All view points lead to a win
Life insurer, AIA’s goal of making sure their executive team is inclusive of all points of view has led them to win Money Management and Super Review’s Employer of the Year award.
Over the past 12 months, AIA had gender equality goals of 35 per cent women in executive and senior leadership roles, 50 per cent in middle manager roles, and having an equality representation for potential employees on the shortlists, and interview panels.
As at 31 December, AIA achieved 50 per cent female representation at the executive level, 43 per cent in senior leader roles, and 48 per cent in middle management roles.
AIA’s Women@Work committee executive sponsor, Stephanie Phillips, said the firm ensured they had the right fit from the executive team and all staff with the right amount of points of view.
“We have an even split, in fact a little over now on the female side on our exec team. Our chief executive, Damian Mu is all about ensuring he has a full team point of view,” she said.
“One of the important things is ensuring we have even representation of the whole team and the business, and ensuring we have an equal gender split is very important.”
She said the firm had a great focus on creating a fair workplace for females.
“Quite a long time ago we set up our Women@Work committee to work through some areas that needed focus and to give a voice to our female staff. It was also to ensure from an HR perspective and across the business in terms of our strategy that we were taking that into consideration,” Phillips said.
Phillips noted that AIA had built a strong people culture within the business.
“We have a saying that we have an army of MAD which is making a difference. While we are here to service our clients, we’re also here to ensure that we care about everyone in the business,” she said.
“We’re here for your development, we want to keep you, we want to create a family, and I think that’s one of the things we’ve done really really well.”
The judges said to be Employer of the Year it was essential to have the appropriate support programs in place, but even more importantly results needed to be achieved.
“AIA has absolutely achieved fantastic results across the board,” the judges said.
Recommended for you
Bell Financial Group co-chief executive, Arnie Selvarajah, believes regulation will make the provision of episodic advice easier for consumers and is pivoting the business over the next two years to focus on wealth management.
Stakeholders in the professional year discussion underscore the challenges in the current pipeline and what is holding back licensees from taking on new candidates.
Formal education has played a large role in enhancing the advice profession over the last decade but, with the bar now so high, two advisers debate whether it is necessary to complete additional study.
With US$1.5 trillion in private credit expected to be held by wealthy clients by 2029, a report has explored the best ways asset managers can take advantage of this trend and meet demand in the advisory market.
