Training

In 2023, 100% of AXA Group employees were trained at least once. By constantly up-skilling and re-skilling, AXA is helping its employees navigate the potential pitfalls that come with the rapidly changing world of work. AXA is providing all workers – from the top level of executives down to junior recruits - with online and on-site opportunities to develop their skills, adapt to changing times, and find the jobs that best suit them within AXA. 

In November 2023, employees all over the world were invited to participate to the first edition of the AXA Week for Growth, an initiative designed to empower them; foster personal and professional growth; and equip them with the skills needed to thrive in the future. Among the many global and local initiatives, employees could:

• exchange with leaders and experts on the future of insurance or personal development;
• discover AXA’s diverse expertise and markets;
• discover employee testimonies, illustrating diverse types of career journeys at AXA;
• attend learning sessions;
• learn about open positions and network across professional families;
• engage in career conversations;
• attend a cross-entity career fair organized by 8 entities in France (400 visitors).

All employees at AXA can access to the large library of courses on LinkedIn Learning according to their needs (approximately 68,000 have activated their account). On top of that, AXA has proposed dedicated programs to support key areas of transformation: climate change, tech, data, and AI.

AXA Climate Academy

The AXA Climate Academy has increased climate literacy and an understanding of the overall impacts of climate change among AXA employees, since its inception in 2021. By the end of 2023, 96% of employees were climate certified.

Tech, Data & AI Academy

To address AI, AXA launched a new program Data & AI for Leaders together with the world-class business school HEC. Business leaders across the world can strengthen their understanding of the topic through three weeks of online learning and a two days bootcamp. Then they work in cross-entity teams to apply their knowledge to a business scenario – eventually pitching their ideas to a jury made up of representatives from several AXA functions.

To support the transformation artificial intelligence technology brings, AXA has developed its own ChatGPT within a secure and protected environment. Secure GPT enables every employee to take advantage of Generative AI capacity for their daily tasks without taking any cyber risks. An associated learning module, GenAI for all, was designed and rolled out to upskill all employees and ensure they can prompt correctly and use the new tool efficiently.

AXA Managers Academy

2022 saw the launch of the AXA Managers Academy, set up to help AXA’s managers reinforce their skillset in the new world of work. 

Every year, new learning journeys will be introduced, with 2022’s focusing on Smart Working. It embeds AXA’s expectations of how managers should lead their teams. These new skills empower managers to continue leading, coaching, and supporting their team adjusting to different individuals and contexts. So far, the Managers Academy has trained almost 4,000 managers across 12 entities in seven languages.  

The first learning journey of AXA Managers Academy – delivered in 2022 – was on Managing teams in Smart Working. The courses are delivered both via live events and self-learning sessions. Participants also have opportunities to learn from each other’s experiences. AXA entities can tailor modules, localizing them to better suit their needs.

In 2023 and 2024 the focus has been  on ‘Leading for Growth’:

• Energizing the team around AXA’s purpose, values & strategy; 
• Delivering results by setting a clear vision and goals for team; driving collaboration within and across teams; creating trust and accountability;
•  Adopting a manager to coach mindset; fostering team dynamics; supporting skills development and mobility; 
• Caring for your team; managing well-being and resilience. 

Reinforcing leaders capabilities 

2023 marked a significant milestone for AXA with the roll out of its Leadership Academy and the massive deployment of Lead the Way learning journey. This tailored executive development program was specifically crafted for the Global Leadership Network (GLN), covering AXA's top 250 executives. The overwhelmingly positive feedback received from leaders, covering 90% of the target population throughout 2022 and 2023.

The program's first phase successfully achieved several key objectives:

• Understand your impact as a leader and role model in accelerating AXA’s cultural transformation and Smart Working implementation.
• Create a shared and clear understanding of (the mindsets behind) our commitments.
• Explore and receive extensive feedback on your functioning as a culture change agent and Smart Working role model (strengths, challenges, motivations, etc.).
• Define the legacy you want to leave behind as a leader/role model of our cultural transformation.

Notably, the program's influence extended beyond individual executives to their respective teams and entities, as evidenced by the eagerness of GLNs to apply their learnings in their respective spheres. This ripple effect inspired the development of Lead Together, a customizable ExCom/Team Effectiveness offsite format aimed at promoting enterprise leadership and cross-functional collaboration.

Following a successful pilot at AXA Spain in May, Lead Together has already benefitted 18 teams across the Group, with more slated to experience it throughout 2024.

