Interview Of The Day: ‘2014 Will Be A Growth Year For Insurance Sector’

Interview Of The Day: ‘2014 Will Be A Growth Year For Insurance Sector’

Shailesh Singh, chief people officer, Max Life Insurance

Insurance sector provides multiple options for those who seek careers with a blend of functional expertise, commercial acumen and an opportunity to engage with the community…. 

Insurance is often seen as a sales-driven portfolio? What’s your take on this? And, what are the other career opportunities available for candidates in this sector? 

Sales and distribution led jobs dominate in a life insurance company. While distribution jobs form the largest part of overall workforce plan, there are other attractive career opportunities in other fields such as operations, customer service, product management, marketing, HR & administration, finance & accounts, IT, procurement and strategic management like in other companies. In addition, life insurance companies are well known to offer challenging careers in specialised areas like actuarial and underwriting. 

How do you attract and assess candidates while hiring? What are your benchmarks? 

Max Life is known for its superior human capital. We believe in building leadership at all levels. We hire people for their competence, attitude and values.  Communication (not just language skills!), ability to influence/impact and conscientiousness are important attributes. Apart from job skills and experience, job applicants are given opportunities to demonstrate their conviction and character. We adopt a thorough approach to hiring. The first level involves focussed interviewing by line managers and skip level managers. HR screens shortlisted candidates using competency based interviewing, followed by final interviews. Psychometric assessments and cross-functional manager reviews are done for a few roles.  The selection process entails rigorous background verification.

How do you keep your employees motivated, since it’s a high-pressure environment? 

Building an inspired sales force is a key business goal for us. Each supervisor takes upon himself/herself to ensure high employee morale. We promote practices that help employees connect with the vision of the organisation and are reminded of their roles in the larger purpose, on a day-to-day basis. Playing our company song every morning is one such example. Publishing a book on ‘Service Excellence,’ with stories from our employees’ lives, that demonstrates company values, is another such example. We create opportunities for employees to participate in enterprise wide – empowered work teams, to drive key initiatives in the organisation. “BachatAnmol” is one such cost-prudent initiative that was led by employees. Such measures build and strengthen company ownership in employees. We have several listening posts, such as our ‘Pulse’ survey, to receive periodic feedback from employees and work upon their suggestions.  We focus hugely on enabling employee development – personal and professional. We have a dedicated Learning & Development (L&D) Centre of Excellence, focussed on developing and enabling our sales force to succeed. We have instituted robust performance management system and reward programs to recognise our employee contributions. Significant achievements – individuals or team based, are celebrated during our annual Founder’s Day. We are a values-driven organisation and place huge emphasis on role modelling values of caring, collaboration, credibility and excellence. 

How employees are being compensated in Insurance over others sectors such as BFSI, Retail and FMCG? 

We believe in the philosophy of ‘total rewards’ and not just compensation. We invest significantly in employee development and have a longer term perspective; probably a key differentiator in this sector. We undertake competitive benchmarking to annually review compensation in a comprehensive and objective manner. Our compensation broadly has three components – fixed compensation, annual bonus and long-term incentive. For the sales teams, there are sales incentive directly linked to their sales achievement. 

What will be the most in-demand profiles in 2013-14? What is the overall job future outlook?

Like previous years, most in-demand jobs will be in distribution. That remains the largest constituency for most insurance companies. Overall, jobs projection for future looks fair. While the sector has witnessed de-growth in the past two years or so, 2014, in all likelihood, would be a ‘growth’ year. Also, looking at the low levels of insurance penetration in India (vis-a-vis developed nations) and the likely enhancement of foreign holdings, the next few years certainly look promising.

Hi guys If u like this post please leave a comment in comment box... comment box will top right of every post and bottom of every post. its useful for me give a better information.. check top of the blog there is menu bar in that go to comments i replied for u r comments because there is no direct option for reply for u r comments. if u want to give any suggestion in bottom of blog there is contact information option please leave a msgs with u r mail id sure i will get u.