Training and development philosophy
In 2010, Aon won a HKMA Award for Excellence in Training & Development. Ronald Lai, Chief Executive Officer of Aon Hong Kong believes different companies and individuals have different perceptions regarding training and development. He believes that training is viewed from the external and it provides skills and knowledge to employees, while development is from the inside of the individual. Aon provides the forum for the individual to bring out his/her desire for self-improvement. “Our philosophy is that the company will provide facilitation and resources to develop and train our people, but we expect our people to have passion and willingness to self-develop.”
Senior management engagement
As a client-focused consultancy corporation, Aon has a strong belief in the strengths of its talents as the driving force of the company. Lai stated, “There is no question that talent is the greatest asset of our company.” He believes that a key element of the T&D programme is the involvement and commitment of senior staff. In the “Optimization from Inside-Out – Aon Talent-leadership Development Program 2009”, senior management had been directly involved for over 290 working hours. This commitment continued through the provision of coaching, mentoring and the active participation in projects. Talents went through different classroom trainings, workshops, coaching and sharing sessions, as well as real life business projects during the program, which
aimed at transforming them into Aon’s Industry.
Re-engineering Champions
Programme highlights
Aon notes the importance of providing training that focuses on understanding the self. For this reason, training is tailor made not only to meet leadership development criteria of the Aon Leadership Management (ALM) Model, but also to consider talents’ inner motives. Enneagram was used as one of the psychometric tools to enable talents to gain in-depth understanding about their personality and discover their own strengths and areas for further development.
Identification of talent is made through senior management’s initial nomination of talent, followed by a stringent application, interview, and presentation process. The programme focuses on continuing the development of the identified talents by requiring them to manage real business projects and develop their persistence in carrying out the follow-up activities needed.
Lai sums up, “There are three levels of optimisation in the programme: self-understanding, self-development, and team development.” Adopting the Confucius Philosophy which emphasises on the three core leadership essences of Ren (仁), Zhi (智) and Yong (勇), the programme is fully aligned and integrated with the Aon Leadership Model (ALM) to develop talents from inside-out. Lai believes the programme has achieved a tremendous result and concludes that, “The commitment of senior management and the special features of project delivery make it a win-win situation.”
Positive outcomes
At Aon, innovation stems from linking the training programmes with real business cases. Lai believes this is a win-win situation for the company by integrating training with real-life business projects and delivering ROI for the company.
To date there have been three projects, all with positive outcomes. The continuation of the program is establishing a Shadow Company structure, assigning the talents as managing directors, sales directors and consultants of the Shadow Company. They are expected to drive the business—by looking at the business plan, considering their investments and potential return, and achieve results.
The Shadow Company directors interact with the Aon managing directors and Lai, in his role as CEO. He explained, “The way we see training is to facilitate learning, and development is to see their desire to take the opportunity to develop themselves from the inside out.”
Committed to people development
Aon has recognised that organisations need to do more to attract talents. Lai explained that the company is aiming to strengthen the reputation as an employer of choice, as well as providing fair compensation to attract talents.
Senior management members are active in the local industry and are seen as role models within the territory. Additionally, the company hires management associates each year, showing a long-term commitment to people development and builds a strong culture within the company. Lai believes that, “Aon is a very people orientated company and this type of culture helps us to retain talents.” This is evident in their turnover rate being lower than the industry average. “Our philosophy is to understand the needs of the client and provide solutions, instead of selling pre-designed products. For high-end markets we don’t have standard products to sell, we only have good people to provide suitable solutions.”
The HKMA Awards
From the HKMA Awards, Lai has learnt that companies really need to have commitment when developing people. Programmes are not short-lived. Rather, they last for as long as 12 months and there are heavy pressures on time commitments. The company needs to provide good support and guidance for development and embrace the communication process. He concluded, “Continued dialogue helps build relationships between senior management and talent.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
