at careers courses or to get in touch with the head of business departments, but quickly realized the career centers mostly limited us to posting our entry-level jobs on Handshake, a job posting site. We expanded where we posted jobs, but we wanted a better connection to students.

We wanted a way to create a more meaningful way to get someone excited about our career opportunities. We thought, a job shadow experience, could be a great way to expose individuals to the vast opportunities in insurance. Whether they pursue a role with us or at a carrier, it would be building the next-generation pipeline of insurance talent.

This is open to high school students, college students or any individual who is deciding to explore insurance roles.

We forged ahead to create a Job Shadow policy/best practice. We also added a simple application/interest form to weed out anyone not truly interested in exploring an insurance job. Such as students only interested in checking a box for a school requirement.

We then went a bit further and added a best practice for our current team to explore job shadows internally. Check that out too! Talk to your manager if you're interested.

So what? If you run into someone interested in a job shadow.
-Read up on the Job Shadow Policy to know what your role is in the progress. -Have them fill out the interest form.
-Get the job shadow experience approved by your manager.
-Don't forget to share names and information with HR if you think this person would be a good hire in the future.

CHAT GPT
Kyle Simmons joined for a group discussion about ChatGPT and the future of AI. While we believe AI won’t impact our business for a while, it does lead us to think about:

• What are low-hanging opportunities to automate or reduce the mindless activities in our workflow?
• If this were to integrate with our Microsoft systems (email, outlook, SharePoint), are we storing data and information to be easily accessible to use this technology?

 
Overall, no decisions were made on this topic. We will continue to talk as a leadership team and with our department leaders about the questions above. Kyle Simmons will continue to be a key partner with business units in conceptualizing ideas and creating solutions to increase operational efficiency.

JUNETEENTH
We discussed how we can observe Juneteenth at CG. This discussion is in response to the recent recognition of Juneteenth as a state and federal holiday. As a company, we believe in celebrating and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of our business, and we are thrilled to announce an additional floating cultural holiday to our list of paid holidays. Watch for more information from Alicia Williams regarding this new paid holiday.

If you missed the State of CG Meeting on 1/24/2023 at 9:00am, you can watch it here.

Recorded State of CG Meeting

DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION (DEI)

We discussed interest in the Diversity Task Force. We have 7 employees who will actively shape our Diversity focus areas and action items in 2023. The Diversity Task Force will first meet on December 7 and will share updates with the Leadership Council.
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SALES TEAM

We discussed how we can review books of business on an on-going basis. How can we ensure we’re serving our clients, taking on the right types of work, placing it in the right markets and not overburdening the team with noisy accounts.  This was a brainstorming topic and there will be more follow up directly with producers this idea.
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STRATEGIC INIATITIVES

We asked each department leader to start drafting 2023 Strategic Plans. 2022 was a year of transformation, an acquisition and huge growth. We challenge our teams to think about how they can settle into the growth from the year and start to normalize the workload and find process efficiencies.

The recording of our Fall Business meeting is ready for viewing.
As a reminder, we meet as a full company four times a year to provide updates on our business.

• January - State of CG. We share initiatives for the year
• May - ESOP Meeting to reveal the last year's share price
• July - State of CG. We update on progress towards our initiatives
• October - Fall Business Meeting. We preview year end results and discuss the employee experience (Benefits, Annual Review, Compensation philosophy).
  

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Rewatch the Fall Meeting

Market Trends – Finding markets

It continues to be difficult to find markets and coverages for some clients. Hurricanes and wildfires, for example, are making placing coverage extremely tough for our Personal Lines teams. We discussed how we can support the team through this period of time.

In Personal Lines, we are hosting a Client Webinar on November 9th to discuss risks and coverage issues in Florida, Colorado, California and Texas. This will be a resource we proactively send to clients to prepare for higher renewal rates. You can sign up to listen here: https://mailchi.mp/c44cade502cf/personal-lines-market-trends-webinar

For all departments, as we are entering a hard market, please be sharing with your manager and producers any struggles you are having. We want to know what things are difficult and how we can help. We’re a team. Let’s come together and solve problems as a team to serve our clients and carrier partners.

