Digit Insurance, a New General Insurance Startup In India, redefining the new insurance industry by going completely Digital. Digit Insurance comes with an aim of ‘Making Insurance, Simple’. Started by Kamesh Goyal, who has been associated in the Insurance space for over two decades, and backed by Fairfax Group, which is amongst the largest General Insurance companies in the world, Digit is reimagining products and redesigning processes to provide simple and transparent insurance solutions, that matter to consumers.
SkillOutlook team has an email interaction with Amrit Arora. Sr. Vice President, Human Resources , Digit Insurance on how people in age category of 25-35 are learning and leading big teams in a start up. She elaborates more on the policies that is helping them achieve this, how individuals from different fields (both insurance and non-insurance) are working together to lead the company etc.
1.Shed some more light on Digit’s vision and mission?
Our mission is to ‘Make insurance simple’ with simple products, simple processes and simple language. We also believe in creating products with real benefits, that meet the needs of the customers.
2.What is the culture like at Digit and what is your key focus on when it comes to hiring employees?
The most important tenants of our culture are ‘Simplicity’ and ‘Transparency’ in everything we do.
And with that in mind, we promote a culture of working cross-functional to improve the experience for the end customer.
There are no segregations or people working silos. Information is exchanged between different teams openly. And this is supported by the kind of workplace design we have, we have absolutely no cubicles, no assigned seats, there are spaces where people work and discuss together.
Within a year, we have grown to a team size of 290 simplifiers and plan to triple in the next three months. And we make sure that the people who join us are not only good at what they do but more importantly they are people who can thrive in the above culture.
Also, we put the onus of seeing a prospective employee’s fit with our culture on the hiring manager as they only can define the right balance of people in their team.
3.How does the top management play a role in the system and how do they ensure employee satisfaction?
Under the core value of being transparent, we have a concept of ‘Skip Level’ meetings, in which we encourage feedback from all employees and we religiously work on it. We have also introduced an ‘Internal Department Survey’ to ensure there is feedback that will help improve the performance of each and every team.
4.What skills do you’ll look out for while hiring in the age group of 25-35 years, considering that you are a new age startup?
Again, under our second core value of ‘Questioning the status quo’, we need people who are curious and have the courage to change the norm effectively. Therefore those are two things we love for in the young blood.
5.Is there any regular people management training that is provided to the employees and team leaders?
We’ve challenged how traditional people management trainings are done by having ‘Friday Special- Breakfast Sessions’ every fortnight. We schedule these for an hour earlier than the usual worktime. All departments / employees come and share their knowledge with the rest of the team on topics of their choice and the session ends with a scrumptious team breakfast.
Also, we also have monthly company update calls where our founder, Mr. Kamesh Goyal himself addresses every employee and updates them on the various happenings across Digit. We see this as a big success, esp. given our core value of ‘Being transparent’.
6.What do you think is the motivation factor for young minds to join your company?
Sustaining customers is equally important as is sustaining employee enthusiasm. Therefore, we believe in not only celebrating our big achievements but also in recognizing the everyday efforts that people put in to make a difference to a customer’s experience with us.
We also feel that a workplace environment which allows people to be themselves gets the best out of them. For example. a bring your pet to office policy, a recreation area and creche facility, everything supports them being happy at the place they work. And believe us, happy employees and efficient ones too.
7.How does the company use technology to cultivate a mindful culture?
We are a paperless company and believe in being completely digital. We have one printer across the 4 floors to discourage employees from printing unless imperative. All our process – whether HR Finance or customer centric are digital.
8.Are Digit employees from an insurance background, if no then how do you bring together employees with non-insurance backgrounds?
The current team is a great mix of industry veterans who know what’s working and specialists from new age sectors who know what needs to be changed. We are a company which has ~53% employees from a non-insurance background and are from diverse field which includes e-commerce as well! To enable people from the non-insurance backgrounds to get the basics of insurance right, we provide a certified insurance training as well.
9.Can you give some examples of key positions held by the young age group in your company?
The average age in our company is 28. All our practice head are under 40
10.What do you think is more relevant today, degree or talent?
A degree reflects the training people have got to hone up their existing raw talent. While we try to spot talent over scores and marks people have got while getting the degrees, we have a minimum requirement of having a degree in the relevant field. So for us, it is not an ‘either or’ question.
