Caring More, Achieving More

Aviva has a workforce of engaged employees who have achieved work-life harmony. Find out how the company is working its magic.

22 Apr 2020 Case studies Work-life harmony Best practices

Profile

Organisation

Aviva

Aviva Ltd (Aviva) is one of Singapore’s leading providers of insurance across various categories and needs, including life and health plans, savings and investment solutions, and home and travel policies. Across the world, it protects over 33 million customers and the things that are important to them.

Industry

Financial and Insurance Activities

Employment size

<1000

Employment profile

Managerial, excecutives and non-executives

Business Case

Multi-international insurance organisation Aviva is in the business of looking after its clients’ life, health, savings and investment solutions. Aviva's purpose is to Defy Uncertainty by helping our customers to face the future with confidence. This forms the basis of Aviva’s “Care More” core value, which means to care for its own people so that they can in turn, take care of their clients’ needs – ultimately raising the organisation’s bottom-line. To achieve this, Aviva recognises the need to create an environment that helps employees manage the responsibilities of work and personal life.

Flexible Work Arrangements

  • Staggered time/flexible hours
  • Part-time work
  • Telecommuting
  • Interim work

Leave Schemes

  • Emergency leave
  • Parental leave (above statutory requirements)
  • Renewal/sabbatical leave
  • Extended childcare leave
  • Volunteering leave

Employee Support Schemes

  • Counselling services
  • Personal Work-life effectiveness programmes
  • Health &  wellness programmes
  • Medical and insurance coverage for family members 
  • Flexible benefits

Implementation 

To instil a pro-work-life culture in the workplace, Aviva focuses on strategies such as:

Establishing Hands-on Leadership

Aviva’s leaders, from its CEO to Management Team and People Managers, are actively involved at all stages of the development and implementation of its work-life programmes. Members of the senior management team often rally employees to join in activities, and also set an example by participating themselves. For example, CEO Mr Nishit Majmudar attends the company’s weekly yoga sessions. Additionally, recognising that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to work-life programmes, Aviva empowers its People Managers to adapt its programmes to work around business and operational needs so that employees can reap the full benefits. For example, when the managers realised that frontline staff were unable to end work early on Family Day due to operational needs, they made arrangements for the staff to utilise the benefit on other days instead.
 
Listening to and Addressing Employee Feedback
 
The organisation has multiple channels to gain a deeper understanding of its people’s needs and how it can help them achieve work-life harmony. This includes:

Annual employee survey

  • Conducting an anonymous survey to allow employees to share their thoughts on areas such as engagement, health and wellness, motivation and leadership behaviours
  • Formulating action plans based on the survey results, using Aviva’s “Bin Bank Build” approach – Bin (what needs to be stopped), Bank (what needs to be kept) and Build (what needs to be developed/implemented)
  • Encouraging People Managers to be responsible for setting goals based on the survey results – these goals are part of their Key Performance Indicators and form part of their appraisals.

Focus group discussions

  • Getting insights from employees from different teams, roles and ranks, to give Management a clearer view of the needs of employees across the organisation.

Culture Action Team

  • Appointing a representative from each team to help drive engagement and culture in their teams. These representatives meet Human Resources every month to share feedback from the ground.        

Such programmes enable Aviva to better understand areas it has done well in, and how it can create even better programmes for its people. Recognising Aviva’s efforts, employees, are then more likely to be motivated and engaged at work.

Going the Extra Mile

Staying true to its value to “Care More”, Aviva believes in constantly seeking to do better and going beyond what is expected for their employees. This value extends to its work-life strategy as well. The organisation’s efforts include:

  • Establishing benefits beyond statutory requirements, for example, implementing a 16-week parental leave that also applies to new fathers and adoptive parents after assessing feedback from employees
  • Being one of the few organisations that extends medical coverage to dependents of all employees
  • Providing employees with access to counselling services if necessary
  • Exercising flexibility and facilitating swift implementation or adjustment of policies to benefit its people. For example, an employee’s suggestion to remove the requirement for Medical Certificate submission was implemented within a week after the HR team assessed it to be a reasonable and feasible change. 

As a result, employees develop a deeper sense of appreciation for Aviva, which positively impacts their performance and productivity.

Outcomes

Aviva finds that its focus in helping employees blend work with their personal commitments, has contributed significantly to its business success. Today, it enjoys robust year-on-year growth in sales that surpass set targets. Staff have also responded positively in Aviva’s annual employee survey conducted in September 2017, which showed that: 

  • 87% believe that Aviva values their health and well-being
  • 82% of Aviva employees feel engaged
  • 80% are proud to work for Aviva
  • 77% would recommend Aviva as a great place to work in.

“This is an organisation with a heartbeat, and our people work hard and play hard. Our business results are soaring and for that to happen, we need our employees to be happy at work. It is a continuous journey, but we have found the magical touch,” says Mr Majmudar.

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