Sharon Wright, VP, International Human Resources, Prudential Financial, Inc. (PFI) and Anuraag Maini, Executive VP - HR & Training - DLF Pramerica Life Insurance (DPLI) discuss the critical role of talent management in the insurance sector.

How is the talent strategy in the insurance sector different in the US and in India?

Sharon Wright: When I look at the US and India at this stage of the industry lifecycle, I see the largest difference being in terms of speed. The talent strategy in India today is all about the speed to identify the right talent, recruit, engage, retain and overall make sure that the right systems are in place to keep pace with the industrydynamics. In the US, there was a time when we had a war for talent. That is the situation in India today.

Also, while in the US, the Gen Y and the Millennials are one of the constituents of the workforce; in India, they are a dominant part of the overall talent pool. The young population is more ambitious, aggressive and looking for quick development and growth. Their needs and aspirations are different. It can be very challenging to form an emotional connect with them, which is important from a retention point of view.

Being a sales-driven industry, how does HR ensure that rewards are rightly aligned to drive target-achievement without compromising?

Sharon Wright: It is critical for HR to understand the business drivers and the behaviors essential to drive business. For instance, before devising a compensation plan, it is imperative for the function to understand how the compensation plan will drive the right behavior for business success.

Further, to ensure compliance, HR should assess how the compensation plan will drive revenues and whether the organization has the checks and balances in place. Ensuring compliance is a shared responsibility between business, HR and risk functions. HR must work with a series of partners to ensure that a thorough risk assessment and review is carried out while developing compensation programs.
Having met with the DPLI team in India, I am very impressed on how connected the HR team is with the business.

How do you scale the reward mechanism and how is HR able to stay so connected?

Anuraag Maini: In India, the HR function is embedded in the business. Business HR teams are essentially located where business is conducted. The idea is to be present where the action is, to learn and provide support to business. Centralized HR teams provide back-end support in terms of the program design and delivery.

Also, there are structured ways of measuring employee engagement like the pulse survey and the annual employee opinion survey. We also participated in the ‘Great Place to Work® Survey’ this year and were ranked 74th. These kinds of surveys tell us what is going well and what needs to change. We are also trying to put in place a mechanism, by way of which, we can capture feedback from employees who opt to leave the organization. Their valuable inputs help us improve our reward structure and other programs. HR managers also travel to remote locations to stay connected and seek inputs from employees. Through these methods and the online inputs, we strive to make our reward mechanism better.

Sharon Wright: In addition to HR going into local areas to understand the pulse of the business, it is also important to keep calling the sales-force to the corporate office to keep driving the values that the organization stands for. We also follow this system in a part of our business in the US that has an agency sales-force, where we are co-located and the HR person is paired with the regional in-charge.

Being a new organization operating in a very new sector with high attrition, how do you propose to create an internal pipeline for future leaders?

Anuraag Maini: We are a 3 year young company. Looking at the size of the company and our growth plans, I do not think we currently have enough leaders to drive our growth. Having said that, the talent pool we have is very precious to us. This year, our talent management system was targeted at investing in talent assessment and development, explaining our key talent how critical they are to the business, and providing feedback to each individual in a very transparent manner. We have a process of identifying key talent at mid and senior levels. We have created career paths in most functions so that people have a sense of what they need to do to move into other roles. We also started our Internal Job Postings (IJP) process last year.

Sharon Wright: In the US, we always have a blend of internal and external leaders. We do hire and develop and we also have a small base of expats. We strive for the right mix based on the lifecycle and stage of a business and also based on availability of talent in the market. With extreme growth, it is just not possible that you will get everyone up to speed exactly at the time when you need them. So, you will have to bring in individuals from outside. I also believe that when you are in a stable mode, you could become quite insular if you only develop leaders internally. You could miss market trends, the greatest advents in a particular area. We use expats selectively because they are very expensive. We use them to transfer a particular skill and one of their primary roles is to identify a local successor, because those are the people who know the market and can best connect with the local market and customers.

Support from leadership is critical for leadership development. The amount of time that the CEO spends on leadership development sets the right tone for everyone else. We are also trying to build our leadership brand – what does a leader in Prudential look like? By identifying the competencies and the behaviors attached to those competencies, we are saying that this is the type of leader that belongs to Prudential. We have good products and processes but these products and processes can be replicated by other companies very easily. Therefore, people, in the true sense, are the differentiators.