1900 Report Assignment

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Table of contents
1.0	Case Overview	2
	1.1 Challenges	3
	1.2 Strategies	4
2.0	Change Management	4
	2.1 Changes	4
	2.2 Force field analysis	5
	2.3 Levin’s change model	5
3.0	Ethics	9
	3.1 Recommendations	11
	3.1.1Working conditions	11
	3.1.2 Transparency	11
	3.1.3 Removal of transfers	11
	3.1.4 Summary	12
4.0	Job designs	12
	4.1 Results	13
	4.2 Recommendations	13
5.0	Hiring & Selection methods	14
6.0	Human Resource Development	16
	6.1 Training needs analysis	16
7.0	Conclusion	20
8.0	References	21

1.0 Case overview

Johor Insurance (JI), a company with 127 years of history, deals with major insurance markets which consist of life, home & contents and car insurance. Up till 1955, JI managed to hold on to almost 50 percent of the market share in the insurance industry. However, the numbers have been steadily going down due to the government policy of having compulsory CPF. This policy made people to simply “add-on” life insurance to their CPF rather than buy and maintain a separate policy with an external company like JI. The life insurance business saw a major reduction and eventually, 20 years down the road, JI’s main customer base is currently older lifelong customers who are not motivated to change companies. As a result, the profit margin was the lowest in the insurance industry.

1.1 Challenges

The government’s CPF policy was just one of the challenges faced by JI. A consultants’ assessment of the current insurance market showed a very crowded, competitive market with thin margins and mass off-shoring of back-office support services. Technological advances were also a problem. The life-long customers of companies who didn’t change due to the hassle of finding, comparing and negotiating policies, now had free apps and websites doing the job for them. This made insurance companies bid against each other in order to get customers by offering better deals than their competitors. JI’s staff departments also had issues as illustrated in table 1.1

JOHOR INSURANCE

SALES

CLAIMS

ADJUSTERS

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

-Unusually large size

- Working hours from 7am to 10pm every day except National day, Chinese New Year and Good Friday

- Reselling team did not actually do any active selling. Focused on channel sales instead.

-Functionally and structurally unbalanced

-Six staff engaged in placing advertisements in traditional media like papers and magazines even though less than 2% of new customers are attracted via these media.

-No outgoing, proactive PR activities. All staff focused and engaged on marketing to direct retail consumers. No experience or motivation to deal with business clients or reselling channel partners

-Two teams of claims staff, each dealing with phone claims and online claims. Never worked together. Online claims division was seen as dead-end as low performing staff from phone claims division were transferred over.

-24/7 claims hotline and minimum of three staff rostered at any point of time. Small number of calls meant that staff did not have productivity and were simply there for the sake of being there.

-Absence from night-shift was high, resulting in JI paying over-time penalties of over $200,000 a year

-Shadow shopper lodged fake claims and benchmarked against other major insurance companies. JI ranked 7th out of 8.

- 60 staff working as adjusters doing all adjusting activities, but contemporary practice was to have a small team of adjusters to handle long term cases and contract independent adjusters for everything else.

- Adjusters costs of car, travelling and other allowances like home internet costed more than $28000 annually.

- No specialist knowledge in adjusting commercial and business insurance claims. No exposure to typical business insurance claims like employee fraud and deliberate sabotage.

- All staff are on individual workplace contracts.

- Contracts were not consistent in regards to salary, allowances and terms & conditions.

- Some contracts had minimum one-month notice to resign while others had three-month notice.

-Actuaries and re-insurance specialist have 12-month non-competition clause while legal and regulatory offices did not.

Table 1.1

1.2 Strategies

The consultant had come up with recommendations to help JI recover and gain back it’s market share. Diagram 1.1 illustrates the big picture.

Figure 1.1

Separating into two entities with the retail arm being sold for profits after stabilising, JI will subsequently be launched as Commercial Underwriters Asia Pacific (CUAP). CUAO will deal with business related insurance as their core transactions. Retaining key executives is an important part of this strategy. Research has shown that it is easier to sell a business to international interests when the management is stable and experience. It is also to avoid the time consumption of getting approvals from Monetary Authority of Singapore(MAS) for new hires.