Diversity, Equity, and inclusion (DEI)

We discussed a few options to continue on our cultural education. We’ll be sharing more during our Fall Business Meeting in anticipation for 2023.

Diversity, Equity, and inclusion (DEI)
Ross Dahlof, Bruce Christensen and Sam Olinger met with a local hospital Inclusion Officer to learn more about their DEI journey. We found some community partnerships and resources to continue on our journey.

• We committed to learning and growing the diversity and inclusion acumen with CG, starting with the Leadership Council first. In October, we’re going to discuss trainings and self-learning options for our education.
• A reminder to please join as we launch Christensen Group Women’s Network. Our first event is October 12, 9am. We’re excited to create a community of women in insurance and look forward to more events in the future.

Austin Recruiting
We have a focused effort recruiting producers in Austin, Texas. We brainstormed candidates and ways to make warm connections to top talent in the area.  

We are continuing to focus on making technology changes to fundamentally improve our ability to work more efficiently and collaboratively with our customers, our carriers, and each other.
 
Email and Public Folders to Office 365 (Completed)
This was a key step to preparing for laptops.
 
Multi-Factor Authentication (Completed)
We are now more protected against cyber threats.
 
H:\ drive to OneDrive (Starting in August)
We will be migrating all personal files to OneDrive. This will allow us to access our personal files more easily. More to come…
 
Shared drives to SharePoint/Teams
We will be migrating our shared drives to SharePoint; moving away from traditional files shares to make our data more accessible while still maintaining security of our data.

Laptops
When will I get a laptop?
Good question. The laptop project is dependent on all the changes above, but we are working to make these changes happen quickly. Our goal is to deploy laptops in January 2023.
 
Support
We want to hear from you. We want to help you. We want to provide the technology to make your job better. If you have an issue, please submit a ticket to Back. As you can see, we are resolving issues effectively though Back.
 
We appreciate your patience as we work to create a better experience.

Diversity, Equity, and inclusion (DEI)
We reviewed the feedback from the DEI survey in June and discussed what other insurance agencies or companies are doing in the DEI Space. As a result of the conversation, we were committed to two things.
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• Complete more research and meet with other local businesses to understand their DEI journey and ideas for our plans.
• Launch the Christensen Group Women’s Network. Our first event is October 12, 9am. We’re excited to create a community of women in insurance and look forward to more events in the future.‍

Technology Strategy
We are making progress on the Technology journey. We have migrated to Office 365 and rolled out multi-factor authentication. Next up, will be moving to OneDrive and SharePoint.
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As a reminder, the Producer Council exists to protect producer interests that we feel define us in comparison to other agencies/brokers. The council will continue to meet monthly and as needed with the additional purposes of:

• Developing, maintaining and improving our Sales Culture
• Sales Management including talent evaluation and development
• Producer advocacy/representation to agency management
• Planning of monthly sales meetings and annual sales summit
• Review board in the event of an inter-producer dispute

 
While there are no “term limits” to a seat on the council, we will cycle on/off or add/remove seats as deemed appropriate and we do have some changes to announce. 
 
I’d like to thank Will Steinke for giving 10+ years of his time representing the Employee Benefits sales team. He’s played a primary role in the Salesforce integration, Accountability Groups and is everyone’s favorite organizer of the Producer Breakfast. He’s graciously volunteered to continue on with some of those responsibilities. Thank you, Will! 
 
Transitioning on to the Council in the Employee Benefits seat, I’d like to welcome Adam Wynia. Adam has demonstrated his ability to originate business at a high level and brings a fresh perspective to how we are building our culture.
 
In addition, we are adding a seat to the Council and welcome Ali Bowers. Ali has proven herself competent, successful and we are looking forward to her perspective moving forward. 
 
Our goal is to provide transparency into our discussion topics and we post the monthly meeting agenda to the CG Connect website. If anyone has any questions, please see me or anyone on the council.