How we brought our winning team together like never before

It’s not every day that a 130-year old company makes history, but Manulife did just that earlier this month with our first ever Global Employee Forum.

For the first time, this milestone event brought together our 35,000 employees for a live experience seen in offices around the world. We actually held the entire event twice over a nine-hour period to accommodate our employees in multiple time zones. Teams from all of our geographies across the globe gathered as our Executive Leadership Team discussed the impact and importance of our mission, values and culture.

In addition to a Q&A about where we’re heading as a company, we had the pleasure of hearing from two special guests.

First, Emily Kim Ae Sun Hunter, a Manulife team member from our U.S. business, shared her personal story of struggling to find her identity as an adopted twin from South Korea being raised in New Hampshire. I was struck by her bravery, honesty and willingness to be vulnerable – traits that are difficult to develop but critically important in life and at work alike.

The story was very relevant because sharing our humanity is one of our core values, and we all learned so much from Emily’s story. Importantly, she emphasized the power of our focus on diversity and inclusion – another key area in our business transformation. To become the company I know Manulife can be, we need every single team member to feel comfortable bringing their full selves to work every day.

We also heard from Neil Pasricha, an award-winning blogger and author of eight bestsellers, including The Book of Awesome and The Happiness Equation. He drew on the latest research to give us all some practical tips for boosting our happiness and the talk was, in a word, awesome.

What struck me most was the point Neil made about acting yourself into a new way of thinking, rather than thinking yourself into a new way of acting. We sometimes have to step out of our comfort zones to get things done and take responsibility for building our own motivation, without waiting to be prompted. In any business, that’s a crucial skill.

The feedback about our first Global Employee Forum has been phenomenal. Focusing on employee engagement and culture are key priorities at Manulife. Having an engaged team has many benefits – both for the company and for our people.

Engaged employees eat healthier, exercise more frequently, and are less likely to suffer with chronic illnesses. And, according to a Kansas State University study, they also enjoy happier home lives! Meanwhile, companies that rank in the top quartile for engagement also enjoy substantially better customer engagement. They also achieve 21% greater profitability and earnings-per-share growth that is more than four times that of their competitors. And last but certainly not least, engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their employers, an important consideration in a highly competitive talent market like the one we are in today.

The Global Employee Forum was a great success and we’re already developing new ideas for how to inspire our colleagues and rally them behind our mission of making decisions easier and lives better for our customers.

We have come a long way in the two years since we started this digital transformation journey, and I firmly believe we are well-positioned to accelerate the delivery of our goals, improve experiences for our customers and make Manulife a top destination to grow and own your career.

Here’s to continued success as a winning team!