2.0 Change Management

2.1 Changes

Being separated into two distinct entities, JI will have to induce certain changes in the organisation and its’ staff. Improvements to customer service, improvement of claims processing, courses to expand knowledge of staff, reduction of overtimes while maximising human resource are some of the changes needed to improve JI’s current situation. Salaries and contracts will have to be readjusted to ensure consistency as this will directly help the human resource department to handle employees efficiently at the same time raising motivation and dedication amongst staff. Change management models can be used as an aid for the implementation of changes.

2.2 Force Field Analysis

Force field analysis is a model which depicts the drivers and restrictors for change in the organisation. It is used in change management and understand the processes for change in organisations (Lewin, 1951) Drivers enable the organisation to identify positive motivators and factors for change while restrictors help to show what are the obstacles for the changes. When there is imbalance between driving forces and restraining forces, changes takes place (Lewin, 1946)

Fig 1.2

2.3 Lewin’s change model

At the unfreezing stage, HR must be able to build the motivation for the changes. The organisation must be able to identify the drivers for the change and understand why they need such changes. It minimises barriers for the change and helps to increase the possibility of a successful change (Levasseur,2001). The movement stage is where the existing system is examined and the development of changes take place. (Levasseur,2001). The refreeze stage is where the new changes are tested and continuously monitored to ensure that the new changes have completely eradicated old habits and practices which were there before the change (Levasseur,2001).

Unfreeze
Role of HR: Change Leader
Actions needed
Sales and marketing	Claims	Adjusters	Professional services
Brainstorm on the process of re-grouping and re-structuring of manpower in the department. Explain need to move forward with technology and show benefits of social media advertising.	Evaluate how staff from both teams can work with each other and have a better communication channel. Consider rotation between staff of both teams. Assess manpower needs for hotline manning and shift work. Reduction in number of employees needed for hotline service (if possible).	Study costs of having contract- based adjustors vis a vis having full time adjustors. Research on government initiatives like works skills sg, to calculate costs and study benefits of upgrading programmes Look into optimising adjusters’ activities via the use of a standard checklist for claims assessment and incentives for reduction of initial claim amounts (e.g. lower claim amount = higher incentive)	Look into MOM regulations and labour law to understand how contracts can be streamlined. Draft salary guidelines, terms and conditions and clauses which can referenced from these government acts.
Issues and addressing them
Issues: Employees may be uncertain about such changes and how it may affect them. This might lead to a resistance to the change and general fear of economical loss like loss of pay and losing of jobs. Addressing: Communicate these possible changes that are to happen by holding a briefing explaining the need for changes. Q & A session at the end of such briefing to let employees voice out their queries. Employees can also direct questions before the brief to their immediate superiors which can then be collated to have them answered at the end.

Table 1.2

Transition
Role of HR: Change Educator
Changes to be made
Sales and marketing	Claims	Adjusters	Professional services
Dismantle and reallocate reselling team to other departments. Provide training to optimise performance at the new departments that they are posted to Stoppage of marketing via traditional media like newspapers and magazines. Send a small group of staff to WSQ Social media marketing courses. Re-task marketing team to shift focus on business clients Change workplace timings to ensure employees are well-rested and energetic to push on with sales	Rotation of staff from both online and chat teams to remove “dead-end” perspective. Monthly evaluation of productivity and increase in allowance for night-shift staff so that absentee rates will drop. Disciplinary actions on employees who repeatedly are absent. Provide training on customer service and improving customer based skills.	Alignment with contemporary practice by employing contract- based adjusters to handle short-term cases and full-time adjusters to continue working on long term ones. To avoid problem of contract-based adjusters closing cases to receive commission fast without regard to claim amount, incentive can be given for claims which are closed below initial claim amounts Send adjusters on WSQ certified courses to gain experience on business related insurance claims	Realign contracts to be consistent. The contracts must adhere to government rules and regulations on employment contracts. Streamline terms and conditions. This makes it easier for HR to execute actions if the terms and conditions are breached instead vis a vis having different clauses for different group of staff
Issues and addressing them
Issues: There would be a high employee turnover rate. Certain group of employees might not be comfortable in learning new skills, for example, older senior workers who have been doing things the same way for years. The organisation might have to pump in additional money to send workers for courses, inducing extra costs. Addressing: Opening up of communications channel for employees to voice out their concerns. There could also be a peer learning system, where employees are encouraged to share knowledge and “tutor” their peers in certain areas. For lowering of costs, organisation could tap on workers skills future credits and leverage on government programmes which help older workers (e.g. Career centres by NTUC and CDC etc.)

