The Economic Times: It's just savenomics
Date: 10-Jun-2009
Mumbai: The Air is thick with company Jargon as jaunty workers engage in banter. It seems every employee at the Gurgaon-based insurance firm Aviva reciprocates company values. “No one recognises you like Aviva,” says TR Ramachandran, CEO of Aviva, adding, “If you can make them (employees) smile, you have achieved the rest of it.” Even in the midst of the ongoing slump, when companies were cutting corners, Aviva India went ahead by introducing a slew of measures to encourage, reward and recognise their employees. Be it the I-Save Campaign, CEO Award or extending the Blue Riband award on performance to non-sales functions—all were aimed at a common goal of engaging people. The I-Save Campaign or the expenses management campaign, instituted last November, recognises a team or an employee for ideas on savings or even innovatively tweaking things to manage company expenses. The CEO’s pet project, the campaign received an overwhelming response of 800 ideas from across functions. The CEO Award, which rewards people for innovatively bringing out projects with a clear ROI for the company, is another such initiative.
Take the case of Dinesh Arora, a member of distribution strategy. He came up with an idea on reducing per unit cost of acquiring and training a Financial Planning Advisor (FPA) and saved the company a whopping Rs 1.14 crore per month. It also helped in getting quality FPAs. And he got an individual award of Rs 25,000. It’s natural therefore for employees to adhere to the company’s motto—’One Aviva, twice the value’. It also translates into doubling the market share by 2012 and enhancing people productivity five times over.
Many of the workers at Aviva have an average association of four years with the company and have risen through the ranks. “I joined at 18, straight out of school and today am a branch manager sales. In the last seven years, opportunities came and went, but I didn’t think of leaving even once,” says the now 25-year-old Shikha Kathuria. According to her, the company provided her with what she wanted and she didn’t need to look out even once.