Resource Management
Case Studies

AXA Life

Formed in 1997 after the merger of Sun Life Group and AXA Equity & Law, AXA Life enjoys a high profile in the UK life, pensions and investments industry. AXA Life currently employs 3,800 people based in Bristol, Coventry and at sales offices across the UK.

The Business Challenge

In 2000, AXA Life replaced most of the executive board and senior management team, led by a new Chief Executive, Andy Haste. The key driver was to modernise the organisation and move from being ‘old world’ to ‘new world’ in approach. As part of this strategy, AXA needed to simultaneously decrease headcount and upgrade talent within the organisation in order to significantly improve capability. The ‘new world’ values were defined in a number of key leadership behaviours:

• Managing Performance
• Delivering for the Customer
• Taking Initiative
• Understanding the Customer
• Continual Improvement
• Working in Teams
• Being Brave
• Building Commitment

In addition to defining the type of person required by the business, there was a need to re-engineer the recruitment process itself. The issues were symptomatic of many large blue chips, i.e.:

• Lack of consistency and co-ordination in terms of a recruitment strategy
• Lack of consistency and co-ordination in terms of attraction and selection
• No formalised or documented recruitment process
• No formalised supplier list
• No MI relating to success or cost

AXA were looking for a ‘Best Practice’ solution to address all of the above issues, with a focus on quality of applicant and delivery to the business.

The Resource Management Solution

After undertaking an extensive feasibility study, Resource Management worked with AXA to develop a strategy and best practice process which was specific to the needs of the business, reduced cost and more importantly, improved the quality of new recruits.

In the first instance, we led a Resource Management/AXA project team which developed and implemented a communications strategy prior to implementation. We presented the recruitment solution to individual board members, the HR team, Business Managers and the wider organisation as appropriate. This had the advantage of raising overall awareness of the process and managed service, but most importantly gained initial ‘buy in’.

The recruitment process is now continually updated and improved to reflect the changing demands of the AXA business and the recruitment market as a whole.

Download the AXA case study