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Through its company-wide wellbeing strategy, ‘FWD LiveLife’, the insurer strives to ensure a consistent employee experience that aligns with its customer experience.
This article is brought to you by FWD
FWD Group, a pan-Asia life insurance company with more than 13mn customers across 10 markets, is focused on changing the way people feel about insurance. This, it does, by applying a customer-led and digitally enabled approach to deliver innovative propositions, easy-to-understand products, and a simpler insurance experience.
FWD supports its employees in the same way it does its customers – by supporting them to ‘celebrate living’. Responding to the reformation of the working generation and the new demands on work-life integration, the company is working to create a workplace where employees feel at home, and help them lead healthy and fulfilling lives, both inside and outside of the workplace.
Underpinned by a strong commitment from the entire FWD leadership, the company has launched a company-wide wellbeing strategy, called ‘FWD LiveLife’. Having established on World Health Day, 7 April 2021, this strategy aims to create a holistic, proactive, and preventative approach to employee wellbeing.
The wellbeing strategy comprises five pillars:
- Emotional health
- Social connectedness
- Physical health
- Financial wellness
- Purpose and meaning
Purpose and meaning are unique wellbeing pillars of FWD LiveLife in which the insurer helps employees find purpose and meaning by making a difference in people’s lives. Feeling truly connected with the company's mission and with one another, and thriving and growing both within and outside of the workplace, is critical.
To further embed wellbeing into its culture, FWD has continued to improve the programme over the last few years to encourage sustainable behaviour change. In 2023, this saw a range of exciting programmes organised across the five pillars of wellbeing to ensure employees are empowered to take care of things that matter the most to them, such as signature events; health talks and virtual coffee corners around topics on sleep habits, breathwork, kindness, gratitude, psychological safety, and intention setting; weekly fitness sessions; as well as resources for managers on how to take care of their team’s wellbeing.
Among them, the '1Ox FWD step it up challenge' was the most popular initiative, with 1,300 colleagues participating and 256 million steps taken, which were then converted into charitable donations. What's more, the annual ‘FWD Talent Camp’ gave talented employees across the region the opportunity to perform live on a virtual stage. Performances included dancing, aerial yoga, ice skating, weightlifting, billiards, drawing, yoyo, and DJing. Performers also shined a light on Asian cultures through traditional Balinese dance and Cambodian cultural celebration.
In total, FWD recorded 21 activities throughout the year 2023. 95% of participants gave a rating of four or five out of a maximum of five.
According to 2023 FWD LiveLife feedback survey, the perceived wellbeing level continues to increase over time, from 7.29 in 2022 to 7.62 in 2023. The vast majority of respondents said that FWD LiveLife has helped them better understand the importance of wellbeing (91%), feel that FWD cares about their wellbeing and that FWD is a better place to work (90%), feel more engaged as an employee (89%), and helped people managers better support their direct reports and teams (86%).
“Our greatest asset is our people,” says Julie Chow, Group Chief Human Resources Officer, FWD (pictured above).
Through FWD LiveLife, the company strives to ensure a consistent employee experience that aligns with its customer experience, empowering its employees to celebrate living in whatever ways they choose with support.
FWD LiveLife is not a standalone people strategy. While FWD endeavours to maintain programme consistency, deepen awareness, generate excitement, and build loyalty to FWD LiveLife, it is essential to embed and integrate it into the company's culture, aligning with other HR priorities. This includes building an ecosystem encompassing diversity, equity and inclusion, recognition and rewards, flexible work policies, wellbeing practices, and engagement with customers and communities.
“Together we celebrate living – living life to the fullest at work and at play,” says Chow.
Photos / FWD
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