The organization has continued to maintain its operations without any salary deduction, and has continued to provide all employee benefits offered during the pre-pandemic era, and more.
During the multiple crises that Sri Lanka has faced since 2020, Amana Takaful Insurance has always remained a sensitive and accommodating employer. Throughout the challenges of the past two years, the Company has stood by its people, giving them the confidence to face individual and collective challenges with positivity and strength. Amana Takaful Insurance remains one of the few employers in Sri Lanka that have not initiated any type of retrenching, furlough or remuneration-adjustment initiatives as a result of the crisis. In fact, the Company has gone above and beyond to ensure job security, social and emotional support networks and equal opportunities for all, at all times.
Instead of adjusting the size of its workforce or the benefits the team enjoys, Amana Takaful Insurance has adopted an inward-looking approach over the past 2 years. One of the primary concerns was, naturally, rationalizing costs. Alongside this, the Company undertook an ambitious and timely business process reengineering initiative, to ensure cost and time savings. Understanding that it is people who drive businesses, the Company also implemented various measures to ensure social and economic protection for all its people during the pandemic, and these are continuing today as Sri Lanka deals with the various challenges it faces. In fact, the Company made a special effort to provide bonuses to staff (General Insurance) during the recent festive season (April 2022), despite the challenging macroeconomic situation prevalent at the time.
Discussing the approach Amana Takaful Insurance has taken as it navigates today’s dynamic and uncertain business landscape, Head of Human Resources and Secretary to the Board of Directors, Farhan Jabir explained, “The past 2 to 3 years have been truly transformational for us. Instead of taking a defensive approach, we embarked on a forward-looking strategy. We embraced a culture of change, whilst ensuring that our people enjoy job security, to emerge as a true equal opportunity employer. We have created a genuine meritocracy where progress is entirely dependent on merit and nothing else. In order to promote and foster gender, ethnic, religious and intellectual diversity too, we have worked very hard to create an open, tolerant and inclusive culture where everyone is welcome. We maintain an open door, open office environment, where all staff have access to senior management if they wish to discuss something. In fact, we even randomly select people for one-on-one sessions with senior management, where they can openly discuss anything that may be of importance to them; we call this, ‘Pulse Check’. At Amana Takaful Insurance, we believe that openness, diversity, a willingness to adapt, and most importantly, our people, are our greatest strengths. Thus, we take this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to being an employer of choice for Sri Lanka’s aspiring youth and career professionals.”
Understanding the crucial importance of effective and open communication, Amana Takaful Insurance maintains a dedicated Internal Communications Unit, which serves as a robust platform to communicate important events and staff achievements. Further, in order to enable a two-way communication flow that would support the open culture fostered by the Company, staff are also provided with an Idea Box for suggestions, ideas or issues, where even anonymous submissions are accepted. A special project was also run in-line with Women’s Day, to identify and solve specific concerns of female staff members, which has proven to be of immense value.
Learning and development too, are focus areas for Amana Takaful Insurance, with the Company investing heavily in upskilling its people and developing talent, through a largely “Training Needs Analysis (TNA)” based approach. A significant part herein is the Buddy System, which allows for new team members to have a “buddy” or a mentor they can rely on day-to-day. An on-the-spot recognition scheme is also planned for rollout in the near future, which will see members of staff receiving instant formal recognition for exceptional performances.
Amana Takaful Welfare Association (ATWA), looks into the Company’s staff welfare activities, across areas such as culture, knowledge, sports and overall welfare. Through the ATWA, the company ensures that all cultural and religious festivals, which are significant to team members, are celebrated across the organization. These include festivals such as Awurudu, Vesak, Deepavali, Eid, Christmas and others. The Management along with ATWA also recently recognized staff members’ children who successfully passed their O/Level and A/Level Exams, and presented these children with tablet computers as a reward for their good efforts.
Overall, Amana Takaful Insurance is a people-oriented organisation, that cares for its stakeholders with the mantra of “To every Sri Lankan, as one”. The Company is committed to creating a warm and inclusive space where everyone is made to feel welcome and at one with the team. Through its various efforts to support its people, particularly with regard to ensuring job security, creating work-life- integration and inspiring people to pursue their dreams, Amana Takaful Insurance PLC intends to secure its place as one of Sri Lanka’s employers of choice, where people matter and dreams can take flight.
