Every good business sets goals. And every good business holds employees accountable for reaching those goals.
But at Philadelphia Insurance Cos., that’s not quite enough.
Jamie Maguire wants to hold his employees accountable for overachieving. And the way he makes it happen is by finding and training employees who can meet the challenge.
“To hold people accountable for overachieving, those are some lofty words,” says Maguire, the company’s chairman and CEO. “But in the end, it really comes down to having a team you can count on, a team of A-players who are goal-oriented, who you can count on to execute, day in and day out, having an effective strategy that they follow to make sure that we’re successful, and having scorecards that reflect that success on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis.”
But in a corporate machine the size of Philadelphia Insurance Cos. — the privately held subsidiary of Tokio Marine Group has 1,600 employees and just over $2 billion in 2009 gross written premiums — the gears aren’t set in motion unless Maguire and his leadership team have the right people in place. Finding the right people means finding employees who mesh with the company’s culture, in addition to possessing the right skill sets.
“You need to get the right people onto your team, people who share in your core values, who share your passion for the business,” Maguire says. “With that in mind, we have an extensive process we go through to vet the people who are applying for positions in the company. We use an outside service that performs a personality profile, so we do our best to make sure that, fundamentally, the right people get into the company. And once we have the right people, we spend a lot of time developing them; enriching their professional career and helping them maintain a healthy balance with their personal lives. It’s all about getting the right people in the door, then cultivating and developing them so they can achieve.”
