WTW turns corner on staffing with strongest quarter since Aon fiasco

Willis Towers Watson has turned the corner on the wave of staffing and portfolio losses that followed its 2021 merger fiasco with a strong gain in net hiring and a full quarter without book sales.

“We are in the happy place of hiring being up and departures being down,” CEO Carl Hess (pictured) told his company's Q1 earnings call.

The broker languished in regulatory purgatory after announcing a merger deal with rival Aon in 2021 that eventually got shot down by regulators. Some big shot producers made for the door and  WTW monetised what it could by selling their client books.

“We reversed that with our hiring success and building back the team to where it needs to be,” Hess said. “The organisational uncertainty has clearly disappeared.”

Q1 hiring was up 23% from the prior quarter to the highest nominal sum since Q1 2019, officials bragged. Voluntary terminations in the quarter dec lined 19%. “Quite strong by any measure,” Hess said.

Attrition can be the more difficult trend to follow, with palpable seasonalities and short-term volatility, especially after bonus payments. But the underlying trend is “normalising to levels that are much more in line with what we've seen historically.”

Client book loss has stemmed in turn. Hess claimed that book sales fell to zero in Q1 and maintains a view that the run rate “will return to more normalized levels over time.”

Staff from the initial hiring drive after the Aon fiasco “are beginning to create results in 2022,” Hess said. Hires in select divisions, notably employee services and benefits, can largely make a positive contribution from day one, he insisted. And some hires to the risk and brokerage services brought their own client portfolios on board.

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