New York Life: Diversity Management - Research Paper Example

New York Life: Diversity Management New York Life: Diversity Management The Company The New York Life Insurance Company isone of the oldest and most trusted insurance companies in the world. Since its inception on 12 April, 1845 in New York, the company has been rendering priceless services to the customers for 170 years. During its remarkably long and successful journey, it has come witnessed a number of natural calamities, terror strikes and economic recessions that shook the peace and prosperity of the people of the country. The company has helped its customers recover from the damages and rebuild their lives as or even better than before. The company on its 170th anniversary stands as a potential voice in the American economy with record breaking financial gain from the policy sales. The management of New York Life thanks the unshakable values like integrity, humanity, humanity and financial strength for all the achievements the company has gained so far (New York Life: “Celebrating 170 years of strength”). The Company provides its services by way of multiple insurance and investment products, all of them assuring the customer’s safety in choosing the smartest way they can secure their prospective life and save their hard-earned money. The Website The official website of the company provides the most reliable and accurate details of the management and operations of the organization. It has an impressive design with provisions for information links and clearly authenticated access points. The homepage is attractive with the color combination of light oceanic blue and light grey on the background gives the texts an embossing effect while they are printed on the flash file format. Moreover, the literature of the documentations is highly attractive and pleasant even for the moderately educated readers. The details are easy to understand and the interactive language is transparent in nature. There is no complex intervention of legal terminology or technical jargons in the communicative language of the entire website of the company. These attributes give the advertisement a smart look and that is how the company succeeds in grasping the new customers’ attention. Mission and Values The Company believes in doing value-based business within the conceptual framework established by the mission statement and the value statements. The association of mission and values alone can take a company to the road of progress and sustainability especially when it deals with the public’s investment. New York Life Insurance Company identifies this and keeps trying to best incorporate the virtues of being the most reliable provider of insurance and investment products. The mission statement itself demonstrates the company’s integrity to its original objectives throughout the long years of its existence. The Mission Statement: “New York Life’s mission is to provide financial security and peace of mind through our insurance, annuity and investment products and services” (New York Life , “our mission”). With this mission statement the company invites the public to the team working on the betterment of the stakeholders and the many beneficiaries who are connected to the divine endeavor of the organization. While saying that, “Every decision we make, every action we take has one overriding purpose: To be here when our customers need us” (New York Life, Homme page). the management means that their value lies in delivering prompt and comprehensive support to the customers in times of necessity. By keeping the virtues of integrity and humanity, the company holds the public trust which gains it an envious market position. The very identity and organizational culture of the company makes it easy for the management and employees accomplish their designated missions in collecting new policy holders and developing the company across the world. President Ted Mathas has clearly indicated that the company is looking forward to meeting the financial challenges in the future by securing the economic wellbeing and prosperity of the customers across the generations to come (New York Life annual report, 2011). New York Life keeps high value for their customers with regards to the official documentation proceedings by maintaining a strong privacy policy. While the company collects the required information about the customers from different resources, it guarantees the strict security and privacy of the customers’ personal details (New York Life, “Board of Directors”). It assures the domestic use and transfer of the data only to the responsible firms under legal provisions. The organizational culture is a customer-friendly and service oriented one. However, the company’s prime focus is on the American customers which may reflect the stereotypical perceptions about the customer classification. As such, it can be seen that the material literature does not address the diversity concept except for the economic and social status differences among the customers. Management Team/Board of Directors The management team of the New York Life consists of the board of directors and the executive management committee. Their details are given below; The Board of Directors 1. Betty C. Alewine, Chairperson of the Board’s Governance Committee and member of Compensation Committee (Former President and CEO, COSMOT Inc.) 2. Michael G. Buck, member of the Audit Committee and Insurance & Operations Committee (North American Presdient, The Harshey Company) 3. Ralf de la Vega, Chairperson of the Audit Committee, member of the Insurance & Operation committee and Investment committees (President and CEO, AT&T Mobile and Business Solutions) 4. Mark L. Feidler, Lead Director, member of the Audit, Compensation, Governance, Insurance & Operations and Investment Committees (Founding partner of MSouth Equity Partners and Former President, Director and Chief Operating Officer of BellSouth Corporation) 5. Kent B. Foster, member of Board Governance and Investment Committees (Former Chairman and CEO, Ingram Micro Inc.) 6. Christina A. Gold, member Compensation and Governance Committees (Retired President and CEO and former Director, Western Union Company) 7. Theodore A. Mathas, Chairman, President and CEO of New York Life Insurance Company 8. S. Thomas Moser, Chair of Board’s Insurance & Operation Committee, member of the Audit Committee (Retired Vice Chairman, KPMG LLP (US) of KPMG International. 