Looking for hospitality career alternatives?
Consider becoming an insurance agent with Aflac

Nobody escaped the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. But if you work in hospitality, it may have hit you differently than it hit others—even if you managed to stay perfectly healthy. And maybe even if you managed to hang onto your job during the height of the lockdowns.

In April 2021 alone, nearly 4 million Americans quit their jobs. Of that number, more than 740,000 came from hospitality.¹ In other words, even the hospitality personnel who were still employed a year after COVID-19 muted the industry were ready to leave, thanks to a combination of health concerns, stress and overwork.

The Great Resignation’s impact on hospitality

Dubbed “The Great Resignation,” this shift reveals a discontent with the terms of employment. That’s particularly true in hospitality. In a 2021 survey of former hospitality staffers, 45% said they wanted higher pay—and one-third said they weren’t considering going back to hospitality.² It’s an industry known for long hours and low pay, driven by people who value customer service over financial gain.

But being of service to people is a valuable, and potentially lucrative, ability that can be useful in many different careers. In fact, transferable skills from hospitality—the ability to connect with people, adaptability and a desire to help others—are the skills that form the bedrock of a sales career with Aflac. The long hours you poured into creating a customer experience for travelers and revelers can work for you financially, and you still get to help people live their lives to the fullest.

Hospitality skills and insurance agents skills are similar

If you become an Aflac agent, we’ll teach you what you need to know—you don’t need to have any experience in insurance or sales. But there are certain qualities of a successful insurance agent that can’t be taught, some of which overlap with the qualities that attract people to work in hospitality, including:

• • The gift of connecting with people. Whether you worked as a bartender or hotel clerk, your success relied upon making others feel at ease. Working as an insurance agent is no different. You’re not just selling a product to your clients; you’re cultivating a relationship and positioning yourself as an employee benefits consultant. That’s hard to do if you’re focused solely on yourself, not on the big picture—something you know from your work in hospitality. “When I walk into the room, it’s not about me,” says one market recruiter working in New England. It’s about the audience. “What’s important to them? Focusing on them and prioritizing their needs above my own leads to a better outcome.”³
• • Adaptability. Anyone who has worked in hospitality knows you need to go with the flow, whether that means handling complaints with a smile or improvising when plans change. That quality serves insurance agents well. On any given day, you might be explaining coverage to a group of warehouse employees, working with a cancer patient to make sure her claim is going smoothly, and reaching out to prospective new customer leads. It’s not a job for someone who wants to do the same thing all day, every day—but unlike hospitality, you have more control over where your time is spent.
• • A wish to help others. “Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side,” writes hospitality entrepreneur Danny Meyer in his book Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business. “The converse is just as true. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you.”⁴ But Aflac agents know there’s more to the equation: When someone is ill or injured, an agent is right by his or her side, helping navigate the claims process. As a hospitality employee, you helped people alleviate their stress, even if just for the duration of a meal or hotel stay. As an Aflac agent, you help alleviate stress by helping people get what they need when they’re at their most vulnerable.

The advantages of becoming an Aflac insurance agent

When you sign up to be an Aflac agent, you’re becoming an independent contractor who is in control of your own schedule. Aflac agents work on commission, so there’s no income ceiling. You can work full time or part time, depending on what your goals are. That doesn’t mean you’re going it alone: You’ll have the backing of a Fortune 500 company and a field organization that will give you the training, resources and tech tools you’ll need to succeed.

“How may I help you?” is something you’re used to asking in hospitality. If you take this step with Aflac, that question can become even more meaningful.