The value of trust is universal in business – but, arguably, it’s rarely as important as it is in the superannuation industry. HRD talks to the CEO of VicSuper, Michael Dundon
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The last few months have made it difficult – if not impossible – to discuss the current state of superannuation without also touching on the findings of the royal commission into financial services. It’s tended to cast a dark shadow over the industry, with many organisations loathe to discuss the resulting fallout.
But for CEO Michael Dundon, the findings were an affirmation that VicSuper had been taking the right approach all along.
“We work in an industry that’s recently come under increased scrutiny and rightly so, as collectively we’re responsible for managing the savings of almost every working Australian,” says Dundon. “We take this responsibility very seriously.”
Being a profit-to-member fund helps reinforce that the organisation’s sole focus is to act in its members’ best interests, he notes.
“Relationships are central to the way we interact with our members and stakeholders, and the relationships we have with our own people are the foundation of that.” Accordingly, VicSuper was pleased with the outcomes of the royal commission. It served as something of a vindication of its current practices and approach to managing super.
“For us, they confirmed the fact that our governance and risk practices are sound, and that our member-centric approach is authentic and founded on trust,” says Dundon.
Best practice in hiring
With responsibility comes trust – specifically, the trust that VicSuper has in its employees to do the right thing by members and by each other. The people within the company are the most important enablers of its ability to deliver on its strategy and to continue to help members get the best possible income in retirement.
“From an HR perspective, we don’t just focus on attracting the right skills for the job – we look for much more than that,” says Dundon. “Cultural fit is very important. It’s a big driver behind how we onboard, develop, manage, motivate and reward our people.”
Having an alignment between personal and corporate values underscores VicSuper’s approach to HR. The organisation’s strong culture and value set enables trust to be fostered effectively, and aligning talent with the member value proposition is crucial.
Beyond hiring practices, VicSuper also places considerable emphasis on building a positive culture within the workplace itself.
“We’re fortunate that our size helps us to really leverage our scale benefits,” says Dundon. “However, we’re not so big that we become impersonal and don’t know the teams in our other local offices. We’re ‘One Team’ and we really emphasise that among the respective offices.”
The employee experience
To maintain this ‘One Team’ feel, the VicSuper executive team has made a strong commitment to driving inclusion across the organisation. Ensuring that employees believe in and understand their role in delivering VicSuper’s value proposition to its members is also critically important. At the heart of these initiatives is ‘The Voice’ – an annual staff engagement survey.
“Last year, 88% of our entire team participated and gave feedback on their working experience at VicSuper,” says Dundon. “We spend a lot of time reviewing the results and insights, because having full transparency around the results is critically important – so much so that acting on the feedback is a KPI for myself and the executive team.”
The results are also shared and discussed with all employees at both a department and enterprise level, and department leaders then workshop initiatives with their teams. Targeted action plans are created across a variety of levels, from organisational down to personal level.
Every month Dundon also hosts a staff breakfast at which all are welcome, to encourage a catch-up where people from across the business come together to learn about the latest strategic issues and hear from their colleagues about new initiatives. The Employee of the Month award is given, and, perhaps most importantly, staff can ask questions of the executive team in an informal setting.
“It’s not mandatory, but it’s great to see that most people in the organisation attend,” says Dundon. “We actively encourage anyone to present – from our chief investment officer right down to our Member Contact Centre representatives who are on the phones. Everyone has a critical role in helping us better understand what’s on the minds of our members.”
An active People Committee of volunteers from across the organisation contributes to the shared goal of enhancing the employee experience. They focus on initiatives that help build teamwork, reinforce VicSuper’s values and make the company a great place to work, for example by organising team participation in goodwill or charity events such as Sleep at the ’G, the Mother’s Day Classic, or simpler projects such as setting up a book exchange for staff.
“What’s important is that it brings people together from all levels and across different functions within the organisation,” says Dundon.
Emphasis is placed on building trust in other ways too.
“We encourage cross-collaboration of work teams, and where possible we create working groups made up of subject matter experts from around the organisation,” says Dundon. “This work helps foster and encourage the sharing of diverse skills and new learning.”
Trust and CSR
These commitments d
on’t simply stop within the workplace. They extend into every facet of the business. For example, VicSuper has made a conscious effort to integrate corporate responsibility into its business strategy by publicly articulating its Corporate Responsibility Commitments.
“We want our people to be engaged, accountable and focused so that they deliver the best possible experience for our members and our employers,” says Dundon.
“A great example of this is how our people have embraced the education and awareness programs as a part of our Reconciliation Action Plan and taken their learnings into their interactions with our members.”
In practical terms, VicSuper offers workplace flexibility to accommodate a better work-life balance for its employees. It also provides health assessments as part of its wellbeing program. Staff participate in the company’s corporate volunteering program, and its commitment to community is outlined in its Social Sustainability Strategy. Within VicSuper’s company offices, staff work to minimise its carbon footprint and review suppliers against the corporate responsibility criteria in its supplier engagement policy.
Externally, as many members want to align the way their super savings are invested with their own social and environmental values, VicSuper’s Socially Conscious Investment option provides them with this opportunity. “We have provided a commitment to responsible investing,” says Dundon.
“We integrate environmental, social and governance factors into our investment decisions and engage with the companies we invest in to influence positive change in corporate behaviour.”
Building trust remains the cornerstone on which VicSuper is founded – and it plans to continue building on that foundation into the future.
