A love of insurance
VGZ is a leading cooperative insurer with a strong market position and a clear ambition: to ensure health care in the Netherlands remains affordable by working with health providers to deliver sensible care.
But what exactly is ‘sensible care’, and how do you make this idea concrete and tangible for employees? PROOF gladly signed up for the challenge.
Sensibly busy
Sensible care is better patient care at lower cost, such as involving patients more closely in the diagnostic process and treatment decisions. It also means helping people to make conscious choices about the kinds of care they want, care that reflects how they live their lives. It’s about appropriate care, provided at the right moment, without duplication or waste.
From discussions with directors, managers and employees, it becomes apparent that the people who work at VGZ contribute to these ideals every day, but that they don’t always realise it. This insight provides the spark for an overarching communication concept: ‘Samen zijn we zinnig bezig’ (Together we’re sensibly busy).
The concept adds a warm element to the work of the organisation. It proudly declares that, every day, VGZ staff make sensible contributions to people’s lives by serving clients personally and offering smart solutions.
The top sets the example
An important aspect of the concept is to thank employees for what they do. This begins at the top of the organisation, with directors seeking out people with exceptional stories that deserve to be put in the spotlight. The idea is for the directors to thank them and share their stories with the rest of the organisation in words and film, online, with professional portrait photographs.
Following a clear briefing, the directors get to work. In less than two months, they come up with some 50 varied stories – examples that show how sensibly VGZ employees and teams already work together are. Examples of people, teams and departments that do that bit extra in their work. People who are not only doing the right things, but above all doing sensible things.
Valentine’s Day
The online platform that will showcase these stories launches on Valentine’s Day with a heart-warming kick-off film in which we see that within VGZ it is seen as normal to help others personally – at home, on the way to work – but that this is actually pretty special.
The launch is supported by inspiring offline activities. As they arrive at work, employees are presented with flowers and a note of thanks for their contribution to sensible care. The note includes an invite to watch the film and check out the platform to learn how sensibly we work together.
Every VGZ employee is given a thank you note and a flower that they and their colleagues can use to create a departmental bouquet.
Just a start
This is only the beginning. With the commitment of the directors assured, managers and team leaders get involved in gathering and sharing stories. Being ‘sensibly busy’ appears on the agenda during departmental meetings. And new, sensible stories continue to appear on the online platform.
Steadily, the recognition grows that being sensibly busy is part of the VGZ culture. And so the theme ‘Samen zijn we zinnig bezig’, becomes meaningful to employees.
From a new pay-off to a culture book
With the campaign ‘Our heartbeat’, VGZ launched a new pay-off in line with the internal branding concept ‘Heart for sensible care’ at the end of 2017. In a next stage, VGZ successfully challenged its employees to start searching for ‘sensible ideas’ that help doing things easier, faster, better for the client and with less costs – under the slogan ‘The most sensible idea’ (‘Zinnigste Idee’). This resulted in 64 ideas being submitted and 6 ideas being implemented, saving a total of 3 million euros for the company.
To thank employees for their ongoing contribution and to celebrate the milestones reached, we helped VGZ organise a fun event for all employees in 2019. VGZ also decided to record its employees’ ‘sensible’ efforts and experiences in a fun-to-read book brimming with meaningful stories, entitled ‘Our heart for sensible care’, as another way to celebrate and showcase employees’ passion for sensible care and help them share this with the outside world.
