Environmentally friendly practices | Sales team training, talent development

  • Received ISO 14064-1 greenhouse gases inventory certification at 15 locations. Eleven locations have now obtained ISO 14001 and 50001 energy and environmental management system certifications. The head office, Taichung subsidiary, and Kaohsiung subsidiary have obtained ISO 45001 occupational safety and health management systems certification.
  • The proportion of local procurement was 100%, supporting the local economy.
  • Organized ESG-related employee online training, with a completion rate of 100%.
  • Organized a total of 255 sales agent training sessions, exceeding the target by 28%.
Environmental management systems and certifications

The Company and its subsidiaries have introduced ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems, ISO 50001 Energy Management Systems, and ISO 14064-1 Greenhouse Gas Quantification and Reporting certification, with 100% coverage. In 2022, a total of NT$2,335,331 was invested in management system guidance, verification, education, and training. In accordance to the plan–do–check–act (PDCA) management cycle model, we work to strengthen our management mechanisms and achieve our goal of better energy conservation and carbon reduction. As a financial and insurance company, our daily operations only generate waste associated with everyday living activities and general resource recycling, with no hazardous waste.

● ISO standards and validation
ISO standards and validation
Energy and greenhouse gas management

Taiwan Life and its subsidiaries regularly reviews the energy use of their daily operations. Overall electricity consumption increased in 2022 from 2021 due to a decrease in remote working. Through the joint efforts of all our departments, we are gradually improving the energy consumption of equipment in various locations, implementing energy conservation measures in our daily lives in the form of an energy-saving contest, and making smart energy use a daily habit of all employees. In order to achieve the long-term goal of a 5% reduction in energy use over five years, we regularly maintain and repair the air-conditioning and lighting systems of the office buildings that we own and continue to plan to replace lighting fixtures with LED lamps to reduce lighting power consumption.

Water resources and management

One hundred percent of the water resources used in Taiwan Life’s daily operations come from state-owned utility Taiwan Water Corp. There is no use of groundwater or other natural water bodies. Wastewater is discharged into the sewer system, which has no significant negative impact on the use and discharge of water resources.
Total water consumption was estimated to be 117,647 kl in 2022, with per person consumption of 11.6 kl. Water consumption increased by 2.8% from 2021, mainly due to the increase in cleaning water consumption due to the impact of the pandemic.

Renewable energy use

Taiwan Life did not obtain renewable energy certificates or make new renewable energy power purchase agreements in 2022, but we have carried out the following energy conservation and carbon reduction activities:

Expanding energy savings and carbon reductions

In the insurance industry, electricity use is our main source of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2021, employee travel was newly included in our GHG inventory, with a total of 5,056 mt CO2e recorded in Categories 1 and 2. Moving forward, we will evaluate our overall medium- and long-term emission reduction targets and increase the proportion of renewable energy use in accordance with the guidelines of CTBC Holding. We also plan to introduce ISO 14067 Carbon Footprint Product certification and obtain product carbon reduction labels to demonstrate our determination to control GHGs and to build a sustainable future.

Sustainable supply chain

Sustainable supply chain policy

Our efforts to implement environmental sustainability and fulfill our corporate social responsibility are guided by CTBC Holding’s Principles for Supplier Management as well as Article 3 of Taiwan Life’s organizational regulations and the standards or the division of responsibilities of directors and managers, according to which we formulate our own Supplier Management Principles for use in selecting and managing suppliers so as to reduce ESG-related supply chain risks. We strictly select partners that we are confident we can work with toward sustainable development and to achieve win–win outcomes for enterprises and suppliers alike.
Taiwan Life’s supplier management measures

  • 1.Supplier meetings: We hold meetings with suppliers in order to raise understanding of supply chain sustainability, and invite external experts and scholars to share international developments in supply chain management.
  • 2.Education, training, and promotion: We carry out supplier education and training, help suppliers to build their CSR management capabilities, and work with them to jointly fulfill their CSR.
  • 3.Ethical management: We work with our suppliers to ensure that they operate in an honest and ethical manner that includes avoiding conflicts of interest, bribery, and counterfeiting.
● Local procurement
Local procurement
Supplier Conference

In support of the SDGs and in line with international standards to promote sustainable and positive supply chains, Taiwan Life and CTBC Holding held the 2021 CTBC Suppliers Conference on Dec. 7, 2022, with a total of 155 suppliers attending. We invited speakers from Ernst & Young and Unity Sustainability Services to discuss the importance of net-zero emissions, living wages, human rights, and ESG in the supply chain, with a view to making an impact and promoting CTBC Holding’s Environmental Sustainability Policy and related regulations.

