Insurance company Transamerica will expand its talent recruitment to the Des Moines area as part of the company’s growth strategy, Laura Wirth, the company’s vice president, head of corporate development, said recently.

The company, which has about 2,500 employees in Iowa, has a large presence in the Cedar Rapids area and will continue to maintain that. But with the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased comfort in working remotely, Transamerica is looking to expand its focus on where it looks for talent to fill positions, she said.

About 3% of the company’s Iowa workforce is already working in Des Moines, but with 60 openings that need to be Iowa-based and another 110 openings that can work remotely from anywhere, Transamerica is eyeing the strong insurance market that exists in Des Moines as a potential pool of talent to fill those positions, Wirth said.

“So we can draw from that talent pool from all those insurance companies that are based in Des Moines, so from that regard, I can see us being able to expand our Des Moines presence,” she said.

Transamerica already does a lot of business in Des Moines because of the presence of the state insurance commissioner, the Legislature and the governor, Wirth said.

She said Des Moines also has attractive amenities it offers to prospective employees who may not want to relocate for a job.

“It’s a small state, [and] we travel well,” Wirth said. “We have people who are both hybrid, so in the office at least once a week, and we have commuting remote positions where the only time you need to come into the office is when leadership comes in or there are certain reasons. It could be once a week. It could be once a month, or just once a year, as well as just remote opportunities.

“We’re looking to hire the right talent wherever they reside. Given the large [talent] pool in Des Moines, I think there’s a draw there, and I’m hoping we can get more talent. Who knows what the future may hold as far as brick-and-mortar, but a lot of times when people are hired remotely, they don’t want to go to a brick-and-mortar place because they were hired in a certain capacity. Our brick-and-mortar is in Cedar Rapids, and our current intent is to keep that in Cedar Rapids.”

The jobs are within all divisions and range from actuarial, technology, customer service and project management, Wirth said.

The need to add talent is the result of the company’s continued growth, she said.

Wirth said Transamerica’s refocus on Des Moines to draw talent can also help provide talent to other companies in the region.

“We know the talent is there because of all the insurance companies that are there,” she said. “We can maybe pick off some of the talent there and share talent because sometimes it’s just a good move from a career perspective and from a company perspective to move from company to company. We’ve all been a little crunched on trying to find talent. We’ve been fortunate to find the people that we have. We have a good amount of openings, but we also have a lot of growth, and that growth changes the landscape of the type of resources we need and what those resources need to look like in a growth mode.”

Transamerica serves the retirement and life insurance middle market, or those with annual incomes from $50,000 to $200,000. There are about 68 million households in the U.S. that fall into that category, Wirth said.

Transamerica’s goal is to become the top company in that market, “and we think we’re very poised to grow, and with growth comes additional individuals we hire, and that brings more from a housing perspective and buying goods and services in Iowa, and that’s why we focus on Iowa as our key place of employment,” she said. “We have great work ethic, a very business-friendly climate, and all those things bode well for us to be able to grow in the right way, which has downstream effects in a positive way in Iowa.”

That growth could also mean a greater philanthropic presence in the region, Wirth said.

“We are really philanthropic and give back to our community,” she said. “We’ve given, just last year alone, $2.1 million to charitable organizations. That helps support the core of where we are as a community-based company. So for our growth potential, we can give back to the community, not only through our employee base but also through our foundation to make it a better place to live for everyone.”