News
Jessica Tan: Ping An Empowers Working Women
(Hong Kong, Shanghai, 5 July 2021) Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or the "Group", HKEX: 2318; SSE: 601318) is committed to supporting women’s equal participation in the workforce, says Group Co-CEO Jessica Tan during the panel “Empowering Women in Asia” at the Caixin Summer Summit 2021.
“Ping An is inclusive. This culture of equality, openness, and inclusiveness influences everyone in Ping An, allowing us to accept different nationalities, races, religions, beliefs, ways of thinking, and of course, genders,” Ms. Tan said.
At Ping An, 48.4% of employees across the Group are women, and at Ping An Life, 76.4% of senior business directors are women, Ms. Tan noted. About 75% of those female senior business directors were recruited through Ping An Life’s Talent Program, which aims to attract educated, high potential young working people into the insurance industry. Some of these women came from careers in state-owned enterprises, and some were teachers, doctors and housewives. One former English teacher led her team to reap the highest first-year commission for four consecutive years from 2016 to 2019. She also developed over 100 members of the Million Dollar Round Table, an independent association of the world's leading life insurance and financial services professionals, and helped her team become the best agent team at Ping An Life.
Ping An’s support of women’s financial independence extends into the community, Ms. Tan added. In August 2020, Ping An and the China Women’s Development Foundation jointly launched the Mother’s Needlework charity program in Sichuan Province. The project recycled old clothes by embellishing them with Yi ethnic clothing patterns, a valuable part of China's intangible cultural heritage, and invited the local Yi women to make and sell exquisite handicrafts. More than 80 women participated, and their per capita income increased from RMB3,200 per year to more than RMB10,000 per year.
In May 2021, Ping An announced it was introducing the Mother’s Needlework program to Cambodia. Ping An will support technical training and handicrafts production to promote local women's employment and the economic and social development of their communities.
Peter Ma, Ping An Group founder and Chairman, believes in the importance of investing in people, Ms. Tan said. “He believes that if we want to have the best and the most stable team in the market while maintaining our competitiveness, we need to ensure the growth of employment and remuneration systems along with the growth of employees,” she said. Ping An complies with the spirit of the conventions and recommendations of the International Labor Organization and other agreements in the countries were Ping An operates. It has an Employee Rights and Welfare Policy to protect the rights and interests of employees, equal pay for equal work, and prohibits all forms of discrimination in recruitment, on-boarding, training, promotion and rewards.