From Resource, March 2005 
Copyright by LOMA

A Human Capital Agenda

Sun Life Financial in Asia has made great strides toward aligning its most valuable commodity—talented and dedicated employees—to its business agenda and strategy.  

By Keith Tucker, Ph.D.
Vice President of Human Resources
Sun Life Financial ( Asia )  

Sun Life Financial, Inc.—together with its subsidiaries and joint ventures, Sun Life Financial or SLF—has a long history in Asia, having established our Hong Kong operation in 1892 and our Philippines operation in 1895.

Compared to the previous century, SLF Asia has changed significantly in the past five years. In 2000, SLF Asia had three operations: Hong Kong, the Philippines and Indonesia, with the Philippines being the largest. Since 2000 we have added life insurance joint ventures in both India and China. SLF’s life insurance joint venture with the Aditya Birla Group in India, now four years old, is already the second largest private insurer in the country. During the last two years, our life insurance joint venture in China with the China Everbright Group successfully opened business in both Tianjin and Beijing. In addition, SLF’s business has become more diversified with asset management businesses opening in India and the Philippines (see Sun Life Financial in Asia).

The insurance market in Asia is fiercely competitive and will remain so for some years to come. As markets in North America and Europe are fully mature and as other parts of the world represent investment risk, Asia is seen to present significant opportunities for major insurance organizations. Foreign players, domestic players and, depending on the regulatory environment, joint ventures, are all competing to gain market share and presence. Most of the major international players are hanging their hopes on long-term success, particularly in the nascent insurance markets in India and China. Sun Life Financial is among the few global insurance companies to establish operations in both of these markets.

Companies attempt to differentiate themselves on the basis of product and market segmentation and gain competitive advantage by leveraging multiple distribution channels. Today, companies are painfully aware of the need for compliance and exemplary governance, yet many of the Asian markets in which insurers compete present elevated risk with regard to fraud and other forms of malpractice.

In this context, insurance companies must maintain a workforce capable of driving sales faster than the competition, managing multiple distribution channels, providing exceptional customer service, and ensuring high levels of operational efficiency while managing risk and complying with industry regulations.

In our chosen markets, we compete for market share and new business. We also compete for the talent to lead, manage and operate our businesses. As can be seen from the snapshot of our organization, our businesses and joint venture partnerships in Asia are at very different stages of maturity and growth. One of our challenges is to be able to leverage the talent across borders and to avoid our businesses growing as silos.

Tall Order

We need to use human capital adroitly and to our competitive advantage. It is essential that we build and maintain world-class practices in human resources (HR) planning, recruitment, performance management, training and development, rewards and recognition, employee relations, and retention. Most importantly, HR must also focus on organization renewal, resource utilization and effective deployment of staff.

Human Resources needs to be capable of driving both a change agenda and a growth agenda. For example, in employee headcount alone, our Indian insurance joint venture has grown from a small start up with fewer than 300 employees in 2001 to a mature operation with more than 1,600 in 2004.

Human Resources must be capable of doing three things:

--Working with line management to recruit and develop people and to ensure optimal performance and retention of staff
--Identifying talent and ensuring that a pipeline of key resources exists to fill all specialist roles while building exceptional leadership across the organization
--Maintaining efficient HR operations

This is a tall order. Many companies do not engage their HR functions effectively. Other companies simply do not have appropriate skills to respond to these challenges. Their HR functions are mired in administrative processes, are ill equipped with supporting technology and, under-skilled, they can not effect change.

To use an analogy: in a circus, the main events take place under the big top. Yet outside the big top are the sideshows and some people never make it past the distraction that the sideshows offer. If HR cannot align itself to the strategic agenda and business imperatives of the organization, it remains marginalized. It remains a sideshow. Harnessing human resources capability is critical to any organization working a change agenda in a competitive market.

I have observed many HR functions where the intensity of day-to-day administrative needs means that there is little time or energy to devote to higher order needs within the organization (see Crunch Time chart). So the capacity to work in a consultative way with management, to act as advisor and coach, and to work on a more strategic agenda never emerges. The columns (on the Crunch Time chart) show the types of activities in which HR should be involved. In the left column, activities that add higher value to the organization—planning, consulting and managing—are at the top of the column. What you can see is “crunch”. The need to cope with the administrative imperatives has swallowed both time and resources. What must happen is that HR move towards a more balanced approach, as illustrated by the column to the right. HR must recognize this need and staff accordingly.

Sun Life Financial Asia is doing just that, recently launching a project to better align its human capital agenda to its business agenda and strategy.

Before I describe the project, let me talk a bit about my role in human resources at Sun Life Financial Asia. As the senior HR person in the region, clearly my role is to provide leadership. I see this as a balancing act between ensuring appropriate governance, providing strategic direction and enabling the HR function to contribute meaningfully to the business.

