Keynote Speech for Singapore Perspectives 2023 "Work": Learnings from steering ‘Future of Work’

Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Today, Income hires around 1,800 employees and about 1,000 financial advisors are tied to us. Thus, as an employer, I am glad that the survey findings reaffirmed three key observations that we have.

Firstly, change is constant. It means that the business will always have evolving needs, and the workforce must be nimble and adaptable as jobs change.?

Secondly, with uncertainties, reskilling and capability building of employees is key to being future ready. This must be seen as an investment that safeguards our collective long-term growth and sustainability as a workforce, company, and nation.

Finally, employers must instil confidence, support, and motivate the workforce to thrive in an ever-changing landscape.

While it’s easy to make observations, driving positive outcomes for ‘Future of Work’ is a lot more challenging.

Thus, I thought to share key learnings from Income’s experience, and I will be happy to hear your thoughts at the panel discussion later.

Give clarity – define the change

The first thing we did was to define the change, give clarity on the reason for it, its benefits and challenges, as well as its expectation from the company and staff.

As our people create value for our customers and drive impact for the organisation, it is imperative that they buy into the change and know well why we do what we do. ?

The future of work is a projection of how work, workers and the workplace will evolve in the years ahead. Considerations for that projection are aimed at driving decisions that enable the organisation to thrive today while they prepare for the future.

Today, ‘Future of Work’ is being regarded like a fashionable commodity to own. I’ve been asked on several occasions whether Income is practicing ‘Future of Work’, and more often than not, it meant to ask if we are on the hybrid working model.

And for the record, Income practices hybrid working and while we regarded it is an enabler, it isn’t ‘Future of Work’.

We foresaw the digitalisation wave and in 2017, embarked on digital transformation. It was a milestone decision to ensure that no one takes our lunch given the rise of e-commerce and tech companies venturing also into financial verticals.

When we set up the Digital Transformation Office, or DTO for short, we invested in technology and data on a dual-track strategy (1) to digitalise our core business and (2) to reimagine insurance like a start-up to disrupt ourselves before others do.?

What started out as a defensive move to protect our lunch turned into us ‘creating new lunches’ as our business innovation allowed us to expand into the region and in turn, availed new opportunities and jobs.

We intentionally positioned the DTO as the symbol for change as it represented a future where our workforce must be data-literate, comfortable with new technology such as AI and machine learning, customer-focused and empowered. We also embarked on learning journeys to countries like China to learn of their ways of working and entrepreneurial spirit.

Through Townhalls, stories in the press, internal memos and staff sharing, we purposefully build a ground swell about digitalisation, new technologies, innovation, and transformation at Income by communicating and showcasing our initiatives, projects, people, and achievements. The accolades we won along the journey as a company also helped to fuel the change.

By doing this regularly, we extended influence, excitement, meaning and purpose to ‘Future of Work’ even to those who were not immediately close to the change or embarking on new jobs. We even identified roles that would be obsoleted or needed to pivot due to the changing environment and we have transformed about 20 to 30 roles. The journey to change was tough.

Build an immersive environment

Next, we build an immersive environment and promote experiential learning to make change less intimidating. This has been critical in exposing our people to new technologies, design thinking, agile ways of working, data literacy and customer-centricity.

As a company with a rich and long history, we naturally have legacy system and long-serving staff that may resist or need a little more time to be persuaded to get onboard change.

To emphasise the urgency for change, we invited experts in next-generation technologies such as AI and data to share new developments pushing our industry’s boundaries and what other insurers are exploring.

We introduced mobile and facial access to our offices, as well as a mobile app that enables staff to apply/approve leave, expenses and make claims. Zoey, our AI recruitment chatbot is now enabling screening of candidates and recruitment of financial consultants more efficiently.

Through our annual hackathon where employees form groups to innovate solutions for real business problems, agile cross-divisional teams that collaborate to bring products and services to market faster, as well as our exploration of virtual reality and blockchain technology for business applications, our employees become more exposed to what ‘Future of Work’ is like and could be.

