LSBM205 Talent Management

Introduction: 

The report will identify and analyse the current talent management system of Aviva Insurance of the United Kingdom. Aviva plc is a multinational insurance company of the United Kingdom which is headquartered in London, England. The organisation has approximately 33 million consumers across 16 countries all across the globe. Aviva plc is the largest insurance company in the country (Aviva, 2021). The company has even focused on the marketplace of Asia and Europe as well on the growing markets of China. A successful organisation has to deal with a lot of things in order to remain competitive within the marketplace. The most important aspect is to manage the talent within the organisation. This assignment will discuss in details about the talent management within the organisation, the gaps will be analysed and a recommendation and implementation strategy will be provided.

Talent management strategy: 

The main focus of Aviva plc is on its strongest and most strategically advantaged business in the countries of United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland including the investors of Aviva. These are markets where the organisation has a leading position and they are able to generate attractive returns. The company has a well- known strong brand and they offer an excellent service to their customers. Aviva plc has a distinctive business model that differentiates them from another organisation. The values of the organisation include creating legacy, caring about their customers, killing the complexity and more. In addition to this, the organisation has some unique strengths that provides them with a competitive advantage. These strengths include the financial strength, understanding of customers, diverse range of products, several channels of distribution and more. The skills of Aviva plc include risk management, innovation in technology, liability and assets management, allocation of capital and more. The business strategy of the company focuses on the customers and makes them the first priority.

The training and development programme of the new recruits after their selection and recruitment process is an ongoing process as well as a set of several activities (Abraham et al. 2015). The training and development programme is done in an organisation in order to carry skills and knowledge to a big shot, which is done continuously to perform a certain job or role in the future. In Aviva plc, training is considered as the most important and effective tool that helps their employees encouraged with changes in technology or customer services in future. The training and development programmes should be arranged strategically in a line with the organisation’s mission and vision (Ahammad 2017). It is important to align and design the training programme in such a way that the employees are motivates to achieve the departmental, organisational as well as their personal goals. Aviva plc is investing in the training and development to stay ahead of their competitors and gain a competitive advantage. Aviva has a well- expressed policy with equal opportunity that lays a strong emphasis on recruiting the individuals irrespective of their gender, race, colour or caste. As a best practise of recruitment, the organisation arranges several psychometric tools as well as ability tests in order to eliminate any type of biases in the recruitment process as well as facilitate the hiring of diverse profiles (Thite 2018). Aviva even uses employee referral programme that encourages the employees to become the brand ambassadors of the organisation and they actively contribute in the resourcing procedure by recommending individuals with relevant potential and competencies which helps the organisation to strengthen their expertise.

In order to develop a meritocratic environment, Aviva plc has applied a robust value- based performance management process through which they recognise the important contributions that are made by their employees in a transparent and objective manner, also which demonstrates the competence level (Van Dooren, Bouckaert and Halligan 2015). The main goal of a performance management is to enhance the effectiveness of the staffs so that the organisation can have a growth. The performance system helps Aviva to track the performance of their employees, teams as well as departments. This system is made up of different steps which starts from planning to reviewing the final results of the particular strategy (Buckingham and Goodall 2015). Every step of the performance management system in Aviva feeds into the next and for that particular reason, this process is looks and cycle which is the performance cycle. In addition to this, the appraisals within the organisation are done on a yearly basis and it is based on the performance of the employees. Just like the other organisation, Aviva also manages their employee’s performance to evaluate the overall performance of the team and the organisation. The appraisal systems include capturing of quantitative as well as qualitative feedback and then turn them into actionable insights (Aguinis 2019).

Reward and compensation management in human resource management is concerned with the construction and application of strategies as well as policies that motivates the employees to perform in a better way (Rose 2018). A reward management is important since it makes the employees feel motivated and values which can boost the productivity as well as success of the organisation. In Aviva plc, the employees are rewarded on the basis of their performance (Perkins and Jones 2020). The rewards in the organisation includes both monetary as well as non- monetary.