Table 1.3

Refreeze
Role of HR: Change Advisor
Actions needed
Sales and marketing	Claims	Adjusters	Professional services
Receive and review feedback from department staff on the changes. Consider optimising work based on the feedback given.
Gain and study reports on the change from traditional media to social media marketing. Analyse if sales due to social media marketing has increased.	Get reports on absentee rates after the change was implemented. Have call recording to study what was done well and what was not done so well. Implement customer satisfactory survey at the end of each service call.	Get reports on claims and cases that were successful. Study if there has been an improvement in the investigation process. Continue to provide the adjusters with incentives for closing cases through proper investigation techniques and channels. Continuously gather feedback from adjusters, especially on business related claims, to understand areas which they need improvement or help on.	Review contract terms either annually or bi-annually to ensure that it remains attractive and competitive with regards to current market rate. By reviewing and taking note of market rates, skilled and talented employees will not be lured to other companies.
Issues and addressing them
Issues: Employees might still be adapting to changes. Not all employees can adapt to changes at the same rate and there might be outliers who could not cope with others. Certain employees might also fall back to the old way of doing things out of habit. Addressing: Identification of outliers and employees who might have trouble coping is important at this stage. A open channel for communications and constantly gathering feedback will prove crucial in helping these employees. Actively gathering feedback and having support channels to get them back on track will prove beneficial. Feedback must be a two-way channel and the employees must also be aware of what the organisation thinks that they are doing right or wrong. Rewards and remunerations will also help to keep the morale and motivation of employees high.

Table 1.4

Starting with the first stage of unfreezing, HR needs to be the change leader by spearheading the transformation within the organisation. HR needs to convince the employees on why the changes are needed and to help them (employees) realise that it would be better for the future. A successful unfreeze stage will weaken the restraining forces and improve the driving forces for change. At the transition stage, HR will employ the changes and at the same time support the employee’s movement towards change by being the change educator. At this stage, HR will also need to have the foresight on employee turnover and have contingency plans to retain as much of the talented staff as possible along with keeping costs down. Lastly, at the third stage which is refreezing, HR will need to be change advisor by continuously monitoring the changes and their effects. With constant feedback and reviews, they will need to hold the ship tight until practices that have arose from the changes have become status quo.

3.0 – Ethics

A system of moral principles and a branch of philosophy which defines what is good for individuals and society. This is the definition of ethics by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 2014. Under Ethics, one of the categories commonly used in organisations is justice based ethics. Justice is loosely described as the principle of fairness and the idea of moral equity (Schmalleger, 2018). This studies how human resource management staff should conduct themselves with employees so that they go away with the impression that they are being treated fairly. In an organisation, there are four types of justice. Table 4.1 shows the breakdown of the types.

Justice Based Ethics

Distributive Justice

Procedural Justice

Natural Justice

Social Justice###

Fig 1.3

Department	Current Situation (Ethical Problem)	MOM Guidelines (G)	Recommendations (R)
Sales	Overworked · 15hrs/day · Working 8 out of 11 Public Holidays/year · No rest day Underpaid · No extra pay for working on PH or extra 3hr/day that they usually work	Part IV of the Employment Act Employees should maximum work 12 hr/day. Anything more is considered overtime but this is only up to 14hrs/day (G) Entitlement of 11 Public Holidays (PH). If working on them, additional day pay must be given Overtime pay must be given for the extra hours worked per day (Hourly basic rate of pay x 1.5 x Number of hours worked overtime) Employee should be given 1 rest day/week	Cut working hours by 8hrs, change to 8am-3pm(7hrs). (42hr/week). Employees in Sales are not shift workers so by doing this, consent in writing must be given by employees. Provisions of Section 38 & 40 explained and 1 rest day/week must be given Employees can either continue to work on PH but be given PH pay(extra day of pay) or given the entitlement of rest on the 11 PHs.
Claims	Department Transfer · Underperforming employees being transferred to another department with no future work progression or any chances of career enrichment	Nil	Employees should be given performance reviews when their performance is not up to standard and given a chance to do better. Online and postal team should be recruited as a separate entity and not a place to throw underperforming employees (takes away the stigma of the job)
Adjusters	Nil	Nil	Nil
Professional Services	Inconsistency in workplace contracts · No consistency in terms and conditions of employment (salaries, allowances, bonuses,etc)	Employment Practices Notice period of termination of contract should be aligned to the length of service if not specified in the contract	All employees under a same department should be given the same terms and conditions in a contract.

