Human Resources and Office Administrator FAQs: What to Consider when Applying

If I had to take a guess, you didn’t just navigate to this page for some light reading. You’re probably here because you’re considering applying to or interviewing for the Human Resources and Office Administrator role here at Berry Insurance.

And if you’re planning on making a career change, you probably have lots of questions. Well, we want to answer those questions as effectively as possible for you. Let’s be honest: both job hunting and recruiting can be tiring, and neither of us want to spend a large chunk of time on an interview process just to realize way down the line that it just isn’t the right fit. 

So in this article, we want to tackle some of the main questions on your mind so you can decide if you are interested in the role. Then when you come into the office to interview, we can dive deeper and really get to know each other so we can determine if Berry Insurance is the right fit for you and if you are the right fit for Berry Insurance.

So let’s get into it! 

1. What would a week in this role look like?

As a Human Resources and Office Administrator, your week will be filled with varying tasks including providing team support, developing HR policies, administering benefits, processing payroll, recruiting and onboarding, maintaining employee records, participating in team meetings, keeping office stocked and effective, ensuring organization is meeting licensing and legal requirements, and more. 

But for more insight, we have another resource for you. To dive deeper into the Berry Insurance Community Manager responsibilities, read this article: Day in the Life of a Human Resources and Office Administrator

2. Who are the people I would predominantly be working with?

As our go-to human resources expert, you can expect to work with everyone from the account managers, sales team, marketing team, to the owners, and even the office dogs, Shredder and Rider - it’s basically your job!

You can expect people to come to you with tricky HR questions, issues they want to discuss, or suggestions to make our office work more efficiently. Additionally, you will also be expected to reach out to the entire team to collaborate, seek feedback, and work together to create new office initiatives and processes.

You will be especially working with our owner, Kaitlyn, who will train you on HR and admin duties and will frequently be coming to you so you can work together to make the office run effectively. (You’ll be doing a lot to make her life easier, so be prepared to be her favorite person.)

In addition, you will need to sometimes communicate with our office vendors such as payroll, health insurance, IT, Xerox, shredding, building, phone vendor, internet representatives to keep everything running in ship shape.

3. What is your culture of feedback?

Everyone in our company considers themselves educators. And to be an educator, you have to constantly be learning, yourself. And feedback is a critical tool for learning and growth, so it is something we embrace as a company. 

And this feedback culture is pervasive even through upper management. Our owners Kaitlyn and Chris are constantly requesting feedback on how we can work better as a team, and how they can better run the organization. 

4.  What is Berry Insurance’s culture/work environment?

If you haven’t been able to tell from our website, Berry Insurance is pretty casual, especially compared to other insurance agencies.

Where you might imagine a suit and tie, you will instead usually find jeans and our Berry-branded (and extremely comfy) t-shirts. Our office dogs Shredder and Rider add some comic relief, and there is often something exciting going on in the office like a team lunch or goofy video shoot.

As a small team, we are all pretty comfortable connecting with one another and exchanging banter, jokes, and feedback. We have a culture of learning and often participate in communication exercises, book clubs, or other growth-related activities.

Our kitchen is always stocked up with candy and snacks, and we often bond over team lunches from local restaurants, or team outings (such as chocolate walking tours). 

However, we are also a hardworking team, so for much of the day while we are all tackling our priorities, the office can have some pretty quiet lulls.

5. What is your approach or philosophy when it comes to marketing?

Our marketing approach is a little less “marketing” than that of other companies. Rather than traditional marketing and sales tactics, we take an educational approach. 

To do this, we share all of our insurance expertise through educational articles, videos, and graphics on social media, our website, and emails. We use this educational material to ensure every interaction with those we serve is providing education and value from initial inquiries from prospective customers to conversations with clients we have served for decades.

Insurance is confusing, and often if people are reaching out to us it’s because they were told they are required to get a certain type of insurance, they are confused about their insurance policy, or they have experienced a claim - none of which are especially fun scenarios. So if we can be ready to answer their questions and help them navigate their insurance through educational, unbiased material, they will feel at ease and empowered to make their own insurance choices, and in turn will grow to trust us.

We always try to add a fun and relatable spin on every topic and make our materials easily digestible for those who don’t eat, sleep and breathe insurance every day.

6. What type of technology does your company use? 

While insurance isn’t traditionally the most technologically-advanced industry, Berry Insurance tends to stay fairly up to date on technology trends. 

For instance, our employees work on a hybrid schedule. That means they all have laptops to bring to and from work, and all the proper equipment to work from home. Our phone system is also able to automatically forward calls to employees’ cell phones when they are working from home so they can easily handle client calls as if they were in the office.

Our team also relies heavily on the use of video. In addition to employing a full time video producer who makes educational and marketing videos, our account managers and sales executives are expected to record 1:1 videos via Vidyard to send to clients and prospects, and utilize Zoom for video meetings. 

As a team, we communicate often through Microsoft Teams, and our clients are even able to text us through our main number thanks to a service called Sakari.

Our marketing team manages the website and marketing efforts through HubSpot and posts educational content and updates through social media.

We also work with an IT support company out of Foxborough who keeps us up to date with security and compliance.

We are consistently evolving to keep up with new technology trends, so if you aren’t comfortable with technology, you will certainly get comfortable with it if you take on a career at Berry Insurance.

7. What benefits does Berry Insurance offer?

Berry Insurance offers most of the standard benefits you would receive at any company, including health insurance, vision insurance, a Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA), a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) with contributions from the organization, group term life insurance, vision insurance, long-term disability, and a simple IRA plan. 

Berry Insurance also offers a generous unlimited PTO policy with a minimum requirement of 120 hours off. We know all our team members have families and busy lives outside of work, so as long as job expectations are being met and time off is properly covered, we want our team to have the flexibility they deserve.

To learn more, check out this article: What Employee Benefits does Berry Insurance Offer?

Considering a Human Resources and Office Administrator career with Berry Insurance?

We hope we were able to answer some of your most burning questions about the Human Resources and Office Administrator position here at Berry Insurance. More importantly, we really hope you liked the answers and are still interested in becoming a part of our team. 

As you’re considering if this role is right for you, we realize you may still have questions about what it is like to be a Human Resources and Office Administrator specifically for a small independent insurance agency. You can learn about that more in this article, where each of our teammates shares their opinions on the Benefits of Working for a Small Family-run Insurance Agency.