Supply chain procurement regulations

We have in place key criteria for selecting and managing suppliers and conduct an annual evaluation, screening, and filtering of suppliers’ qualifications. We review and evaluate the human rights, environmental sustainability, code of conduct, and basic background information of suppliers as well as their goodwill, service content, transaction terms, procurement quality, cost, delivery time, and more for reference in our procurement decision-making, thus improving the overall quality of suppliers, reducing business risks, and establishing a sustainable growth partnership.

We consider our employees to be our most valuable asset, and we have long been committed to cultivating and developing talent. In accordance with our strategic development direction, we actively cultivate a talent development mechanism, which includes designing career development frameworks and providing comprehensive training and development resources for various positions and supervisors at all levels. Our approach includes the following initiatives:

Talent recruitment and cultivation

Overview of employee structure

As of the end of 2022, Taiwan Life’s employees totaled 10,015, comprising 1,946 office staff and commission-based sales representative contract workers 8,069. Women accounted for 60.69% of the total number, and men accounted for 39.31% of the total number. We provide an equal-opportunity employment environment, including for indigenous people, those with a physical or mental disability, and foreign nationals, in order to foster a diverse workplace. In 2022, we employed 8 indigenous employees and 16 employees with a physical or mental disability.

Talent recruitment

Talent is the key to a company’s success, and only happy partners can build a competitive team. In terms of its talent recruitment policy, Taiwan Life continues to actively recruit outstanding professionals in various industries through multiple recruitment channels in order to help ensure IFRS 17 compliance and to support new core IT projects and the digital transformation development strategy. We invested tens of millions of New Taiwan dollars in recruiting in 2022, and in line with CTBC Holding’s “We are family” brand spirit, we treat our employees like family and provide competitive and comprehensive compensation and benefits as well as a healthy workplace environment to attract outstanding industry talent.

Management Associate program

Taiwan Life is the second largest profit-making engine of CTBC Holding. In order to continue to nurture financial and insurance talent, the Company has been holding the Management Associate (MA) trainee program every year since 2012, continually investing substantial and diverse resources to nurture talented individuals. In 2022, we established a new insurance business development program to address the evolving insurance strategies. This program takes a comprehensive approach to understanding the company, staying updated on operational trends and innovations, and fostering top-notch professional planning and management talent through an extensive two-year training program. To date, 63 MAs have participated in the program, with 23 of them successfully completing it and going on to hold managerial positions or higher within the Company.

Internship program

Taiwan Life actively engages in industry–academia collaboration with relevant departments of colleges and universities in order to increase the financial understanding and practical knowledge of students in finance and insurance departments. Uncovering high-potential talent and providing these students with opportunities to connect seamlessly with us constitute one of our most important recruitment channels.
For annual industry–academia collaboration, the Company offers internships to maintain the partnership with National Chengchi University and CTBC Business School. In addition to practical work experience and diverse training courses, dedicated instructors and counselors provide guidance for interns; furthermore, through task assignments and performance reports, interns gain an in-depth understanding of the daily operations of their department and have an early opportunity to explore various career options. We also provide career path opportunities for interns after graduation.
In 2022, a total of 11 interns were recruited. They served in various business-related fields in the front, middle, and back offices, at the same time helping various departments meet their own staffing needs.