Table 1.5

3.1 Recommendations

3.1.1 Working Conditions

Proper working conditions are part of an employee’s basic human right. In the Sales department, from working hours to rest days to overtime pay, none of the current protocols follow the guidelines set in the Employment Act by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). They are not ethical and instead treat employees as just tools for production. Recommendations are cutting the working hours from 15 to 7 hours, 1 rest day per week given and overtime pay for working on 8 out the 11 designated public holidays (PH). This pay can be avoided by the employee by giving the employees rest on the PH day instead. These above are the ethical alternative provided to each employee with a focus on basic human rights.

3.1.2 Transparency

Under professional services, there is a lack of transparency in workplace contracts given to employees. The inconsistency leads to toxic comparison among employees with each determining in their opinion, which is the “better job”. Those receiving fewer benefits for example will find it unfair. This leads to the employee having a lack of trust and commitment towards his job. Recommendations are to standardise the workplace contracts among all in professional services. If some need further clauses, there should be separated from the department thus preventing any juxtaposition. By doing this, the norms of professional conduct do not get violated, thus being fair and equitable for the employees.

3.1.3 Removal of Transfers

Under the Claims department, the process of uprooting employees creates a sense of negative stigma with the employees believing one team was worse off than the other. Also employees in the online and postal team were shown to be unhappy over their job thus showing no commitment towards their job in general. Recommendation is to treat both teams as separately as possible with no chance of inter team transfer. Also, instead of re-allocating underperforming employees, they first should be given a performance review where the employee can also find out where the problem lies. They then should be given a second chance which lead to employees having the mentality to want to do better as they want to uphold the good faith the employer had in them by giving a second chance. This is in lieu of treating employees fairly with consistent practices.

3.1.4 Summary

Employees are human beings with their own needs and worries. They should be treated as such and not just as set pieces of a job production. Giving them respect with an emphasis on basic human rights allows employees to feel they are fairly treated in the job. This leads to better meaningfulness in the job thus an increase in commitment which overall leads, to better productivity.

4.0 Job Design

High performance, lower staff turnover and higher profitability are direct correlations to engaged and committed employees (Dernovsek,2008). To have such employees, there must be good employee engagement. In all firms, employee engagement is a crucial portion of HRM. One crucial aspect of such engagement is finding the right employee for the job. The job needs to fit the employee such that he finds a sense of meaningfulness in his job. This leads to high commitment of the employee thus highly increasing his productiveness in the job.

Each organisation is designed with its own battle rhythm in mind. This is where the most effective system of work suited to the organisation is designed. The job is designed with three main factors in mind. They are motivational, mechanistic and socio-technical. In gist, job design helps to reduce job dissatisfaction which is results of repetitive tasks. The Job Characteristics Model is a tool used to determine if the work environment constitutes to a performance problem due to its negative characteristics. It can analyse work performance and with the results, jobs can be re-designed to better suit the department and its employees.

	Sales	Claims	Adjusters	Professional Services
Skill Variety	4.5	4.5	3.5	5.1
Task Identity	3.0	3.5	4.5	4.9
Task Significance	5.5	4.6	6.0	5.2
Autonomy	6.0	4.7	4.0	5.0
Feedback from Job itself	3.0	4.5	3.0	3.9
Feedback from others	5.7	3.6	2.5	4.0
MPS	92.65	83.41	51.33	100

Table 1.6

4.1 Results

Doing the Job Characteristics Model has given some clarity on each department and its performance. The results table show that Claims and Adjuster departments are low performing. Adjusters were not specialized in an important aspect of commercial and business insurance claims. This lack of capacity is one of the major reasons its poor performance. Employees in Claims department are dependent on technology, computers to be specific. Reading from a script up to the results, it is the computer that churns it, not the employee’s critical thinking skills.