The people at Aviva plc believes in creating a diverse as well as an inclusive workplace as it is the fundamental part of living up to the organisation’s purpose for being with their employees today, in order to have a better tomorrow. The organisation has given equal opportunities to the women and they have even set a target to increase the number women in leadership to at least 40% by the year 2024. In the similar way, the organisation has implemented several equalities as well as diversity policy which shows that the organisation is diverse and they provide equal opportunities to their employees.

Gender Pay gap reporting: 

It is seen that often; the working women are paid less that the working men which is known as gender pay gap (O'Neill 2019). As previously discussed, it can be seen that Aviva has implemented several policies related to diversity and equality, but there is still a difference between the pay.

Table 1: Proportion of both men and women receiving a bonus

Table 2: Gender pay gap

From the above table it can be seen that the organisation’s mean and median gender pay gap have reduced as compared to the last two years (UK gender pay gap report, 2021). The gender gap has occurred in the organisation as there are more women in the junior level than that of men   and there are more men than women in the senior roles (O’Reilly et al. 2015). This is very common in organisations nowadays especially within the finance sector. In the United Kingdom, among all the full- time staffs the gender pay gap was 7.4% in the year 2020 which was down from 9.0% from the year 2019 (Smith 2018). The gender pay gap among all the staffs was 15.5% in the year 2020 which was down from 17.4% in the year 2019 (UK gender pay gap report, 2021).

Environmental factors impacting the HRM practices: 

There are several external practices that is influencing the current human resource practices in the company of Aviva. As the world is hit hard by corona virus pandemic, a large number of workforces are unable to join their work because of the fear of virus. The economic outlook of the organization is uncertain and it is also affecting the business operations, but the strength of their liquidity and capital mean that they are positioned in a proper manner in order to manage this crisis and they will even continue to support their customers (Akingbola 2020). However, apart from the financial stability, it is also very important for the organization to look for their human resource practices which is very important in order to retain the customers and have a successful business in the future. As the virus is spreading rapidly, the government has considered it as a pandemic. The people are very much scared that they are even leaving their jobs in order to stay at home with their family (Gigauri 2020). As the future is uncertain, maximum number of organizations are allowing their employees to work remotely and this is even done by Aviva Plc. But working remotely also has some consequences such as employee engagement since the organization is not able to engage with their employees in a proper way as they did in the workplace. The challenges even include organizing the employees to work remotely, supporting the mental health of employees, motivation and many more (Sulaiman, Ahmed and Shabbir 2020). In addition to this, there are even some challenges that are faced by the employees which affects their productivity as well as the overall organizational performance (Caligiuri et al. 2020). Some of these issues are related to time management as the employees are facing difficulties to manage their time of work as well as doing their household work at the same time. Another challenge faced by the employees is the distraction; as they are working from their homes there are several challenges that they have to face which are sometimes very difficult to deal with (Carnevale and Hatak 2020).

Part 02: 

Recommendations and Implementation:

After analyzing all the human resource issues faced by the organization, it can be said that the two most important issues are related to gender pay gap and remote working. It is also important for the organization to look in these matters for a smooth business in the future. As the organization is facing the challenge related to remote working, instead of reducing wages of the employees, the organization must seek some alternative strategies such as using the technology in order to support their employees when they are working from their homes. It is recommended o the human resource department of Aviva plc to provide their employees with direction, resilience and confidence. In such times of crisis, the employees look to their organization for a reassurance and it is also very important for the managers and leaders to communicate clearly with the employees as well as validate them with a clear commitment towards the health of employees and sustainability of business. It is the responsibility of the organization to let their employees know about their current plans and the possibilities of future. They must understand that the employees are continuously receiving conflicting forecasts as well as advices from their local, state as well as national governments. The company should contextualize the updates from World Health Organization related to the instructions on how they can adapt the precautions and move forward in the new normal. As the schools as well as non- essentials have moved to online, the employees will now need an understanding and flexibility as they try to begin and create a balance between their work and life.