What I see is that HR leadership often struggles to free itself from its governance and administrative commitments sufficiently to tackle the organization’s growth and developmental responsibilities. I do not believe I am doing my job unless I strike this balance—that is, unless I am able to juggle the day-to-day requirements of the job against building for the future. Furthermore, human resources practitioners must be rewarded by their roles and the function must be well respected within the organization if it is to have impact.

The vision of SLF in Asia is one of an organization where employees are a primary market differentiator; where all employees are aligned to its goals; where people know how their individual efforts contribute to business growth and the organization’s strategies; where people are valued because of their competence; and where they feel they can develop their skills and grow their careers.

“There is a war for talent in Asia,” says Douglas Henck, president of SLF Asia and my boss, “and increasingly we need to compete for both the hearts and minds of employees. I believe that this war will escalate in the coming years, particularly in the emerging markets in Asia. Many organizations are relying on buying ready-made talent. To me this approach is short-sighted: there always will be other organizations that have deeper pockets and are prepared to out-bid you. I would rather have employees who were committed to the organization, who understand what the organization stands for, and who are aligned to its goals and values.

“The organizations that succeed will be those that can sell a compelling vision of the future to employees and back that up with meaningful jobs. We need to have competitive products, a well-informed, committed sales force, and efficient customer-focused operations. To achieve each of these objectives, we rely on hiring, developing and retaining the best talent available. The HR renewal project is critical to us in achieving that goal. It focuses on some pretty rudimentary stuff—and this is quite intentional.”



Change Initiative

On to the project, which we launched in 2004. While the project comprised a number of initiatives, one represented the cornerstone of the change initiative: career banding (see Banding Together). This was an initiative to simplify and standardize the role summaries and job families used across the various business units and joint ventures in Asia. This was important for a number of reasons.

Often, individual business units had created job summaries on an as-needed basis. Jobs were often poorly defined and built around individuals rather than an assessment of the competencies required to conduct business. Skills required for jobs often were ill-defined and invariably there was little indication of the training and development required to ensure peak performance. As a consequence, training was not linked in a systematic way to meeting business needs and occurred in an ad hoc manner. Some business units were obviously more effective in job definition than others. I think it is fair to say that there was role inflation and title creep.

Without a common repository of information, there was much duplication of effort and little knowledge sharing among business units.
The career banding initiative enabled us to build a simplified overall career structure based primarily on competence but also giving consideration to other factors such as leadership requirements, size and scope of roles, and types of decision making. We established six bands across all job families, differentiating broad categories of roles, including those that provide support functions within the organization, such as administrative assistants; those that are operational, requiring specific professional competence, such as accountants and IT professionals; and those that exist to lead the organization, such as the business unit heads and CEO. The model also made clear distinctions between manager roles—that is, those having people management responsibility—and roles that exist because of expert knowledge, such as actuaries and underwriters.

If we were to achieve our goals, it was essential that we improve all HR and people management practices. Without a common corpus of roles summaries, it is extremely difficult to improve these practices. Long-term resource (workforce) planning can not be undertaken without a clear view of the roles an organization anticipates filling in the longer term. Similarly, decisions as to whether an organization must buy, build or borrow skills cannot be made without a clear view of the requisite skills. Recruitment, performance, development and even decisions on appropriate market driven compensation and rewards all rely on a clear and integrated view.

Most organizations, within and outside the insurance industry, are confronted with these problems. The way they resolve them is often very different. Companies may rely on third-party consultants to build the role summaries, or the HR function may embark on a mission to build job descriptions function by function.

Our approach was to build the entire job family corpus in-house, using one set of guiding principles, standard templates and a centrally-controlled and managed execution plan. We relied on field line managers to provide the professional input in building each job family. Every country was represented. A project manager was assigned and the project executed by a core team comprising members of HR from across the region. Senior management in the region provided validation of the job families and monitored the initiative. The rationale for this approach was to engage expertise in the field—who better to describe the performance, competence and development requirements. Our other intention, of course, was to gain early buy-in to the project and acceptance and commitment to change.


Getting Results

Between April and December 2004, through the efforts and commitment of many people, the team was able to build and validate the entire job family structure. This comprised 16 job families covering all aspects of the business and more than 175 individual role summaries.

SLF Asia had already made extensive use of LOMA for training and certification and dissemination of information through conferences. Through this relationship, we engaged LOMA early in the process, sharing our vision and establishing how LOMA could assist (see LOMA Solutions). LOMA became engaged in the project at three levels:
--Partnering in validating the process we had established for building the job families and role summaries
--Verifying the job family and role summary structure and content against LOMA’s models and best practices
--Mapping the LOMA training programs and courses onto each of the roles


The partnership was critical to the project’s success and will remain critical as we roll out the project. Our field operations rely heavily on the LOMA curricula and we want to ensure that our business units and joint ventures are able to optimize the use of the training programs and to lead employees, as required, to achieve certification.

