Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited (Tata AIA Life) is a joint venture company, formed by Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd. and AIA Group Ltd. (AIA). Tata AIA Life combines Tata’s pre-eminent leadership position in India and AIA’s presence as the largest, independent listed pan-Asian life insurance group in the world spanning 18 markets in the Asia Pacific region. One of the fastest growing companies in the Life Insurance sector with the employee strength of 6,500, Tata AIA Life is now ranked at no. 5, based on individual weighted new business premium.
Life insurance industry is poised for growth but it is constantly dealing with attrition of front line sales folks making it one of the toughest sectors to hire for. Added to this, the core challenge for the talent acquisition at Tata AIA was the distributed set-up with several branches all over the country. The team was finding it tough to engage feet on street employees and spread awareness about core-talent acquisition initiatives. Yet, given the impact that employee referrals can have on top-line impact, it was critical to curate a hiring science based on employee referrals. In order to run smooth employee referral program, it was important for the team to address the following things
- Devise Ways to reduce Attrition
- Attracting talent through social distribution of jobs i.e by using WhatsApp,LinkedIn etc
- Reduce Hiring Cost
- Hire Talent fast
- Attract high quality of talent in a short span of time
Hiring talent that stays in the organisation is a key focus and helps us impact business topline. We chose to invest in referrals because it helped us leverage the wonderful culture we have at Tata AIA. A partner like RippleHire made the entire execution of the strategy innovative and seamless.
The team analyzed different sourcing channels and recognized that employee referrals is one of the best channels for talent acquisition as the retention through this channel is significantly higher. Referrals are also cost effective when compared to vendors and portals. This drives a strong impact on the bottom-line. Every hire through referrals also helps us distribute more wealth within the company.
Known for their best hiring practices in the insurance industry, the talent acquisition team at Tata AIA looked out for a technology partner that can help them enable and amplify the referral channel. They partnered with RippleHire, an employee referral platform which enabled them to gamify their referral channel, identify the right target group internally and allowed employees to do social distribution of jobs through channels like WhatsApp or Facebook.
Together, both teams devised campaigns, ran contests that created buzz to go viral in the different circles. The fun contest provided aspirational rewards like a trip to Dubai, Ladakh, Singapore, Bali, etc. Combination of such creative campaigns with experiential rewards meant that the talent acquisition team always had a steady stream of employees participate in the referral program.
Unveiling of full-fledged new campaigns based on demographics, position to be filled, on-demand job skills and mapping them with beautiful rewards helped Tata AIA in hiring talent fast. This in turn helped them increase their hiring numbers and directly impact the top-line. They were also able to leverage their employees to push our jobs out on WhatsApp, where insurance front line talent is primarily present.
RippleHire has been a fantastic partner in running our referrals. We thank them for their prompt support in conceptualising ideas for campaigns, coming up with creative banners and making it effortless. Their innovative technology helped us reach a large audience and reach talent where they exist on their mobile phones. Hiring in insurance for frontline sales roles is a significant challenge. Thanks to our talent acquisition team which helped us contribute significantly to business in terms of hiring numbers, speed and quality of hiring.
Passive candidates reached through WhatsApp, SMS and social media
Reduction in time-to-fill
Employee participation through gamified referral program
Of hiring efforts reduced by targeting the right micro-community groups
Generated a very strong candidate pipeline, contributing to the business top line