Aviva must support their employees who are self- isolated or quarantined with the help of expanding the paid time off policies as well as facilitating them while they work from their homes. The pandemic has already made several multi national organizations to improve the employee benefit packages. For instance: Walmart, McDonalds, Apple, Daren Restaurants and more have restored their leave policies in reply to the corona virus outbreak. The employer can support their remote working employee establishing certain norms as well as implementing a work from home policy that will set clear expectations for when they should be available, how they can communicate and their exact responsibilities. The organization should also make sure that the employees have technology that they need in order to perform the tasks that are expected from them. Most importantly, the employees must be provided with a breathing room so that they can adjust with their new lifestyles. If the work of an employee is completed within the business hours then the employer must allow the employees to create their own schedules which will be best suited for them as well as their families. In addition to this, the workers for whom the work from home is not possible such as the maintenance executive and others, it is up to the human resource department to ensure the health and safety of those employees.

The gender pay gap is one of the most important issue that is faced by the organization nowadays. This is the same issue which Aviva plc is also facing. According to the IWPR (Institute for Women’s Policy Research), if such type of pay gap continues then after 50 years, women will not be able to reach the pay parity until the year 2059. Therefore, it is recommended that the organization must take some necessary steps in order to have an equa (Boll and Lagemann 2018)

l gender pay to promote equality. The organization can start with the transparency over pay where they can show the payment of both female as well as male employees. The organization should be open about the how they determine the benefits and pay structure to their employees as well as the formula they use in order to calculate the increased salary. They can also carry out the research into the market rates in order to ensure salary that can be fair which will be not just in terms of gender pay gap but it should be respect to competitiveness. Aviva should also reassess bonuses, benefits as well as promotion. There are many organizations who are unconsciously biased towards their male employees in terms of getting promoted, enjoying a salary uplift or while receiving a bonus. It is very important to ensure that the organization is not supporting the practice. For instance: by favoring the individuals who do not take their time off for childcare or more. If this criterion is implemented in order to receive benefits or promotion, then there will no confusion.

In addition to the above recommendations, Aviva should also increase the salaries of female employees as it will help to correct the imbalance between the salaries paid to male employees than that of the female employees. It is one of the well- known strategies to reduce the gender pay gap within an organization and it also means that whatever the gender of an employee is, if that individual is working in the organization then they should get an equal pay according to the efforts they put or performances they make (Fortin, Bell and Böhm 2017). The men must be encouraged to take a parental leave. Though a shared parental leave was introduced in the United Kingdom in the year 2015, there are several new fathers who have found that their organization is not at all supportive in terms of providing them with the leave. If the organization will incentivize the men to take a parental leave, then their partners will be able to continue their work. This is also a strategy which will hep the company to close the gender pay gap. A flexible working environment must be given to the women so that they can handle the responsibilities of childcare and side by side maintaining their work responsibilities. There are even some studies that have proved that a flexible working environment is good for the business as it helps to increase the motivation level and productivity within an employee.

Podcast script: 

The organisation of Aviva is a well- known insurance company of the United Kingdom and they have been doing their business successfully from the beginning. The company has been successful as they have an effective business strategy which allows them to prioritise the needs of their customers. In addition to this, the organisation also has an effective human resource strategy that helps them to attract top talents from the insurance sector. However, by analysing the Human Recourse Practises of the organisation, it was found out that the organisation is facing some issues related to the gender pay gap and remote working of their employees due to covid 19 pandemic. As the pandemic has hit hard, the world has faced a downturn in every aspect and due to risk of spread of corona virus, the employers are suggesting their employees to work from their home to maintain social distancing and as a precaution to stop the spread of virus. The remote working is causing several issues related to communication, engagement and more. It has been recommended to the organisation that they must keep all their staffs in a loop and provide them with specific assignments. The employees must be offered with flexibility as they are working from home and they might have several responsibilities for their family as well. In addition to this, the employees must be provided with the technology and its training since in the present world, the technology is being used everywhere, whether to connect with the employers, employees, suppliers or even the customers. Most importantly, the employees must be provided with a breathing room so that they can adjust with their new lifestyles. The employees must be allowed to create their own time for work which will be best suited for them as well as their families.