4.2 Recommendations

Computers and technology itself should not be the main model used in Claims department. There should be an emphasis on the communication skills of the employees. The script should be taken out, allowing each employee to ask the question in their own preferred way. This develops the employee and customer relationship, thus forming a connection between both. By allowing the employee to take charge of the claims process from start to finish, they have autonomy over the job, which in turn allows them to feel empowered. Employees then will feel a personal responsibility to succeed in the job.

Another way to improve on the job design is to merge the two teams into one. Instead of throwing underperforming employees from one team to another, they instead could be completely cut from the team. By this process of elimination, the employees left in the teams will be highly skilled workers who are able to produce effective results.

For Adjusters, sending current employees for specialist training allows task variety in their job. They can pick up a new skill and use it to take up new claims thus improving the organizations’ overall performance with their addition of this tasking to their usual ones.

5.0 Selection Methods

Selection is defined as the process of choosing and identifying the most suitable person for a particular position (Beardwell, Holden, and Claydon, 2004). Selection matches the skills and qualifications of applicants in line with the organisational needs (Gummadi 2015). The selection process will also be more effective only when the recruitment process was done well, making recruitment a crucial factor (Osoian and Zaharie, 2010). Using the proper selection methods for each position is a crucial part for JI’s strategy.

For JI’s strategy to succeed, there has to be a change in the hiring process. For JI’s B2B arm, staff with the right set of skills are needed. With a streamlined hiring process, HR must first identify the job scope, staffing needs and develop proper selection criteria. Thereafter, the hiring process can begin with recruitment ads placed both internally and externally. With the candidates being assessed using interviews and other methods of selection, the right candidates would then be hired. The table below lists various selection tools specific to each department, in order to aid the selection process.

Fig 1.4

1Selection Tools	V	R	CPU	Sales	Claims	Adjusters	Professional services
Structured Interviews	0.53	0.7	0	Assess organisational skills and problem-solving skills by asking situational based questions	Assess candidates previous work experiences, education and skill- based courses related to software like Excel and Word	-	Assess previous work experiences and educational/skill qualifications in the particular job scope (e.g, HR diploma/degree for HR department)
Aptitude tests	0.84	0.74	20.00	Mock sales pitch – ability to be convincing and assertive. Test on verbal skills, and being fluent in English, Voice modulation and other sales techniques	-	Mock tests using scenarios which needs adjusters to determine claims. Test on knowledge with regards to business insurance claims.	Assess candidates’ knowledge with regards to the particular department: · Labour Law for HR personnel, · Accountancy papers for accountants · Legal knowledge on Insurance Act Cap 142 for legal officers.
Unstructured Interviews	0.40	0.5	0	Assess candidates on past experiences with regards to inter-personnel skills.	-	Assess based on past experience specifically dealing with business related insurance	Assess leadership skills, ability to multi-task and work under pressure based on past experiences
Personality tests	0.35	0.27	40.00	Test on the candidate’s ability to engage people, self-awareness, assertiveness and being able to adapt to people’s behaviour	-	-	Test the candidates on their personal traits specifically for administrative tasks. For example, meticulousness, resourcefulness, teamwork.

Where V = Validity, R = Reliability and CPU = Cost Per Unit (Table 1.7)

6.0 Human resource development

Training needs analysis is used widely for the purpose of training and development of staff in the organisation. Consisting of three stages of organisational, task and person analysis, training needs analysis helps to assess what staff need training on based on their performance. It helps management to analyse how to train their staff and rate the success of the training.

Training needs analysis falls under human resource development. With JI aiming to establish CUAP, the staff need to be trained and developed well so as to increase chances of success. JI would need to establish a training environment that is conducive for the training and development of its’ staff. Table 1.8-2.0 illustrates the training needs analysis for each department. To evaluate the effectiveness of the training programmes, models like the Kirkpatrick model could be used, which is elaborated in fig 1.5.

