What makes an organisation unique to would-be employees?

The following is an opinion piece written by Meena Wadhera, chief people officer, FWD Singapore.

I often get asked this question: “What makes an organisation unique to would-be employees?”

In FWD’s case, it’s the experience of being part of a team that is changing the way people feel about insurance across Asia, that makes us stand out.

Find out more: Learn all about FWD Singapore now.

Since we established our presence in Singapore in 2016, we’ve always been a curious and empathetic company that values innovation and a learner mindset in our employees. This means that managers at FWD work hard to empower our people because we know that when they’re empowered, they’re more inspired to learn, share and be creative in designing simpler, faster and smoother experiences for our customers.

But how do we get there? There are five pillars that are integral to us building a fun and resilient culture that can in turn revitalise our people and make us a great place to work:

1. Build a diverse pipeline of talent who possess a trailblazer mentality and are ready to challenge traditional norms to improve, enhance or transform the status quo and legacy associated with the insurance industry.
2. Establish world-class people operations that leverage technology, data and insights to ingrain change and programme management capabilities across all our teams. Specifically, this means looking at how we can improve existing processes and practices so as to smoothen out any kinks or make things better than they already are.
3. Developing strong people managers and leaders who can engage their teams with empathy, while driving a performance-focused mindset. In 2021, so far, we have increased the engagement frequency between the management team and the senior managers to improve the rapport between these two groups to encourage more sharing and collaboration. On the individual level, we’ve also invested in training to increase our leaders’ awareness of issues regarding effective management and in turn make them better people managers. 
4. Creating a uniquely FWD experience for new joiners and existing employees that look after their emotional well-being, as well as other bread-and-butter issues such as career development and ways of working, which has become especially crucial during the pandemic where employees may feel greater stress at home or in the office.
5. If we can do the above four things well, then we’ll be a company that walks our talk of celebrating living, with highly engaged employees that are ready to take FWD Singapore to the next level of growth.

As my CEO puts it, if FWD Singapore is to continue succeeding and be an employer of choice, we’ll need to create an environment where people are empowered and motivated to roll up their sleeves and do the right thing by our customers.

Find out more about FWD Singapore being voted a Top Workplace now.