9. Thomas C. Schevelbein, Chair of Board’s Compensation Committee, member of the Audit and Governance Committees (Chairman, President and CEO, The Brink’s Company, former President, Northrop Grumman Newport News) 10. Gerald B. Smith, member of Audit, Compensation and Investment Committees (Chairman and CEO, Smith Graham & Company, Investment Advisors LP) 11. William G. Walter, Chair of Board’s Investment Committee, member of Insurance & Operations Committee (Retired Chairman, President and CEO, FMC Corporation) The Executive Management Committee: 1. Theodore A. Mathas, Board Chairman, President and CEO 2. John Y. Kim, Vice Chairman, Chief Investment Officer and Investments Group President 3. Christopher O. Blunt, Executive Vice President And Insurance and Agency Group Co-President 4. Sheila K. Davidson, Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel 5. Mark W. Pfaff, Executive Vice President and Co-President of the Insurance and Agency Group 6. John T. Fleurant, Executive Vice President and CFO 7. George Nicolas III, Senior Vice President in Charge of the Office of Government Affairs 8. Katherine R. O’Brien, Senior Vice President and Chief HR Officer 9. Joel M. Steinberg, Senior Vice President, Chief Risk Officer and Chief Actuary 10. Susan A. Thorpe, Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Secretary Thus, the management of the company is a conglomeration of genius and versatility from around the top leadership of major companies in the United States. (Source: Board of Directors) Customers Like in any other insurance company, New York Life also has customers from various destinations and social classes. The range of the users of the company’s products covers professionals, business owners, farmers, students and all small and large business organizations. Apart from this, a number of organizations and agencies of service industry also have their policy ownership or investment partnership with the company. This multi-focus service access enables the company to entertain the diversity of customers. Employees The employees of New York Life have distinguished remarks about their positions and expectations with regards to the company policies. Even though the company offers great career paths with lots of benefits, the lower level managers and sales employees have mixed opinions about what they actually receive at the end of the day. Some of them complain about the heavy stress and lack of superior support during the process of their work. However, a majority of the remarks at the bottom level employees indicate that the company offers a wonderful workplace experience with adequate support provided the aspirants are willing to work hard and test their merits on given opportunities (“New York Life Employer Reviews”, n.d.). In the modern context, the employees are largely connected to superior communication technologies which enable them to work as a virtual team with consentaneous support and feedback from the superior levels of management. Hence the criticism makes little sense when it claims various forms of discrimination. Jobs The career page of the company has a precise look which gives the succinct details about the required qualities of the candidates and the expectations through the job description. The company invites the people who want to grow personally and professionally with a view to make a difference to the globally spread organizational structure in both sales careers and corporate openings. The jobs offered surely exposes the diverse work environment of the company as the positions are strategically distinct from one another. The career openings are integrated with Linkedin, the social networking site primarily used by professionals and business experts, which makes the hiring process easy for the management (“Keep up with New York Life Insurance Company”). Moreover, the job descriptions along with the opportunity details reveal the diversity of the nature of each job. Recommendations Social life coupled with economic stability makes people look beyond their daily life requirements. While most people plan their family life, it becomes important for them to secure the future of their dependents, particularly wife and children. Since money gives the biggest security in terms of socio-economic prospects of human life, a planned assurance becomes pivotal for the people in order to secure the worth of their life and properties. In this context, insurance companies flourish with their offerings to the customers in various alluring ways. The increasing cases of accidents and fatalities resulting from the risky advancement of the tech-driven lifestyle make it inevitable for individuals to have their life insured. Particularly when the job market demands mobility and cross-cultural shifting of human capital for meeting the demands of a globalised workplace, the company can focus on expanding the schemes to service and small industrial sectors across the world. The management of the insurance companies at the international level has to address the challenge of diversity management. With this viewpoint, New York Life can start reaching out to the grassroots and meet the ever-increasing needs of the low-income groups of underdeveloped economies. Moreover, the company can try a strategic approach by setting up virtual offices and expand the administrative structure worldwide by reducing the cost of the physical operations of offices and related infrastructure. References “Board of Directors”. Retrieved from http://www.newyorklife.com/about/board-directors “Celebrating 170 years of strength”. New York Life. Official website. http://www.newyorklife.com/about/celebrating-years-strength “Keep up with New York Life Insurance Company”. Linkedin. Retrieved from https://in.linkedin.com/company/new-york-life-insurance-company New York Life. http://www.tampa.nyloffices.com/ New York Life Annual Report. (2011). Retrieved from https://www.newyorklife.com/nyl-internet/articles/about%20new%20york%20life/financial%20information/2011_Annual_Report.pdf “New York Life Employer Reviews”. Indeed. Retrieved from http://www.indeed.com/cmp/New-York-Life/reviews “Our mission”. New York Life. Official website. http://www.newyorklife.com/careers/our-mission Read More