Gender pay gap has become one of the crucial things within the organization and it is very important to remove the gender biasedness in order to maintain a good working environment that will provide an equal opportunity to both male and female. It is recommended to Aviva that they should have a transparency over the pay where they should be unbiased with their male employee and female employee. The pay should be according to the capabilities and skills an individual has. The female employees must be provided with a flexibility to look after their child. In addition to this, the salaries of female employees must be increased and this will help the organization to correct the imbalance between the wages paid to men than that of women. It is one of the straightforward ways to reduce the gender pay gap and it also means that whatever the gender of an individual is, they should get the genuine pay from their organization according to their performance within the company. The men should also be encouraged to take a parental leave since this will help their partners to continue their work and it will also goa a long way in reducing the gender pay gap.

References:

Abraham, M., Kaliannan, M., Mohan, A.V. and Thomas, S., 2015. A review of SMEs recruitment and selection dilemma: Finding a'fit'. The Journal of Developing Areas, 49(5), pp.335-342.

Aguinis, H., 2019. Performance management for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.

Ahammad, T., 2017. Personnel management to human resource management (HRM): How HRM functions. Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing, 13(9), pp.412-420.

Akingbola, K., 2020. COVID-19: The prospects for nonprofit human resource management. Canadian Journal of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research, 11(1), pp.5-5.

Aviva.com. 2021. Aviva. [online] Available at: https://www.aviva.com/  [Accessed 5 April 2021].

Aviva.com. 2021. UK gender pay gap report. [online] Available at: https://www.aviva.com/about-us/uk-gender-pay-gap-report/  [Accessed 5 April 2021].

Boll, C. and Lagemann, A., 2018. Gender pay gap in EU countries based on SES (2014). Luxembourg, Publication Office of the European Union. doi, 10, p.978935.

Buckingham, M. and Goodall, A., 2015. Reinventing performance management. Harvard Business Review, 93(4), pp.40-50.

Caligiuri, P., De Cieri, H., Minbaeva, D., Verbeke, A. and Zimmermann, A., 2020. International HRM insights for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for future research and practice.

Carnevale, J.B. and Hatak, I., 2020. Employee adjustment and well-being in the era of COVID-19: Implications for human resource management. Journal of Business Research, 116, pp.183-187.

Fortin, N.M., Bell, B. and Böhm, M., 2017. Top earnings inequality and the gender pay gap: Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Labour Economics, 47, pp.107-123.

Gigauri, I., 2020. Influence of Covid-19 Crisis on Human Resource Management and Companies’ Response: The Expert Study. International Journal of Management Science and Business Administration, 6(6), pp.15-24.

O’Reilly, J., Smith, M., Deakin, S. and Burchell, B., 2015. Equal pay as a moving target: International perspectives on forty-years of addressing the gender pay gap. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 39(2), pp.299-317.

O'Neill, S., 2019. Gender pay gap grows. New Scientist, 241(3223), p.45.

Perkins, S.J. and Jones, S., 2020. Reward management: Alternatives, consequences and contexts. Kogan Page Publishers.

Rose, M., 2018. Reward management: a practical introduction. Kogan Page Publishers.

Smith, R., 2018. Gender pay gap in the UK: 2018. Newport: ONS.

Sulaiman, M.A.B.A., Ahmed, M.N. and Shabbir, M.S., 2020. COVID-19 Challenges and Human Resource Management in Organized Retail Operations/Desafios del Covid-19 y la administracion de recursos humanos en operaciones minoristas organizadas. Utopia y Praxis Latinoamericana, 25(SI 12), pp.81-93.

Thite, M. ed., 2018. E-HRM: Digital approaches, directions & applications. Routledge.

Van Dooren, W., Bouckaert, G. and Halligan, J., 2015. Performance management in the public sector. Routledge.

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