Investors In People West Midlands

The Organisation

Groupama Insurances is one of the UK's leading general insurers. The company offers motor, home and commercial insurance to consumers and small businesses via a network of professional insurance brokers. It also sells private medical insurance to SMEs via its specialist healthcare brand, Groupama Healthcare. The company employs over 800 staff at six sites across the UK.

Groupama Insurances was formed in 1999 as a result of the merger of GAN Insurance and Lombard General Insurance, and is part of European financial services giant Groupama, an international business generating annual revenues in excess of €16 billion.

For the three years following the merger in 1999, the company struggled for profitability with its broad portfolio of business including large commercial covers and a participation in the London Market underwriting specialist lines including marine, transport and aviation covers. The business was refocused under new management in 2002 and has subsequently enjoyed six consecutive years of impressive profitability.

"Investors in People provides our customers with reassurance about the quality of our people. This is particularly important when we are tendering to do work under their brands."

Groupama Insurances is now one of the wider group‟s strongest performing subsidiaries, including in terms of return on capital invested. The business‟ aspiration is "to be a highly focused, disciplined and respected provider of insurance and protection solutions" and to be „big enough to deliver, small enough to care‟.

A particular challenge for Groupama‟s motor and home insurance business lies in keeping pace with changing consumer buying behaviours. The popularity of the internet and in particular, aggregators and price comparison websites means that consumers have become very focused on price, rather than on value, service or other factors. Customer loyalty is therefore a major issue , with some customers changing insurance provider for savings of as little as £10 per annum. The attraction of new recruits to the insurance sector generally, and to a non-consumer branded company like Groupama in particular, remains a significant challenge.

History with Investors in People

Prior to 2004 several of Groupama‟s individual sites had committed to, and subsequently gained, Investors in People recognition in their own right. While undoubtedly useful for the individual sites involved, it was clear to the company‟s senior management that group-wide recognition was necessary in order to truly embed the systems and benefits of working with the Investors in People Standard. The whole of Groupama Insurances was first recognised as meeting the Investors in People Standard in 2004 and was subsequently recognised against the more challenging Profile framework in 2008. In achieving recognition in 2008, Groupama gained one of the highest scores yet recorded against the wider Profile framework.

Motivations for using Investors in People

For Groupama the key motivating factors behind their decision to engage with the Investors in People framework were:

• As a company that did not sell direct to consumers or businesses, the company understandably has lower brand awareness amongst potential recruits. In order to overcome this disadvantage, and therefore attract the best recruits, the company needed a mechanism to demonstrate its quality as an employer. Achievement of the widely recognised and acclaimed Investors in People Standard was seen as an important way of signalling the company‟s strong commitment to valuing and developing its workforce;
• As a business formed following a number of mergers and acquisitions, the Groupama senior management team were very keen to develop a new, shared ethos within the business. By implementing the Investors in People Standard the company hoped to harmonise the different elements of the business and build a new, common culture;
• The ability of Groupama to benchmark their own performance against that of similar companies was a very important motivator when deciding to use the Profile framework in 2008. This was especially important for an organisation which wanted to be recognised as offering the best opportunities for people development within the financial services sector. Explaining this Mark Dickinson, Groupama‟s HR Business Partner, states: "Investors in People was identified as an excellent way of benchmarking ourselves in an area of business in which it is notoriously difficult to do so";
• The Investors in People framework itself focused in on a number of business areas which Groupama had already identified needed further development work in order for them to become the "employer of choice" they wanted to be. In particular, the framework was seen as a very useful tool for embedding the values, behaviours and expectations that the company‟ senior management team wished to develop;
• As an ambitious business, Groupama has always been keen to understand how good they are and how they could do better, and the Profile framework provided them with the additional stretch they desired. The four levels within each area of the Profile framework also meant that the company would in future have clear, externally verified targets it could aim for; and, While some parts of the business had benefited from using the Investors in People framework in the past, the company was keen to ensure all parts of the business operated to the same exacting standards, and that all employees, irrespective of where they were based, benefited from the same opportunities.
• While some parts of the business had benefited from using the Investors in People framework in the past, the company was keen to ensure all parts of the business operated to the same exacting standards, and that all employees, irrespective of where they were based, benefited from the same opportunities.

"Investors in People was identified as an excellent way of benchmarking ourselves in an area of business in which it is notoriously difficult to do so"

Benefits of Investors in People

According to Groupama its engagement with Investors in People has delivered a range of important and valuable benefits, for example:

• By working with the Investors in People Standard and the Profile Framework the company believes they have been able to identify and tackle the main causes of a range of employee concerns. As a result, Groupama has seen employee turnover fall from 20% in the year before Investors in People was implemented to just 10.7% in the most recent year. Most significantly, employee turnover fell by 4% in just one year after working with the wider Profile framework.
• While the level of absenteeism had always been low among Groupama staff, at just 2% it is now substantially better than the 3% seen across the financial services sector as a whole. In the opinion of Groupama, this is another consequence of improved levels of employee satisfaction following the introduction of Investors in People.
• The number of employees undertaking professional qualifications linked directly to their role has also increased significantly, with more than 100 of the company‟ 800 people now undertaking such qualifications.
• Since beginning to work with Investors in People the company‟ in-house employee satisfaction survey has also shown significant improvements in the way people view their career development; the way in which the business communicates with them; and, the ways in which people work together. Views on the overall leadership and management of the organisation have also improved over the same timeframe.
• Investors in People recognition has helped them demonstrate the strength of their people development systems when tendering for work with other companies. Paul Picknett, Groupama‟ Corporate Services Director, explains: "Investors in People provides our customers with reassurance about the quality of our people. This is particularly important when we are tendering to do work under their brands."
• By working with the Profile framework the company has been able to identify and target specific parts of its operation for further development. According to Mark Dickinson: "Our last Profile assessment showed, for example, that we needed to review our approach to measuring the return on investment from people development. This has driven us to look at the complete training needs cycle and the way we allocate budgets. It‟ continuing to have a real impact on the way managers think about employee learning."

Where next with Investors in People

Based on their experiences, Groupama are committed to continuing to work with Investors in People in the future.

"Having worked with both the Standard and Profile we now really trust the IIP brand. We have seen for ourselves the impact it can have. Working with IIP has never been about the badge, it‟s been about the journey and IIP has helped us move a long way on that journey"

The business is particularly interested in continuing to work with the extended framework as they believe it provides them with additional stretch and targets to aspire to.

The UK subsidiaries success with Investors in People in radically improving employee engagement and satisfaction has not gone unnoticed by other parts of the Groupama group. Other companies in the group are now working with the UK subsidiary to see how the benefits of this approach can be shared internationally.

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