AmGeneral: Top Talents Speak Out

About their engaging journey with leading general insurer

“What makes me get up for work in the morning are the people that I work with and the job itself. In fact, I look forward to work every day because no two days are the same.” —Ng Min Dee

According to recruitment company Michael Page, opportunities for growth, hands-on approach from leaders, meaningful and purposeful work, provision of recognition and awards, and a people-centric culture, are some of the key factors that enable companies to not only attract talents into the company, but to also retain them by creating an engaged workforce.

Why the need to create an engaged workforce?

A study conducted by global performance management consulting company, Gallup, showed that engaged employees create a high-performance culture, which is a crucial element for the success of any business.

Synonymous with this, AmGeneral Insurance Berhad (AmGeneral) believes that creating a high-performance culture is vital for the company to achieve its goal of becoming Malaysia’s most trusted insurer.

Leaderonomics recently spoke to the company’s top talents on their interesting career experiences in conjunction with AmGeneral’s third Employee Excellence Awards.

Yew Chun Kit

Head of Sales – Agency Distribution

Yew was awarded the Exceptional Performance title for achieving excellent business outcomes in recruiting new agents and generating new premiums. In addition to that, he managed to achieve his fourth quarter target, which grew by 16% from last year.

Yew says: What makes the company a great place to work is definitely the people. Everyone here is incredibly friendly and helpful. If there is something that I need assistance with, all I have to do is make a phone call, and my colleague(s) would be more than willing to lend a helping hand. The team spirit and connection that you see between employees here is very strong, and that’s why I consider AmGeneral as my second family.

Aside from the people, the company offers various career development programmes, which I consider to be of value especially since I am a young working professional. Some of the programmes that the company put me through were motivation and leadership sessions which I believe have propelled my performance.

Cristal Teo Jin Ping and Syaranee Bin Neesa

Team representatives – Claims Bodily Injury (BI)

AmGeneral’s Claims Bodily Injury team. From left: Syaranee Neesa, Cristal Teo Jin Ping, Mohd Nazry Mohd Zain, Norsafizah Mohd Sood and Muhamad Shah Mokhtar.

For their outstanding innovative contribution that aids the long-term company growth, this team was given the Innovation and Change award. The team not only pioneered the development of a Resource Centre for their department, but they also invested considerable time and effort into exploring all possibilities to ensure that the centre is able to fulfil the information needs of all claims personnel.

Their team representatives say: Working in the claims department, knowledge serves as one of the key tools for us to perform in our respective roles. Thus, the idea of establishing a Resource Centre came about; as an avenue to foster a love for reading and for informal self-education to take place.

We conducted online research, visited actual libraries to comprehend the policies, workflows and operations, just so we could devise a solid framework for the centre.

While there were ups and downs throughout the execution of this project, we learnt to put aside our individual differences. This feat would not have been made possible if not for the generous guidance and input that we received from our head of department and Claims BI management, especially during the proposal drafting stage.

Lim Kai Row

Senior Executive – Bancassurance Retail Marketing

AmGeneral: Customer focus

Lim was awarded the Customer Focus Award for providing outstanding customer service and receiving great customer feedback. One such instance was when she received a “WAH” card from AmBank Sg Bakap, as a gesture to applaud her excellent service in ensuring the success of their event. Lim has also been credited with consistently going the extra mile when it comes to the customers she serves.

Lim says: After completing my degree two years ago, I decided to work for AmGeneral. My line of work involves working closely with one of AmGeneral’s parent companies, AmBank Group—one of the largest banking groups in Malaysia.

Seeing as I am quite new to the insurance industry, I received a lot of support and guidance from my immediate superior and senior vice president of Bancassurance. Under their dynamic leadership, I am empowered to gain valuable knowledge and opportunities to develop my skills.

Benny Lim Eng Choon

Team representative – Agency Distribution: Sitiawan branch

AmGeneral’s Agency Distribution team of the Sitiawan branch. From left: Pung Heng Luk, Benny Lim Eng Choon, Juliana Mohamad Yahaya, Koay Chin Hong, Yong Pooi Chin, and Yew Chun Kit.

For their exceptional collaboration to achieve the company’s goals, this team was awarded the Teamwork/Collaboration Award. Their team spirit and ability to embrace diversity, led them to achieve their third quarter target by 100%, as compared to last year; which contributed RM1.5mil growth to the company.

Lim says: AmGeneral has a huge network of agents, and because they are key partners in the way that AmGeneral does its business, it is important that these agents are given the right support. This is where my team comes in. We organise internal and external initiatives for the company; this includes a host of engaging activities for our valued agents. Here, we provide them with updates and key messages from the ma-
nagement.

While there were several challenges along the way, such as the time when the Malaysian economy began to dwindle (in 2015), our perseverance and hard work as a team paid off when AmGeneral ranked our branch as the top three among all 32 AmGeneral branches nationwide for the internal initiatives we undertook to support our agents.

Ng Min Dee

Manager – Organisational Development

AmGeneral: Leadership

Ng’s exceptional leadership and active development of the workforce capability, landed her the Leadership Award. She has been hailed as a participative and democratic leader, who continuously strives to provide employees with opportunities to grow; and a forward-thinking leader for revolutionising a change in the human resources (HR) data system.

Ng says: One of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in my two and a half years of working in the talent development field here in AmGeneral, was when I managed to successfully develop my team leading to a promotion.
I owe it to AmGeneral for the opportunity to not only grow my own team, but also to teach other teams within the HR department, as this is something that motivates and keeps me going.

Apart from the job itself, I cherish the friendly and collaborative work environment in AmGeneral, whereby my colleagues are always there to listen and to help out in any way that they can.

The big picture

An organisation is nothing without its people. In order to create a high-performance culture, AmGeneral’s chief executive officer Derek Roberts believes that an organisation would have to bring in the right kind of people with the right kind of attitude.

He said, “It’s the positive attitude, the extra effort and the willingness to step up to the plate that will get you noticed and provide you with a lot more opportunities.”

Interviews with the top talents of AmGeneral serve as evidence that the organisation is succeeding in bringing in the right talents into the company, and in engaging these talents to strive towards the company’s goal of becoming Malaysia’s most trusted insurer.