On-campus recruitment

After two years of pandemic-induced restrictions, Taiwan Life launched a campus tour in 2022 to recruit outstanding students according to the talent demands outlined in our recruitment strategy. We actively sought talent for commodity actuarial calculation and business strategy planning, while also establishing a new management trainee insurance management group to nurture insurance strategy talent. Furthermore, we provided diverse industry–academia collaboration internship opportunities to help introduce students to working at Taiwan Life. Our efforts yielded outstanding results, with several personnel and management trainees joining our team.
CTBC Business School is the cradle of talent cultivation for CTBC Holding, and Taiwan Life provides a variety of employment opportunities for graduates every year. Through the school’s employment matchmaking program, Taiwan Life has injected new blood into various business fields and fortified its business foundation. At the end of each year, two outstanding colleagues are invited to speak at CTBC Business School’s career seminar, offering students better understanding of the opportunities and challenges they may encounter in a career in finance. This initiative resulted in 18 graduates from the class of 2022 seamlessly integrating into our underwriting, policy service, and planning departments after completing their studies.

Employee remuneration system and incentives

Taiwan Life has established a complete remuneration system. By participating in salary surveys every year, we grasp market salary levels and reference them in salary reviews, salary adjustments, and promotions to ensure that the Company’s competitiveness. The salary of employees is based on their experience, abilities, and position. We are committed to equal-opportunity employment, with all candidates and employees standing on the same footing regardless of gender, age, race, religious beliefs, political stance, or nationality. In addition, Taiwan Life has a complete performance management system. Through its management by objectives (MBO) mechanism, it sets up goals according to market needs and Company strategies. The performance indicators on regulation side include internal control, legal compliance, information security, and risk control; they also include cost control, personal improvement, team management, environmental, social, and corporate governance as comprehensive performance indicators. At the beginning of every year, supervisors and employees jointly set personal work goals. Through rigorous assessment processes and transparent rules, we manage employees’ work performance, review and revise such in the middle of the year, and give feedback and evaluate the achievement of various goals at the end of the year.

Employee benefits policy

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Company has aligned with CTBC Holding's employee care policy, offering support such as consolation subsidies and epidemic prevention kits. These measures aimed to ensure that all employees can safely return to the workplace and maintain good health. Along with the new care benefits introduced during the epidemic prevention period, we formulated a range of welfare subsidies and protections to help our employees maintain a good quality of life while working. In addition to providing the benefits required by basic laws and regulations, we offer cash gifts and bonuses for major holidays and birthdays; subsidies for marriage, family funerals, and childbirth; long-term service, retiree care, health care, education, and entertainment benefits; preferential mortgage rates; and credit loans and group insurance. We also offer a points-based rewards system, which enables employees to redeem their points for products and services.

Development and learning of office staff

The Company is committed to cultivating a high-quality workforce, enhancing the basic competencies of all staff, and nurturing potential talent in order to support the Company's overall strategy. Every year, we apply talent review procedure to conduct a talent inventory for all key duties and positions and define the core competencies of different grades in different positions; we then use the results to determine talent gaps and plan training resource allocation accordingly. Career planning, job rotation, project experience and professional management training resources are provided to effectively enhance the effectiveness of training; Consistently awarded the Best Insurance Professionalism Award and ranked as the most desirable life insurance company for recent graduates in Finance and Insurance.
With the pandemic hitting the world and companies having to work remotely, we are also implementing online libraries, online learning platforms and live courses to provide employees with more diverse learning channels and resources. We create a learning environment for employees regardless of location, time, and space, so that they can continuously refine their skills in various positions and grow with the organization to achieve the goal of sustainable management.
In 2022, Taiwan Life's employee education and training expenses totaled NT$10,369,948, with 30,084 participants in general courses Satisfaction surveys are conducted at the end of each training course. In 2022, the overall result of course satisfaction survey reached an average score of 4.7 out of 5. We will continue to track and evaluate the effectiveness of training and collect suggestions and feedback immediately in order to achieve our training objectives and further enhance the capabilities of our supervisors and employees.

Development and learning of office staff
Sales agent development and learning

To improve the skills of sales agents, a standardized and systematic business education and training system targeting our 8,017 sales agents has been established. The system covers basic training, bridging training, and professional upgrade certification training, including certification tests, product learning, customer needs, policy risk consultation, asset allocation, and advanced financial planning to increase new policyholders and initial annual premiums. The training program has been consistently effective over the years, receiving industry awards for training excellence.

