Human Capital | Employees are a strategic success factor for Swiss Life. The aim of human capital management is to find and retain the right employees and enable them to systematically develop their skills. In 2007, the figures reflecting the commitment of Swiss Life’s staff increased by a further 4 points to 77 index points, due mainly to investments made in management development as well as basic and advanced training for employees.
Swiss Life reaches its ambitious targets thanks to its appropriately qualified and extremely committed workforce. The corporate strategy and corporate values provide the guidelines for the definition of the requisite competencies, from which the skill-sets required of individual employees are derived.
The development of the Group’s human capital is measured on the basis of specific key factors. Thus the productivity and added value achieved by the employees is described in terms of Human Capital Return on Investment (HCROI), by which the return achieved is placed in relation to the personnel expenses. The HCROI developed positively over the past few years. In 2007 it came to CHF 2.50, which represents an increase of 25% since 2004. A further key factor for Swiss Life is commitment. The level of commitment reflects employees’ satisfaction and the extent to which they identify with their work. People who are happy at work, who identify with the company’s goals and have an affinity with their team and their supervisors are dedicated and prepared to put in above-average performance. Each year, Swiss Life measures this commitment in its Employee Survey. In 2007, the commitment level of the Swiss Life Group’s workforce averaged 77 index points on a scale of 1 to 100 (previous year: 73 index points). Six out of ten employees registered over 80 points. The aim is to achieve and maintain an average of 80 index points for the entire Swiss Life Group.
Performance culture | Swiss Life professes and pursues a performance culture. An important element of this performance culture is a consistently applied employee appraisal system. Once a year, line managers appraise the performance and skills of their staff and make an assessment of their potential. Based on this evaluation, employees’ strengths are then fostered by appropriate development measures and gaps in competence are closed. The annual Employee Survey also allows employees to appraise their supervisors, who then receive a detailed feedback report. This feedback provides Swiss Life with an overview of its managers’ skills, enabling it to devise individualised management development programmes.
Training and development | Swiss Life sets great store in recruiting good employees, nurturing and developing their knowledge and skills, and motivating them so that they are keen to stay with the company. Based on insights gained from earlier Employee Surveys, Swiss Life invested primarily in management development and in basic and advanced training for its staff in 2007. Overall, expenses for training and development of the entire workforce amounted to around CHF 25 million, which corresponds to nearly CHF 3000 per employee. Expressed as a ratio of the entire personnel expenses, the costs for training and development came to 3.1% (previous year: 3.4%).
Measures in the individual countries, tailored to the specific local circumstances, constitute an important factor in this context. In Germany, for instance, Swiss Life joined forces with representatives of the insurance industry and 11 other companies to develop the Executive Master of Insurance course. Since the 2007/2008 semester, the course has been part of the curriculum of the Faculty of Business Administration at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. This part-time post-graduate course provides students with specific insurance and actuarial knowledge. It contributes to the availability of highly qualified young specialists and ensures that current or potential Swiss Life employees who graduate from the course are ideally prepared for their tasks on the job.
In France, Swiss Life initiated the “Contrat social” development programme in May 2007. This programme helps harmonise the requirements of the company with regard to staff flexibility and mobility on the one hand and the employees’ desire for professional change on the other. It enables Swiss Life to retain competent and motivated employees and offer its staff additional in-house development and career options.
In Switzerland, Swiss Life launched a modern learning management system in 2007 which promotes continuous and systematic training. “Life Learn”, the online portal, supports the entire learning process. All the requisite steps of an individual course – application, preparation, execution and evaluation – are performed electronically. Swiss Life Switzerland’s entire training programme is accessible via the intranet and currently comprises more than 200 attendance courses, online courses, or a combination of the two. Employees can consult the programme on offer independently to find out which courses are best suited to their individual development requirements and then apply online. Approximately 600 training events were carried out in the year under review.
Talent fostering | Since introducing its new concept for management development measures in 2005, Swiss Life has been fostering talented young staff through a specifically designed on-the-job training programme. Carefully selected employees with high potential are prepared for future leadership roles over two to three years. Participants work on strategically relevant topics in groups with an interdisciplinary and intercultural structure. Individual measures include coaching and mentoring. To qualify for this programme, staff must be nominated by the Corporate Executive Board. Out of the roughly one hundred participants in this talent development programme to date, 80% have since taken on a new, more demanding position within the Group.
