Our Team at ALTA Springboard

One of the attendees, Amanda, took the time to share her experience.

“ALTA Springboard 2019 was one of the best industry conferences I have ever attended. We had the privilege of meeting with over 300 title and escrow professionals from all over the United States. We sat in round tables and had discussions on hiring and retaining the next generation, analyzing performance metrics, and driving innovation. The conversation that resonated with me the most, was hiring and retaining the next generation. Many of the talented professionals in our industry, which outweigh in numbers those up and coming behind them, are set to retire in the next 10 years or so. With this striking number of talent taking a step back from the workforce, we are faced with a challenge to not only recruit, but to train and retain the next generation. As a millennial, I felt I had a lot to offer to this conversation. For time sake I will focus only on retention. Millennial’s are just like any other generation and every other human around them; they want to feel valued. So how as an industry do we do that? My table, which consisted of 10 individuals from all different companies in many different states, suggested a few ideas.

1. Let the younger generation take on more, trust them to do the job instead holding them back.
   • Create a “Career Map” for different positions in your company so they know where they are at versus where they can go.
2. Reverse Mentorship – instead of having the older generations mentor the younger generations, have them flip flop. The younger generation has a lot of knowledge to offer in regards to technology and making old processes more efficient. Let them use that knowledge to help the company overall.

Through all of the conversations that I had at ALTA Springboard, and collaborating with the other attendees, I realized how blessed I am to work for Pioneer and Yavapai Title Agencies. We really care about our people. All of those team members that are putting in work every day on the front line answering phones, greeting customers, typing policies, balancing a file, examining a title report, creating social media content, meeting with potential and current customers, clearing requirements on a commitment, generating administrative reports, auditing files, and all of the countless other tasks that go into making these companies what they are, thank you. You are doing an amazing job and I am so proud to go to conferences like this and say “I work for Pioneer Title Agency/Yavapai Title Agency” because I work with some incredible people.”

-Amanda Laganosky

Attending ALTA was wonderful because we were reminded to set our team up for success, we need to find, develop, and retain talent from a variety of places. With a sizable part of our workforce set to retire within 10 years, our team had a chance to discuss how to staff our companies to remain competitive. First off, diverse people bring divers ideas, which brings change. It has been found that with every 1% increase in diversity brings 3%-9% increase in revenue. As a company, we need to create an atmosphere where people want to stay. Cross training is a great tool to utilize.  Once they are a part of the company, it is important to track labor metrics to help your team reach their full potential. Track tasks, not orders, per employee. Richard Branson hit it perfectly when he said, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” We also had the chance to dive into customer satisfaction. We were reminded that our front desk is the “director of first impressions.” Consistency is key in this. It is important to pay attention to what customers are saying with their social media reviews. We should never assume we know what the customer wants, and always make them the star of the transaction! Did you attend ALTA? What were your key takeaways!