Build inclusivity – speak a common language

Technology and data are fundamental to a company’s customer-centricity, which is the bedrock of business success today.

Enterprise wide, it is thus essential to establish and speak a “common language” around data that empowers customer-centricity.

What this means is that employees must have a common understanding about the types of data, how they can be managed, organised, processed and analysed to inform customer insights and business decisions.

This calls for a data-driven culture at Income and to embed it as our way of working organisation wide, we must be inclusive in honing employees’ data-driven skill sets and establishing this “common language”.

Thus, we placed all staff on a data curriculum starting 2021. The curriculum tailors to staff’s work requirements accordingly - from admin personnel, executives, managers to senior leaders – and cuts across different modules that include data analytics, storytelling and visualisation, AI and making data-driven decisions.

Our employees are also trained on design-thinking so that, we too, have a common language and is inclusive about embedded customer-centricity as a way of working at Income.

Give assurance, instil confidence

We learnt from the survey findings earlier that while Singaporeans are open to changes to their work, including their occupations, they are generally worried.

This is only natural as change brings with it uncertainties.

Thus, one of the most important learning we took away was to not only give assurance but to also instil confidence amongst staff that they can succeed at Income.

To do so, we encourage job mobility and provide opportunities for employees to take on new roles.

We support staff’s training based on the 70:30:10 rule, where 70% is on-the-job training and learning, 30% is peer learning and 10% in classrooms.

We adopt a more holistic talent acquisition approach to ensure that we continue to meet business needs and addressing challenges amidst changing times.

While it is important to have the right job and culture fit, I would like to stress that, at Income, we are not just about hiring people from within the industry. Neither are we overly fixated about the course of study or training, with the exception of technical roles like actuary, of course.

In the formation of DTO, we brought onboard lawyers, bankers and business developers and many others from non-insurance backgrounds to inject vitality and reimagine the way people think about insurance.

Thus, at Income, it isn’t about fitting into a mould but thriving on diversity of mindsets and perspectives that spark ideas and innovations, which in turn, drives progress and growth for all at Income.

As a former Naval Architect who entered insurance simply because the insurer that hired me then had wanted someone outside of the industry and training to bring new value add to the firm, I stand by this belief strongly.

We are mindful that our people leaders play a critical role in inspiring and supporting change.

Thus, through our ‘Future-Ready Workforce’ programme, our managers undergo competency development in leading change, developing people and driving excellence.

We also hone their coaching skills to empower them to be more effective people leaders when providing guidance on careers, taking development conversations, instilling confidence and give assurance to their teams.

Be purposefully focused

Finally, there’s benefit to being purposefully focused about evolving with and adapting to ‘Future of Work’.

Because of the fundamentals that we had set in place, our staff were better placed for change when the pandemic hit and became the single and most effective change catalyst that we had ever encountered.

In the short the few months, we witnessed and experienced the fastest technology optimisation and adoption rate at Income. We also saw better collaboration and teamwork because of the gradual and increased understanding and appreciation of digital transformation

We proved to ourselves that remote working does not impede productivity. We tore down silos, focused on the jobs to be done and collaborated in way that was unprecedented.

We put in place a ‘Future of Work’ taskforce led by our Chief Operating Officer, Chief Technology Officer and Chief People Officer to leap-frog new work processes and improve efficiency and reduce redundancies, as well as to refocus employees on high-value work that creates greater job satisfaction for them.

Hybrid working is a permanent feature at Income and it is not about the number of days in office. We are guided by the types of activities and the format that is appropriate. We have found this to be more empowering, and it builds trust amongst employees.

Nurture our greatest asset – People

That said, we’re still a work in progress because as I’ve said it earlier, “change is constant”.

As work continues to evolve, so are the expectations and career goals of employees. I always tell my leaders we need to be transformative and supportive of our people’s aspirations.

Likewise, we encourage staff to take charge of their career and have open conversation with their managers. I believe it must be two-way.?

For employees who are listening to this, be bold. It’s either you lead the change or let the change lead you. Be the change you want to be.

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