Sun Life Grepa initiates wellness, efficiency programs in the workplace

Sun Life Grepa Financial, Inc. (Sun Life Grepa), one of the top life insurance companies in the country, raises overall employee engagement with wellness, continuous improvement, and corporate social responsibility initiatives.

Advocating wellness in the work place

To encourage employees to strive for wellness, weekl2 total body conditioning classes and dance classes are now part of the company’s after-office offerings. These classes were designed by a certified trainer to enhance cardio-vascular fitness, muscle strength, and flexibility.

Externally, Sun Life Grepa has been supporting employees who compete in local sports tournaments. “We are proud to have supported our employees who won top awards in the badminton, bowling, basketball, and volleyball games in the 2017 Philippine Life Insurance Association sports tournament,” says Sun Life Grepa Vice-President for Human Resources Management and Development Carmen Gutierrez. “We believe that participation in these activities instills a sense of healthy competition among our employees, which translate into greater confidence in their own lines of work.”

The company has also been a regular supporter of Sunpiology, Sun Life Financial Philippines’ annual fun run aimed at raising awareness about diabetes. “In the past 5 years, Sun Life Grepa employees have been encouraged to join this fun run,” shares Gutierrez. “This is on top of our regular sponsorship of the event.” It also supported “Bubble Run”, a fun run organized on May 28, 2017 by the Association of First Philippine Industrial Park Human Resource Professionals.

“We believe that in giving our employees an opportunity for wellness, we are able to give them better work-life balance to make them more productive,” says Gutierrez.

Corporate social responsibility

“As an insurance company, we believe that our business touches a lot of lives,” Gutierrez says. “Thus, our corporate social responsibility program ‘Share the Passion’ aims to provide employees avenues where they can serve communities outside their regular spheres of interaction.”

In coordination with the AY Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of the Yuchengco Group of Companies, employees volunteer to serve at the Arnold Janssen Kalinga Center in Tayuman, Manila. They render one day of service by helping the Center serve meals and offer baths for free to the homeless.

Blood donation activities have also been part of employees’ calendar. The company holds a yearly one-day blood donation drive held in the Sun Life Grepa office. The donations are given to the Philippine General Hospital Hematology-Oncology Department.

“We hope that through these activities, employees can share their blessings and find purpose in their work,” says Gutierrez.

Continuous work place improvement

Any business that aims to grow must work hard to continuously adapt to changes. Sun Life Grepa desires to achieve business flexibility cultivating a mindset of continuous improvement, wherein employees initiate projects that aim to meet or exceed client needs; achieve cost and process efficiencies; and improve the quality of work.

In a bid to increase operational efficiency, the company recently implemented a project in reducing printed matter where new business applications forms were streamlined to lessen its number of pages, thereby bringing down cost but also giving an improved experience to new clients.

The company also required all its head office employees to attend the Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt course, an international training program designed to equip its professionals with problem solving and process improvement tools that will empower them to lead projects that achieve continuous improvement in their respective business units. Participants to this program are then encouraged to pursue Yellow Belt certification by executing a project in their own business unit.

“We want our employees to hold themselves to a higher professional standard,” says Gutierrez. “By giving them the tools to contribute solutions on the ground, Sun Life Grepa will be able to build on this foundation for further business success.”