The insurance industry is facing a talent conundrum. A growing number of baby boomer employees are retiring, with the pandemic accelerating many individual retirement timelines. Efforts to recruit new talent are hampered by millennials’ negative perceptions of careers in insurance. And employers facing an urgent business imperative to digitize need employees who have comprehensive sets of new skills. All of these forces are coalescing into the one thing the insurance industry hates the most—uncontrolled risk.

How does an industry that is inherently risk-averse and change-resistant navigate these challenges? Prudential Financial, one of the largest and most well established and largest insurance companies in the world, is creating a bold path forward.

Prudential is a Fortune 500 company based in the U.S. that provides insurance, investment management, and other financial products and services in the U.S. and more than 40 other countries. With over 50,000 employees, Prudential is addressing the talent conundrum head-on. The company recently joined JFF’s Recover Stronger initiative, a coalition of companies responding to the unemployment crisis by urging other businesses to mobilize as Impact Employers and invest in the financial and career well-being of their employees.

Prudential has decided to forgo traditional hiring and promotion processes that focus on educational credentials and past experience and is instead embracing a skills-based approach.

Focusing on skills instead of pedigree enables the company to ensure that it will have the talent it needs to remain competitive in a digital world. It also helps Prudential create opportunities for a broader and more diverse pool of both internal and external workers—not just those who have traditional business backgrounds.

JFF’s Carey O’Connor recently spoke with Wagner Denuzzo, head of capabilities for future of work at Prudential, to find out more.