Sagicor employees get job security

The jobs of hundreds of employees of Sagicor in Barbados are safe, at least for the next “few months”.

As the regional insurance giant seeks to navigate its business operations in the region with thousands of customers rendered jobless as a result of stalled business activity as a result of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the company has moved to assure its own employees of their job security.

Marguerite Estwick, executive vice president of human resources with Sagicor Life, told a virtual town hall meeting today that the company gave workers an assurance that their jobs were safe “for the next few months” as the company moved its operations on-line with its team members and management working from their homes.

“We reached out to staff to assure them, most of all, and this is quite significant for us as a company, across the region, giving them the mental security that their jobs were safe for the next few months.

“This is a phenomenal thing for a company to do. And by putting our staff in the mental space where they did not have to worry about the well-being of themselves and their families, they were in a comfortable place to provide and support our customers through what is an unusual business period for anyone across the entire world.

“We have looked after the safety of our staff. We made sure they were prepared and well placed to continue to deliver good customer service,” Estwick stated.

The top Sagicor executive also disclosed that the safety of employees and ensuring business continuity in the crisis were paramount, by putting systems in place for employees to work from home.

“It was quite a phenomenal experience and it showed how agile our staff were and how prepared we were to roll out what we had originally conceptualised as a pilot project.

“We moved 100 per cent of our teams out of what we had determined as an evolving and dangerous environment, into the safety of a work-from-home programme. That was done over a two-week period. It was a phenomenal achievement and we have to celebrate what we were able to do.

“It spoke to the preparedness of our staff and the training we had done in getting them familiar with the technology and the ability to transform and move from the situation we were faced with to move to the platform where we delivered most of our services via an e-platform.”

As employees shifted operations to their homes, Estwick said the company continued to provide training and mental health support.