First Line Manager: Underwriter: SLS: Sanlam Risk & Savings: Bellville

at  Sanlam

WHO ARE WE?

Sanlam Life and Savings (SLS) is focused on serving our retail and corporate clients in South Africa and further developing our strategic advantages in the South African market. Sanlam Life and Savings consists of three clusters - Sanlam Corporate, Sanlam Retail Mass and Sanlam Retail Affluent. The Sanlam Life and Savings Office provides strategic direction, coordination and support to the three clusters, as well as performing governance oversight that includes assurance provided by second line of defense functions in SLS, to enable us to meet our business objectives.
Purpose of the role
The role of the First Line Manager is to manage, coach and develop the Underwriting/Underwriting-related team to enable them to effectively execute on the role responsibilities and to achieve the desired outputs and behaviours aligned with the SRS strategic objectives. The multi-focus team consists of Underwriters of various experience levels, as well as Administrators. You will be part of a dynamic management team that consists of other First Line Managers, an Operations Manager and Chief Underwriter.

QUALIFICATION:

• Relevant tertiary qualification.
• