Key To Good Leadership Is Fair And Transparent Communication With The Team: MD & CEO, Future Generali India Insurance
How has the Covid-19 crisis impacted your organization? What steps/ measures you have taken as a company to reduce the stress and boost the morale of the employees?
The insurance industry being critical during these times has been classified as essential services just like banking. The Insurance industry by virtue of its business model is relevant for these times and is generally well prepared for major loss events but the financial impact of the COVID-19 crisis will take time to play out and will be company-specific based on the risk exposures. The industry is responding to the outbreak on various fronts – as claims payers, employers, and investment managers. Each industry has its own distinct challenges, COVID crisis has impacted not just the insurance industry but the global economy and society at large.
We all know that this is an extraordinary situation for all of us with all our employees and their families dealing with it in their own manner. As an employer, we value our employees, agents, and business associates, and we believe in making their life easier while dealing with this COVID-19 situation and also their professional and personal responsibilities with the use of technology and also flexibility.
The situation of lockdown has resulted in social distancing and limiting the interactions only to virtual platforms. The line between work and home has blurred leading to some level of imbalance and anxiety. To reduce stress and boost employee morale, HR team and managers are in touch with the employees and are taking proactive steps in resolving their concerns. We as a company decided to release the increments and bonus as per the normal timelines, without making any change due to the COVID situation.
This action was received very positively by the entire workforce and has surely kept them focussed and committed to the Company’s goals. It helped us in employee retention to a larger extent. We have initiated various employee engagement initiatives under – Health & Wellness, Employee Assistance Program, knowledge sharing, fun activities etc. and we encourage employees’ family as well to actively participate in the same.
How critical is the role of technology in today’s workplace? How strong is FGII’s Digital Infrastructure?
Undoubtedly, Technology has emerged as an undisputed savior during this critical time. It is important for organizations to equip their workforce with essential digital infrastructure to ensure the interrupted flow of business. WFH demands you to stay connected and keep communicating with your team members via a seamless digital medium.
At Future Generali, we have institutionalized a comprehensive and robust risk management framework. A Business Continuity Plan has always been in place. This enabled us to quickly leverage our technology ecosystem, empower people, and align processes to continue functioning under the new regime of lockdown. Accelerated effort towards digital enablement of intermediaries as well as automation and digitalization of internal processes, hedged against the immobility imposed by the lockdown. With innovations like E-proposal forms, video-based claim settlements, web, and mobile app policy servicing tools, etc., it became possible to neutralize the effect of lockdown to a larger extent.
How did you manage the risk and complexity with ambiguity involved in work from home?
Employee safety is the topmost priority of an employer and therefore, WFH is largely adopted by all the organizations. Covid19 has presented an opportunity for everyone to step away from the traditional way of working, to the new and more evolved way of working. Today, technology has enabled everyone to perform in a seamless fashion where you no more need a brick and mortar arrangement to deliver performance. Fortunately for us, we took proactive steps in shifting the entire infrastructure to WFH set up for employees, before the lockdown got announced. Our IT and Admin team had efficiently managed this transition and besides encountering the initial teething issues of data and software accesses.
What constitutes good leadership during pandemics? What is your biggest learning from the COVID-19 scenario?
In my view, the very fundamentals of leadership remain unchanged whether it is the normal times or the COVID times. The key to good leadership is to keep communicating with the team in a fair and transparent manner while creating collaboration platforms to take decisions jointly. We all realize that this situation is alien for all of us and hence have to recognize that our teams would also be feeling so. It is the leadership responsibility to spend more time in listening to our teams and understanding their difficulties while jointly working with them towards making them effective. For me, Covid-19 has emphasized the need to trust and be empathetic to every other person and be optimistic while having a larger goal in mind even amidst the sea of uncertainty and adversity.
Your tips to ensure high productivity while taking care of employees not getting over-worked
FGII is a people’s company, our employees are of the utmost importance to us. They are a dedicated bunch, who continue to perform and showcase brilliant results through their performance. We are extremely fortunate and proud to have them as a part of our family. Though there is no denying that the work pressure has increased in the past few months. Our teams have ensured to maintain the momentum on the productivity by fulfilling shared responsibility assigned by their respective managers. At the same time, we have equipped our employees with the required digital infrastructure to make sure they can perform their jobs efficiently.
· Our Senior management continues to guide and partner with employees and proactively reaches out to support the team members whenever required
· As a process, every team leader interacts with their respective teams regularly through digital platforms and reviews business goals at the same time spends time in understanding the hurdles faced by each team member. We encourage the TLs to use MS Teams for informal get-togethers and hangouts to develop a sense of camaraderie
· Keeping in mind, that the daily exercise schedules may get sidetracked due to work pressure and fatigue, we have scheduled regular Yoga & Meditation sessions along with high-intensity interval training to help employees remain fit both physically and mentally
· We have initiated an Employee Assistance Program wherein, we schedule counseling sessions for the employees for their mental and emotional wellbeing. We also provide assistance to employees and also our intermediaries to manage health issues regarding testing and hospitalization.
The whole objective is to engage with employees actively and make them feel secure while at the same time support them to be productive through effective processes and adoption of technology
