We want to create an environment where all our people are encouraged and supported to develop their skills, give of their best and achieve their full potential, as well as to maximise productivity and fulfil our business objectives. Therefore, managing our employee talent is fundamental to our success.

In 2007, we put in place Talking Talent, a group-wide management framework to assess how individual performance aligns with future potential as well as wider business objectives. Talking Talent covers all aspects of attraction, recruitment, development and retention across our entire organisation. It underpins our belief that all of our people have talent that can be harnessed to the benefit of our customers if those talents are deployed effectively. The programme was piloted in 2007 and has already featured in external events such as the Leadership Architect’s conference in Chicago, USA. It will be rolled out globally in 2008 and 2009.

Delta Lloyd Group invests heavily in personal and career development, with all managers attending a workshop to assist with the personal development of their staff, and employees perform a self-assessment Personal Development Scan to identify their characteristics and competencies.

Towards the end of 2007, a number of Aviva’s senior leaders took part in the Global Talent Management survey, the latest research on the worldwide ‘war on talent’ from McKinsey.

Case study

Best e-learning programme

Norwich Union Learning and Development topped the Best ELearning Programme category in the prestigious Training Journal Awards, with judges describing the ‘Putting Customers at the Heart of Everything we do’ programme as “an innovative e-learning programme that has produced tangible results”. The programme helped Norwich Union to deliver more than 182,000 hours of online training in 2007.