Throughout the challenges of the past two years, Amana Takaful has stood by its people, giving them the confidence to face individual and collective challenges with positivity and strength.
Amana Takaful Insurance remains one of the few employers in Sri Lanka that have not initiated any type of retrenching, furlough or remuneration-adjustment initiatives as a result of the crisis. In fact, the Company has gone above and beyond to ensure job security, social and emotional support networks and equal opportunities for all, at all times.
Instead of adjusting the size of its workforce or the benefits the team enjoys, Amana Takaful Insurance has adopted an inward-looking approach over the past two years.
One of the primary concerns was, naturally, rationalising costs. Alongside this, the Company undertook an ambitious and timely business process reengineering initiative, to ensure cost and time savings.
Understanding that it ispeople who drive businesses, the Company also implemented various measures to ensure social and economic protection for all its people during the pandemic, and these are continuing today as Sri Lanka deals with the various challenges it faces.
In fact, the Company made a special effort to provide bonuses to staff (General Insurance) during the recent festive season (April 2022), despite the challenging macroeconomic situation prevalent at the time.
Head of Human Resources and Secretary to the Board of Directors, Farhan Jabir said, “The past two to three years have been truly transformational for us. Instead of taking a defensive approach, we embarked on a forward-looking strategy. We embraced a culture of change, whilst ensuring that our people enjoy job security, to emerge as a true equal opportunity employer.
“We have created a genuine meritocracy where progress is entirely dependent on merit and nothing else. In order to promote and foster gender, ethnic, religious and intellectual diversity too, we have worked very hard to create an open, tolerant and inclusive culture where everyone is welcome.
“We maintain an open door, open office environment, where all staff have access to senior management if they wish to discuss something. In fact, we even randomly select people for one-on-one sessions with senior management, where they can openly discuss anything that may be of importance to them; we call this, ‘Pulse Check’,” he said.
Amana Takaful Welfare Association (ATWA), looks into the Company’s staff welfare activities, across areas such as culture, knowledge, sports and overall welfare.
Through the ATWA, the company ensures that all cultural and religious festivals, which are significant to team members, are celebrated across the organisation.
These include festivals such as Avurudu, Vesak, Deepavali, Eid, and Christmas. The Management along with ATWA also recently recognised staff members’ children who passed the Ordinary Level and Advanced Level Examinations and presented these children tablet computers as a reward for their good efforts.
Amana Takaful Insurance was incorporated as a Public Company in 1999, and has been listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange since 2006, Amana Takaful Insurance has expanded its geographic footprint through over 35 branches across Sri Lanka, covering all provinces.