What’s next? The existence of the job family corpus is a major achievement in itself. However, we do not delude ourselves—the hard work is really just beginning. In another important departure from how organizations often roll out initiatives, we have not mandated one set implementation plan. Instead, a standard set of tools has been prepared, which incorporates a step-by-step transition plan, a communication plan for both employees and human resources, and a comprehensive FAQ guide. All of the materials, including the career branding corpus, are available to all of the countries in a central data base. Having a central repository also enables us to maintain version control.

Each organization assessed how it can best implement the plan alongside the work it must do to remain client- and business-focused. To maintain focus, we have set out the minimum deliverables.
Any kind of organizational change invariably meets with resistance. I am sure that some employees will see this as challenging the status quo. Others may wish to focus on perceived problems such as change of title or loss of entitlement. These kinds of issues must be handled sensitively, but I am confident that the vast majority of employees will see the benefits: a clear description of responsibilities; an accurate identification of skills required; and a comprehensive list of appropriate development activities. For the first time, employees will have a clear idea of how they can grow their careers within a job family or into other areas of interest.

Open communication between managers and employees, consistent and confident direction by top management, and immediate escalation of any issue will all be critical.

I am confident that we can change the look and feel of the organization. I envisage an organization where there is an open exchange of knowledge and skills across borders; where all employees know how their efforts and skills align to the business; where they feel confident they are growing in competence and in their careers; and where they are respected and sought out because of their expertise. Finally, I believe we can be an employer of choice in every country—one that attracts top talent because of the respect we command through our people.

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About the Author: Keith Tucker is vice president of human resources at Sun Life Financial (SLF) Asia. The focus of his career has been on the growth and development of people. He has been a school teacher, lecturer at university and for the past 14 years has worked in the private sector in human resource development. Before joining SLF in 2002, Tucker was director and business partner, Human Resources, Asia-Pacific, Unisys Corporation. He has lived in Asia for 10 years and has worked throughout Asia since 1983. He has consulted in both international organizations and private companies. Tucker is an accomplished author and holds a B.A., with honors, in education and a Ph.D. in communications planning, both from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He lives with his family in Hong Kong. 

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Sun Life Financial in Asia
Active in Asia since 1892, Sun Life Financial continues to make inroads into some of the most competitive—and rewarding—markets in the region.

India
Birla Sun Life Insurance Company Limited has catapulted itself into second position in new business premium in the highly competitive private life insurance sector. Birla Sun Life has 44 branches across India with more than 9,000 agents and received more than INR 7 billion of premium income in 2004. The company has received awards for operational excellence, including the Best Insurer to Work For and the 9th Best Place to Work For in 2003 among all industries in India by Grow Talent Institute, USA.  

Indonesia
PT Sun Life Financial Indonesia began operation in 1992. Operating in a difficult market, the company has turned around significantly in the last five years, with the number of agents growing from fewer than 1,400 to more than 2,300 with a 250 percent increase in premium income during the period.  

The Philippines
In 2001, Sun Life of Canada ( Philippines ) Inc. won the Top 10 Best Employers in Asia award. It was the first and only local insurance company to receive such international acclaim. The company’s premium income has grown from less than PHP 6 billion of premium income in 2000 to close to PHP 8 billion in 2004. The company is now ranked second in terms of premium income in the Philippines life insurance market.  

Hong Kong
Sun Life Financial’s Hong Kong operation began as a branch of Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada in 1892 and was one of SLF’s first areas of operation in the Asia Pacific region. The number of agents more than doubled in 2004. The premium income has grown more than threefold during the past five years to an estimated premium income of HKD 1.6 billion.  

China
Sun Life Everbright Life Insurance Company Limited was founded in 1999 as a joint venture between Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada and the China Everbright Group in China . The Tianjin branch began operation in June 2002 and SLEB expanded into Beijing in April 2004. To date, the number of agents has increased from around 1,600 to more than 3,000. The premium income for 2004 is more than RMB 200 million.
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Crunch Time




Banding Together

LOMA Solutions

Through all stages of the human resources development cycle, LOMA has solutions to meet your needs. We partner with you as you develop competencies, select the right employees, design education and training requirements, and design your support systems for human resource management. The starting point is your business need and the competency modeling you do in response.   

A just-published LOMA research brief "Competency Modeling" reveals how insurers and financial services value the competency-based approach to employee selection, performance management and training activities. LOMA can complement these strategic efforts by providing assistance in tying LOMA courses to specific technical competencies required at various job levels and functions in the financial services industry.   

You also can tap into additional LOMA resources to add value to your overall HR strategy: LOMA's Competency Dictionary; the LOMASelect series, computer based selection tools for entry, supervisory and customer service positions; employee opinion surveys; compensation surveys; Pathfinder, a flexible, Web-based performance management tool; exit interview program and more. We also offer you the opportunity to exchange HR tactics, discuss trends, and analyze implementation of HR programs through participation on committees comprised of HR professionals from the financial services industry. For more information, contact Jena Kennedy, FLMI, ACS, ALHC, CLU, assistant vice president, business development, LOMA, at 770-984-3747 (voice) or kennedy@loma.org (e-mail).

Contact Resource at resource@loma.org