A dialogue with nearly 100 human resource personnel from the leading insurance companies in Singapore was held with the Singapore Insurance Employees’ Union (SIEU) as part of the Financial Services Career Week from 14 to 23 August 2017.
Future-proofing Workers
During the three-hour dialogue, both employers and union officials talked about the disruptions affecting insurance industry workers.
The dialogue participants also identified some of the jobs at risk and uppermost in their minds is to work hand-in-hand to address workers’ concerns in this area.
Explained Aviva’s People Development Manager Jeremy Cai: “We talked about the resources that we can all bring together in order to better look at what the future needs are from the capability point of view. This way, we can help our workers not just plug the short-term gaps but have a longer view of what the future looks like and what they need to build on in order to get there.”
Boosting PME Representation
Reaching out to professionals, managers and executives (PMEs) was another topic discussed.
"As the industry evolves amidst technological disruptions, for the unions to continue to be relevant, not only do they have to evolve in understanding the needs of the PMEs as the majority of the workers in our industry are PMEs, their role in representation would also have to evolve to working with employers to future proof their members through skills development," said Mr Cen Hong Siu Ming, Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) Insurance Industry Group Chairman and a senior vice president with Great Eastern Life Assurance.
Over the next few months, SIEU will be broadening its outreach to encourage more PMEs in the industry to become union members.
“Our collective agreement with the rank-and-file workers is expiring at the end of the year and it is a good time to start talking to them. Different companies want to move at different speeds and this is a good opportunity to engage them about organising and union membership,” said SIEU General Secretary Luke Hee.
