Aiming to Realize Our
“Good Company” Initiatives
Vol.1
"Enhancing social awareness of insurance" makes our members much prouder of working for the company.
Tokio Marine Egypt General Takaful
Mona Azer
Feeling pride in working for our company is the first step in continuing to pursue our goal of being a “Good Company.”
Mona Azer has been promoting the initiatives based on the concept of “three types of knowledge” at Tokio Maine Egypt General Takaful, which handles “Takaful” insurance in Egypt based on Islamic teachings. We asked about her thoughts and feelings regarding her work.
Launching a “Good Company Committee” cross-departmental team
In April 2017, the Good Company Committee was launched at Tokio Maine Egypt General Takaful, where I work, and I became the Committee’s first leader. We sought applications for membership of the Committee from within the company. The Committee has ten members with a diverse range of experience. Its membership is represented by almost all departments at the company, and for this reason we are able to exchange opinions from a wide range of different perspectives. I feel this creates excellent synergistic effects.
The members discuss what needs to be done in terms of measures aimed at realizing a “Good Company.” We came up with the idea that “being proud of working for the company is the first step.” Therefore, we decided to pursue improvements in “three types of knowledge”: “Knowledge of society,” “Knowledge of the employees,” and “Knowledge of family.”
Knowledge of society: First of all, have as many people as possible know about insurance
In Egypt, the reality is that the concept of insurance itself is not very widely known. For this reason, the first thing we have tried is to promote knowledge of “what insurance is.” One of our employees became a lecturer on insurance systems and products, etc., and gave a lecture at a university. More than 150 students came along to listen to the lecture on the day, and there was a very lively Q&A session after the lecture. Looking ahead, we think it will be worthwhile continuing with this project.
Knowledge of the employees: Understand each other’s work, and improve our teamwork!
A certain number of employees were not aware of what the other departments do, and we had a feeling that a lack of interest in other departments was hindering communication in our day-to-day work. For this reason, we gathered together some younger representatives of each department, and gave them the opportunity to share their views on the type of work they do at their departments, the difficulties they face in their day-to-day work, and the ideas they have come up with to help customers. The meeting was voluntary, but we were delighted when more than 50 employees took part and enthusiastically exchanged opinions. Since then, cross-departmental communication has been improving little by little, and we feel that our overall understanding of insurance has improved as a result. We believe that deeper understanding of insurance products and services by individual employees will allow us to provide better services to our customers. Looking ahead, we will continue to use this approach.
Knowledge of family: Invite employees’ children and host “Family Day”
We also implement measures to help employees’ families learn more about insurance. We use the school summer holidays to host “Family Day” events in which employees’ children are invited to come into the office on a weekday. We give office tours to the children who take part. They sit next to their parents while they work, and learn about things like what insurance is, what Tokio Marine Group is like, and what types of products are available. Over the past two years, around 60 children have taken part. They all show great interest in insurance when they hear about it for the first time, and seem really enjoying the event. They often tell us how proud they are when they learn about the important work their father or mother does. When the employees hear this, they seem to be even prouder than the children about the fact they work for our company. We feel this has had a major impact.