6.1 Training needs analysis

Sales	To market the product of JI and proactively engage the public via different means to promote products. To be able to answer queries on JI’s insurance products from the public.
Required trainings	Telephone etiquette	Effective presentation skills	Communication in customer service
Methods	Workshops/Seminars	Workshops/Seminars	Workshops
Suggestions	Telephone Etiquette & Techniques on Handling Difficult Callers EON Consulting & Training Pte Ltd A 1-day course with group discussions, role playing and lectures	Professional and Effective presentations EON Consulting & Training Pte Ltd A 2-day course which focuses on engaging audiences and communicate messages with clarity	Effective communication in customer service EON Consulting & Training Pte Ltd A 1-day workshop which teaches techniques to structure conversations and create positive first impressions
Evaluation of training effectiveness	Kirkpatrick model

Table 1.8

Claims	To be able to answer claims enquiries and process/handle claims via online, mail and phone.
Required Trainings	Customer service	Telephone etiquette	Communication and teamwork in workplace
Methods	Seminars	Workshops/Seminars	Team training (Cross training)
Suggestions	Managing customer complaints and feedback Marketing Institute of Singapore A 2-days course which focuses on replying customer feedback and enquiries effectively.	Telephone Etiquette & Techniques on Handling Difficult Callers EON Consulting & Training Pte Ltd A 1-day course with group discussions, role playing and lectures	Rotation of employees between online and telephone department to share knowledge
Evaluation of training effectiveness	Kirkpatrick model

Table 1.9

Adjusters	To be able to meet clients and have the ability to assess damage in order to determine claims to a fair amount, especially with other insurance companies
Required Trainings	Commercial and Business insurance claims
Methods	Workshops with industry endorsed institutions and with certification	Case studies and on the job training for trainees to gain experience and knowledge
Suggestions	General insurance courses by IFPAS.	-
Evaluation of training effectiveness	Kirkpatrick model

Table 2.0

Professional Services	Background services which are required for the insurance company to run and support crucial company matters such as HR, Legal issues and accounts.
Required Trainings	Competency in handling administrative tasks which include HR, Legal services, Finances etc
Methods	Workshops
Suggestions	Contract law for non-legal professionals By Marketing institute of Singapore A 1-day course which focuses on drafting, interpreting and enforcing contracts. Includes video training
	Essential skills for Professional administrators By EON Consulting & Training Pte Ltd A 2-days course which teaches on administrative competency and productivity by using SMART goals and other techniques
Evaluation of training effectiveness	Kirkpatrick model

Table 2.1

*All suggested courses are WSQ certified and support the Skills Future movement.

Fig 1.5

7.0 Conclusion

In conclusion, this report has covered 5 major topics for JI to look into with regards to its strategy of expansion, rebranding and gaining back market share. Starting with change management which studies the force field in JI and how to manage the change movement training and developing staff in order to get ready for the upcoming change, this report helps to put up a picture of how the change can be affected.

8.0 References

Beardwell, I., Holden, L. and Claydon, T.(ed.), (2004), Human Resource Management A Contemporary Approach, 4th edition

Dernovsek, D. (2008). Creating highly engaged and committed employees starts at the top and ends at the bottom line, Engaged employee, 42

Gummadi, R. K. (2015). Recruitment and selection practices of IT companies in Andra Pradesh – A study of select units. Zenon Academic Publishing.

Levasseur, R. E. (2001). People skills: Change management tools—Lewin's change model. Interfaces, 31(4), 71-73.

Lewin K. (1951) 'Field Theory in Social Science', Harper and Row, New York

Lewin, K. (1946). Force field analysis. The 1973 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators, 111-13.

Schmalleger, F., Schmalleger, F., & Schmalleger. (n.d.). Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction, 12th Edition

Zaharie, M., & Osoian, C. (2013). Job recruitment and selection practices in small and medium organisations. Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, 58(2), 86.

Johor insurance seperated into 2 divisions/sub-units

JI Retail

Focusing on: Car, home, property insurance

Seperated with non-retail transferred to B2B.

Sold off to MNC underwriting company. Proceeds goes to B2B.

JI B2B

Focusing on: Business related insurance

Expanded, and re-launched as Commercial Underwriters Asia Pacific

1900 Report Assignment

By EON Consulting & Training Pte Ltd