CSR experts today increasingly prefer the term Shared Value Agenda to the more familiar Corporate Social Responsibility. At Sagicor Life Inc Trinidad and Tobago, it’s particularly apt. The financial service company’s culture of volunteerism, encouraged by an “exclusive” club that promotes personal development and brand-building from within, is also at the forefront of community-building efforts.
Sagicor’s Corporate Communications Manager Marlene K. Chin reiterated that the company’s mission of improving the lives of the people in the communities in which they operate underpins this symbiosis of company and community.
The Caribbean is home to Sagicor. Established in 1840 as The Mutual, Sagicor Life Inc is the leading indigenous financial services company within the region, operating in 22 countries throughout the Caribbean, Central America, and the United States. Tailored
financial services respond to the unique needs of Sagicor’s communities and include individual life and health insurance, annuities, pensions, employee benefits, as well as investment services.
Sagicor’s social investment programmes are focused on sustainability, and delivering value through engagement with civil society, health initiatives and capacity building through education. Investments in education pay off in several ways but particularly as it provides the added advantage of generating sustainability of the Group’s business by growing the talent pool. Linked to its product line, this synergy between business focus and CSR agenda is also reflected in its social investment in healthcare, sports, and youth development.
Ambassadors’ Club
The Ambassadors’ Club has been up and running for four years at Sagicor and now boasts 40 ambassadors from six branches. When they are not working, this dynamic team of individuals vary their time by showing up to meet and greet shareholders, connecting with customers at company events, or becoming immersed in a number of community projects.
Sagicor’s Ambassadors, a blend of administrative staff and financial advisors, are high performers whose talents and skills are used to affirm the brand’s philosophy to develop and maintain long-term relationships with its customers, its employees and its communities. “We pride ourselves on being quite an exclusive team. We work hard and play hard,” jokes Marlene K. Chin, Club President.
The Club looks for exceptional time managers who can handle their jobs as well as the demands of “strengthening the brand from inside out.” Chin explains that “Ambassadors also benefit from training in areas of social etiquette such as speech and deportment. These are essentials in public engagement and relations.” It seems like everyone wins in a Shared Value triangle of employer, employee, and community.
Adopt-A-Community
The Ambassadors are the first people you’ll meet at the annual golf tournament which has raised funds for the Friends of the Blood Bank and a number of other NGOs. They also have an instrumental role in Sagicor’s Adopt-A-Community programme, launched in 2015. At their respective branches and departments they collaborate with their teams ensuring that selected projects align with Sagicor’s CSR pillars: Youth Development through Education, Sport, and Health. They also guide and support teams as they prepare for community projects aimed at improving lives and livelihood.
When financial advisor Jessica Jobe of the Richard Daly Branch moved into a public housing complex in Belmont in 2015, she was surprised by the ritual that happened each time the water truck rumbled into the compound. “They have more than 100 apartments in that terrace,” says Jobe. “And every single man, woman, child, old person, people in wheelchairs, was rushing out to get water.”
The water pump was out of commission and when there was no water on the main, there was no water in the apartments. It had been three years.
Jobe went to her branch manager and said they needed to help. While working on the logistics of the water pump project, she also came across the community daycare. The preschool’s principal took in “normal” children, but she really specialized in preparing autistic kids for the school environment. Without a government subvention, she had been muddling along as best she could.
The Adopt-A-Community fund had more than enough for just a water pump. Jobe set to planning: they’d paint the daycare, buy some mats and cribs and hand over a phonics programme.
The financial advisor was “in shock” when she saw the huge staff turnout on a Friday. Even the agents put aside sales for the day. They all jumped in and were soon joined by preschool parents and the Terrace residents, with everyone only pausing for a quick lunch.“The principal was speechless,” says Jobe“. She cried when the gifts were handed over. It was so touching”. That’s the greatest reward for volunteers like Jobe.
In Sagicor’s CSR terminology, Jobe is an “exciter” – the kind of employee who shakes colleagues out of their workday routines and into their communities, animating them into acknowledging that volunteerism can be fun.
Sagicor’s vision is “To be a great company committed to improving the lives of the people in the communities in which we operate”. In that spirit, every engagement has the potential to be mutually beneficial. Potential customers just might remember your brand.
CSR partnerships
In 2016, Sagicor branches completed ten CSR projects, mostly by partnering with established NGOs and community groups. But the ones that originated with creative, community- connected staff were the most memorable.
Sagicor’s flagship CSR initiatives are a longstanding commitment to the Cave Hill School of Business, and the Sagicor Visionaries Challenge, which promotes innovation in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to solve problems in communities. The 2016 regional winners, from Queen’s College, Barbados, tackled the island’s water scarcity, designing a water filtration system from coconut shells that allows users to recycle domestic water for flushing.
But long before students can engage in complex design, they’re learning much simpler maths.
One Wednesday morning in September 2015, staff of the De Vert Branch in South Trinidad rounded up a busload of primary-school students and took them to the Wildfowl Trust in Pointe-a-Pierre for some wildlife viewing and a basic finance lesson.
Financial advisor Charlene Ramkissoon had done the legwork, visiting five Fyzabad schools to find out which students were most deserving of new schoolbags. The branch was going to give the gathering of five – to ten-year-olds a few pointers on saving and risk management. It started with a piggybank, a dollar and a bag. “Where does money come from?” asked Susan Romano-Davis, Agency Manager. “It grows on trees?” (They were surrounded by trees, and wildlife, which must have added to the rhetorical impact.) “They were so happy to put their dollar in their piggybanks.”
Romano-Davis wanted the students to understand that they are the future. “That day was helping them to understand that anything is possible to them.” Even perhaps, winning the Visionaries Challenge.
Societal problems, and their solutions, are so often found close to home. Jessica Jobe found one on her doorstep. And Charlene Ramkissoon still meets the children she spent a day with. “Up to now, the kids say, ‘When we going to Sagicor?’”
For members of Sagicor’s 22-country communities, that could be any day.