The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly changed our view of work.
Before the pandemic, our Human Resources team was working to ensure our people are ready to navigate an increasingly digitized workplace. The so-called “future of work” we envisioned seemed like far ahead. But the pandemic has accelerated the timeline. It has also taught us that not everything should revolve around work.
With the enforcement of social distancing and work from home policies, employee productivity and motivation tend to suffer due to lockdown fatigue and other mental health-related issues. While safeguarding the health and safety of InLifers continues to be our key priority, we also created touchpoints on InLifers’ total wellbeing — their heart, mind, body, and spirit.
In 2020, our employee engagement initiatives revolved around these three-pronged approach:
- Keep InLifers connected through digital platforms;
- Keep them motivated by looking after their wellness, wellbeing, and resiliency; and
- Keep them engaged in energizing our brand.
Making the digital pivot
Riding on InLife’s highly digital backbone, we pivoted to virtual meeting platforms for collaboration and constant communication. Our people managers conducted regular check-ins to see how InLifers were coping with the new working environment and offered constant guidance.
For our new recruits, we launched the Celebrating Employee Onboarding (CEO) that allowed our President and CEO to engage new InLifers in an informal setting and inspire trust and loyalty. This was initially held as a face-to-face activity but was quickly converted to a virtual format to continue the engagement event and adapt to changing needs. Four CEO sessions were held in 2020, with 36 participants.
Despite the lockdown restrictions, we were also able to promote lifelong learning by keeping our e-learning offerings robust. We introduced mandatory courses such Enterprise Risk Management, Information Security and Data Privacy, Insurance 101 and Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing through our InLife Lead.
The classroom courses were all converted into virtual training courses which included the Managing Change Program and CoachUp. Two (2) new competency-based training courses were offered. These were “Achieving Work Excellence” and “Working with Others.” In partnership with the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), we launched the Respectful Workplaces Program which seeks to create safe and resilient workplaces by addressing gender biases, workplace bullying, and sexual harassment, among others.
Motivating for total wellbeing
While remote work is one way to safeguard our employees’ safety and productivity, it may also pose some challenges to work-life balance. As their workspace and their personal space are no longer physically separated, employees may feel like they need to be available for work 24/7, leading to undue stress and burnout. The pandemic has also affected their daily routines such as engaging in physical activities, hobbies, and other habits.
To promote wellness, wellbeing, and resiliency, we mounted the following employee engagement initiatives in 2020:
A POST TO INLIFE MOMS
This recognized InLife Moms by creating a digital post highlighting the primary life principle they try to live by and describing how they generally express this in the workplace.
Father’s Day Accolade
Employees were encouraged to share stories and photos that honor fatherhood and recognize their role in bringing a lifetime of good to their families.
InLife Groove
This helped employees bring back physical activity in their daily routine and promoted a healthy WFH lifestyle by observing Wellness Minute (stretching exercises) and participating in the “110M Steps to Wellness” contest that made walking part of their daily routine.
InLife’s Memory Lane and 110 for 110th Thanksgiving Raffle
To celebrate InLife’s 110th anniversary, we launched InLife’s Memory Lane so employees could relive and share their memorable experiences, their favorite InLife photos, or create a digital scrapbook. The entries served as their ticket to join the 110 for 110th Thanksgiving Raffle where 110 employees had the chance to win cash prizes.
The Healthy Breaks Series
We invited speakers to talk about mental health and virtual work effectiveness topics in learning sessions to help employees navigate and adapt to the new normal.
InLife Christmas Celebrations #SpreadGoodVibes
To spread good vibes across the InLife community, the InLife Christmas Celebration focused on doing acts of kindness such as giving back, spending meaningful time with family, among others. A Virtual Year-end Celebration was also mounted to celebrate people who have rendered unwavering service to InLife (Service Awards) and made an impact to InLife because of excellent work (ELITE Recognition Program).
InLife Wellbites
We regularly disseminated infographics to promote wellness and wellbeing throughout the year.
Rewarding performance
Recognizing employees for their contributions is part of our culture at InLife. Our main goal is to reward continued high productivity and steadfast dedication from InLifers, particularly in this difficult time.
As part of our Total Rewards Management initiatives in 2020, we completed the following:
Spot Awards
We launched this recognition program in May 2020 to provide real-time rewards for InLifers’ special contributions. In addition to promoting positivity, the Spot Awards also help our managers to identify employees who have gone the extra mile in serving our customers. A total of 192 employees or 26% of our total employee population were recognized under the program on its maiden year.
ELITE (Employees Leading InLife to Excellence) Rewards and Recognition Program
This is a continuing program to foster teamwork among cross-functional teams who work to ensure business continuity during the pandemic. A total of 171 employees were awarded under this program, comprising 23% of our workforce. For the Annual Awardees, two cross-functional teams with 20 to 35 members were declared as Team of the Year in 2020. Both teams significantly contributed in providing ease and convenience to our policyholders in paying their premiums during the community lockdowns.
Moving past the pandemic
In 2021, we will continue to pursue initiatives that will create outrageously good employee experience, our value proposition to InLifers. We will pursue our HR 3.0 Roadmap in partnership with relevant functional teams to enable our people strategy to be even more responsive to business and employees’ needs. This involves putting our HR system in the Cloud and harnessing digital tools for regular employee feedback. This will enable informed management decision-making on people and organizational issues and requirements.
We will also relentlessly pursue programs to keep our employees highly engaged, particularly as the pandemic continues to pose challenges to our work environment and our people. We believe that highly engaged employees will be committed to the Company’s purpose of bringing #ALIfetimeforGood to Filipinos.
