Allianz Cornhill chief executive Andrew Torrance replies to our article of 31 August
' During my time as the chief executive of two major UK insurers I have learned many valuable lessons. One of the most valuable is the importance of having visible leaders within the organisation who communicate a transparent, consistent and clear vision for the business.
Organisations that fail to communicate effectively with their employees are unlikely to be considered great places to work and, with the competition for talented people never more fierce within our industry, a good reputation as an employer can be considered a financial asset in itself.
Building still further on the financial argument for effective employee communication, many research studies into organisational performance have suggested that it is no coincidence that companies which perform well financially also have a strong internal communications culture.
When I became chief executive of Allianz Cornhill in 2003, I immediately implemented a number of communication activities including a rolling programme of chief executive roadshows, taking in annual visits to each of our offices in the UK and India.
Since 2003, I have answered literally hundreds of questions from my colleagues and it has become clear to me that the objective behind asking many of the questions was to help build on, or clarify, their individual understanding of change,whether in the industry or within the organisation itself.
I would argue that the greatest test of an organisation's ability to communicate effectively with its employees comes during major organisational change.
The plans to offshore some of our operations to India were announced in 2003. Since then, we have continued to communicate regularly in an open and honest way about our on-going offshoring plans, and we are about to conduct a major employee opinion research exercise which includes capturing feedback on our decision to offshore.
Recently, we were able to contribute and share the learning from our offshoring communications with other Allianz Group companies. As a result of this worldwide knowledge pooling from across a number of group companies, a number of important learning points relating to change communication emerged.
These are consistently important regardless of local culture or the rationale behind the change itself.
For example, how important it is for the top management team to convey a consistent and easy to understand change message which focuses on the vision and strategic fit of the change initiative.
How the change message must be visibly owned by the top management and communicated personally and directly throughout the change process.
How middle managers have a crucial role to play in communicating directly with staff on a regular and fixed basis throughout the implementation process to help promote buy-in and to act as useful feedback generators.
And finally, how important it is to ensure that there are regular updates on progress against communicated change milestones, and the importance of celebrating success.
Ultimately, successfully engaging employees with a change initiative often depends to a large extent on the trust which exists between the organisation's employees and its top management. Building a culture of trust requires the person at the top of the organisation to take the lead.
One of the other valuable lessons I have learned and put into practice as a chief executive is that you cannot build trust from an ivory tower. IT