Looking ahead, in alignment with AXA's strategic plan, the organization remains committed to developing and implementing compelling programs to enhance leadership capabilities.

The next generation of leaders 

For the past few years, AXA has operated global sponsorship programs to enable talented individuals, the majority of them women, to be supported in their development to take on GLN-level roles. The AXA Evolve program provides 12 months of assessments, sponsorship, development, and feedback, and is designed to help executives reach more senior positions. In 2022, a cohort of 20 Top 2000 executives completed their run with Evolve. With 60% female participants, Evolve is a key enabler in supporting the increase of the proportion of women at the executive level. Similar programs are run every year across our major operating companies. 

On top of this program, all Management Committee members and other members of the Partners Group took part in AXA’s Thrive initiative to show their commitment to the development and advancement of women at AXA. This saw them mentoring talented women from across AXA to coincide with International Women’s Day. The 44 mentees, who showed outstanding performance and the potential to advance, reported that they found the experience empowering and inspiring. 

This Group initiative inspired entities around the world to set up more mentoring opportunities of their own. 20 entities in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa who responded to AXA’s survey reported that over 230 employees were mentored on or around International Women’s Day. Thrive will continue in 2023, with even higher numbers of talents involved. 

Talent development

Talent development and performance

Since 2005, AXA performs the Organization and Talent Review (OTR), a systematic review of the organization structure required by its current business and its future needs. It also helps to review the team dynamics, the talent depth and the talent flow. Moreover, it provides a picture of the organization challenges and of the key positions; it helps identify the potential of the key people considering their performance and commitment to AXA Mindset; it helps build and share a robust and solid talent pipeline to ensure the right staffing around the globe; and to discuss career paths, development plans and prepare the next move, including international mobility, for key people. AXA also uses the process to review the organization and its people from the perspective of its new global business lines and their respective areas of expertise. AXA further calibrated the identification and assessment of talents through talent sharing sessions, at which cross-entity succession plans for selected key positions are shared among the HR community.

A common performance management approach is established and is mature within the company worldwide. There is a clear process on objective setting, development planning, follow-up and appraisal covering all employees in all AXA entities and conducted at least once a year. This ensures a robust performance-based remuneration policy, a thorough evaluation of skills and capability needs, and a focus on AXA’s culture on people development. AXA’s performance management approach is evolving and is made up of the following components:

The mindset: The performance management mindset is designed to enhance individual development and career ownership. Performance management processes are made more globally consistent, simple, flexible and business relevant.

The process: Performance at AXA is measured based on both individual objectives as well as how they achieve those objectives - framed by our AXA Values. Employees are encouraged to seek multidimensional feedback throughout the year. An annual global timeline is in place to align the processes across AXA entities, whilst still allowing some flexibility based on local business requirements.

At the start of the year, business and development goals are set by the employee and the manager. Business goals should be defined in a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely) way. Goal cascading is encouraged to reinforce strategic alignment and collective impact. Global and company goals are set and communicated to employees. Individual goals are then set individually for each employee: manager and employee discuss and establish individual goals. Employees are encouraged to be proactive in this discussion, leveraging team goals and enhancing their career ownership. Development goals are also discussed and set based on individuals career ambitions and areas for development.

Throughout the year, check-ins become opportunities for continuous feedback exchange between employee and manager. Check-ins are frequent catch-ups (no ratings are given) for which the conversations are tracked in a simple way and can take place in an informal setting. A minimum of two check-ins a year are recommended.

At the end of the year, employees can seek multidimensional feedback from peers and matrix managers to provide greater objectivity in the year-end discussion with the manager. The multidimensional feedback is optional and available to all levels of the organization.

All these processes are supported in an IT platform.

Internal mobility 

AXA focuses on increasing growth and development opportunities for its people enabling dynamic career management supported by a simple, common skills-based approach to enhance internal mobility. 

AXA is committed to developing and retaining its diverse talents, offering its employees stimulating challenges and continuous growth opportunities, to build the career they want and realize their full potential.   An internal jobs marketplace empowers employees to manage their career trajectories by allowing them to outline a pathway for their own career aspirations.

The aim of internal mobility is to make business needs immediately visible through a global Group-wide posting of available jobs; detect internal skills through an enlarged hiring process; share knowledge, expertise and practices through facilitating transfers. In doing so, AXA wants to enhance internal recruitment and provide career opportunities across entities, improve the visibility of international offers and allow fuller access to a culture of Inclusion and Empowerment through direct exposure to new environments.