All about you

Your development

At Aviva we build high-performing, customer-centric teams by offering learning for all our colleagues through Aviva University.

We help you stay relevant in an ever-changing world through a suite of learning solutions that develop your mind, build your skills for the future and accelerate your career. We ask all employees, including contractors, to complete our required Essential Learning each year. This  includes modules on the following important topics: Aviva’s purpose, , risk, financial crime, cyber-crime, data privacy and security, health and safety and business ethics. We also  encourage all colleagues to create a personal development plan (PDP) and discuss this regularly with leaders as we believe this is fundamental to transforming performance and supporting development aspirations. 

Some of what you can expect:

  • The Aviva University is available to all colleagues to support on demand learning It showcases opportunities for new learning experiences and supports professional and personal development to build a future ready workforce
  • Learning Academies to develop skills such as digital and data.
  • Access to the Aviva Foundry, our digital re-skilling initiative.
  • Early career pathways including graduate programmes.
  • Leadership and management development programmes
  • Apprenticeships and work placements.
  • Access to funded degree level qualifications and professional certifications to ensure you have the right skills to fulfil your role. Additional funding available for job specific skills-based training to enhance performance
  • World-class development opportunities. 

Feedback and coaching is part of our culture. At the start of each year, leaders have a conversation with their teams about Aviva’s high level priorities so they’re clear how team priorities align with Aviva’s purpose, vision and strategy. We've aligned individual goals to our four priorities of customer, growth, efficiency, and sustainability, as well as risk and behaviour. For 2023, we all have a sustainability goal (acting on our climate, community, and sustainable business commitments) for all colleagues to demonstrate how they will act on Aviva's sustainability ambition. Aviva’s Values In Action are used to refine goals and development plans. 

All colleagues have scheduled bi-annual performance reviews to assess progress against goals and behaviour in line with our values, where they receive a performance rating. Ratings are calibrated to ensure they are performance aligned, fair, consistent and reflect the overall performance of each business area. However, performance is not just measured twice a year. It’s important that we all have regular, structured performance conversations to talk about how we’re doing, and our development outside of these reviews. Those who have regular performance conversations say they get valuable feedback and understand how to develop their career.  We encourage our people to seek and receive feedback from colleagues to support their performance reviews and conversations throughout the year.

Aviva really invests in training, in development. As an employee you have a whole variety of options to move within the organisation, to do different things.

Leadership

Being a leader today is about being responsive to a diverse and changing workforce.

We support our leaders in keeping their skills and experiences fresh to navigate these complex demands.

Alongside traditional leadership programmes, we help our leaders develop skills to make sure they stay agile and adaptive for today and tomorrow.

We develop leaders at various levels of the organisation. A culture and strategy programme named Courage to Lead is being rolled out to senior managers (F grade and above) on a global basis.  We are currently developing leadership initiatives at other levels in line with our organisational ambitions. Formal succession planning takes place from at least executive minus one level, with various functions expanding this even further. We ensure that development plans are compiled for all successors, involving the recent creation of a commercial academy. 

If you join us as a leader, you’ll also join us in living our values: care, commitment, community, and confidence. They are central to everything we do.

In a world evolving at pace we expect our leaders to be inclusive, support our people and grow our business by:

  • Getting ahead of and solving our customers’ needs
  • Building teams that can transform the performance of Aviva
  • Making ‘tomorrow’ happen today. 

We give huge support to our leaders, rewarding them for their success in developing their teams. Aviva is a great place to come to be stretched and supported, in equal measure.

Benefits

We believe in paying our people appropriately for the job they do and the contribution they make - so we’ll always try to offer you competitive and fair rewards.

The benefits you get vary from country to country. But wherever you are in the world, your wellbeing is crucial. If you feel physically and mentally well, you’ll be happier and perform better. 

We’re a brilliant health and protection business. We’ll share this expertise with you as part of your benefits because we care about our people – the people who care about our customers, every day.

We help our people blend the demands of work and home through initiatives like:

  • Maternity coaching in Aviva Investors.
  • Time off for parents when their children start school.
  • Workplace menopause support in the UK.
  • UK policy for our people who are carers. 
Many of our Aviva colleagues have caring responsibilities, which is why we place so much importance on our carers policy. We support colleagues in a number of ways, including 35 hours paid leave per year to help manage caring responsibilities and flexible working options.


But it isn’t just practical support that carers need. Emotional wellbeing is equally important, and having access to advice, caring experts or just someone to talk to can be a huge help. Our Aviva Carers Community is run by colleagues who are themselves carers, with support from the wider business.

To understand how the policy helps carers who work at Aviva, read Debbie’s story

For more information, help and advice about caring, visit carersuk.org

Sustainability

Sustainability is a fundamental part of Aviva’s strategy and integral to what we do as a business.

This is focused on three core areas – being a climate champion; supporting a stronger, more resilient Britain; and running ourselves as a sustainable business.

This will see us embedding sustainability throughout the business with clear governance and decision-making, transparent reporting and by proactively engaging our stakeholders. 

Sustainability will be embedded within our products and investments, building on our existing strength in integrating sustainability into considerations into investment processes, engaging with companies to promote sustainable practice, and seeking reform of markets to shape a sustainable future.

Interested in a career at Aviva?

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