Employee rights and workplace health

Taiwan Life regards the safety of employees as a top priority. To provide our employees with the best possible working environment, we have a three-pronged commitment to “Risk-based thinking,” “A healthy future,” and “A culture of safety.” These guide our efforts to ensure healthy and safe working conditions, prevent injuries and adverse health effects in the course of our business activities and services, reduce workplace hazards, actively implement occupational health and safety performance management, and reduce occupational health and safety risks. Specifically, we are working to:
1.Comply with the requirements of regulations and obligations, and implement a safety-driven procurement strategy.
2.Conduct regular education and training to raise awareness of occupational health and safety.
3.Integrate relevant resources and implement a plan to eliminate hazards and risks.
4.Continually improve workplace health and safety, with regular reviews to achieve the goal of a friendly workplace.
5.Expand and leverage the influence of the Company to encourage surrounding enterprises to participate in the formation of an ecosystem that values occupational safety.

Employee communication and surveys

We see talent as an important Company asset. As such, we strive to understand the thoughts and ideas of employees across different generations, and for them to propose suggestions and improvements. To understand the status of communications between managers and employees, we started conducting employee surveys in 2021. Moreover, to increase the frequency of interactions between managers and staff, managers now discuss work arrangements with employees at the end of each quarter (March, June, and September) to address work-related challenges and recognize achievements in a timely manner. We hope that this mechanism will make communications more immediate and that employees can receive the assistance they need; moreover, they can also achieve a sense of accomplishment and a sense of direction from their managers' feedback, thereby enhancing their happiness at work. The response rate of employee opinion survey for the quarterly review in 2022 was 99.4%, which demonstrated good two-way communication between supervisors and colleagues. In addition, a performance review will also be conducted during the year-end assessment with 98.2% of the employees agreed managers gave career advice, reminder or assistance and felt that their managers had engaged in effective communications regarding their work performance. These results reflect our unwavering commitment to talent cultivation and dedication of both time and resources to achieving positive outcomes.

Labor–management meetings

We regularly conduct meetings with representatives of labors and management, discussing issues affecting employees such as labor rights and fair remuneration in order to create a more harmonious working environment. A total of 24 meetings were held in 2022. Meanwhile, a total of 636 full-time employees (6.5%) were covered by a collective bargaining agreement.

● 2022 labor communication overview
2022 labor communication overview
A healthy workplace

Taiwan Life received ISO 45001 occupational health and safety (OHS) management system certification in 2019. Our Taichung and Kaohsiung branches were certified in 2021 and 2022, respectively, and the Taipei branch is expected to be certified in 2023, with a long-term goal of 100% ISO 45001 coverage across all locations. We also have an Occupational Health and Safety Committee, which meets quarterly to review the Company’s OHS efforts and handles related education and training for all employees in order to effectively reduce workplace safety risks.
To ensure comprehensive occupational safety and protection through the prevention of workplace hazards, 6 nurses, 3 OHS managers, 37 business supervisors, 115 emergency medical technicians, and 20 fire prevention managers were designated in 2022.
In addition, a total of 30 sets of automated external defibrillators are installed in the head office, branch offices, self-owned buildings, and communication offices, so that emergency treatment can be carried out immediately in the case of cardiac arrhythmias.

● Workplace health activities
Workplace health activities
● Workplace health and safety measures and effectiveness
Workplace health and safety measures and effectiveness
Unpaid parental leave

To ensure its employees can achieve a healthy balance between work and family life, Taiwan Life encourages staff to apply not just for paid parental leave but unpaid parental leave, too, from both of which they can return to work at any time. In 2022, a total of 41 employees were eligible to apply for unpaid parental leave; 53% of eligible men and 83% of eligible women did so. Eighty-two percent of employees who had taken unpaid parental leave returned to work in the Company. In addition, we offer a NT$4,000 childbirth subsidy per child, and issued a total of NT$204,000 in such subsidies in 2022.