Creating positive work environments is ‘a competitive advantage’ – NFU Mutual’s Nick Turner

It is “a competitive advantage” for insurance companies to create “fabulous environments where people want to work” because of the ongoing need for skilled talent in the sector. 

That was according to NFU Mutual group chief executive Nick Turner, who spoke last week (27 February 2025) as part of a panel at the ABI Conference on the issue of the war for talent. 

Turner explained added that, in creating a desirable environment for staff, organisations had to ”take the mission and the purpose” of their business “very seriously”.

He added: “If you have an organisation that isn’t clear around what it’s here to do and people don’t resonate with that mission and purpose, you will be immediately handicapped.

”People won’t join your business with the same energy and enthusiasm as they might and they won’t seek you out.” 

Turner said that NFU Mutual has put a lot of effort into how its organisational mission “translates into a recruitment proposition”, but emphasised that cultures must be created organically.

”Culture is built up through thousands of little choices that leaders and people right through the organisation make and how they behave to each other,” he said. 

Talent necessity

Creating effective cultures that attract and retain skilled staff is becoming vital for insurance sector firms because of changing demographics. 

Turner was joined on the panel at the ABI Conference by Claire Tunley, chief executive at the Financial Services Skills Commission, who noted that the requirements of the industry were increasingly necessitating that insurers compete for the most effective talent. 

Tunley explained: ”In the last 20 years, the number of high skilled roles in the financial services sector has increased massively, with about thee quarters of roles in the sector defined as highly skilled – which is compared to 52% in the whole economy.

”Over the next 10 years, from the demographic forecast we’ve done, around 260,000 people working in highly skilled roles in the sector are going to leave through retirement and natural attrition.

“In addition, we’re going to need an extra 70,000 highly skilled roles in that time period, so we’re going to be at a deficit of around 300,000 highly skilled roles, which is a third of the sector’s workforce.”

With these projections, it is clear to see why insurance sector firms are keen to attract highly skilled workers to their companies – more demand for highly skilled workers is projected to intersect with less supply, considerably driving up competition.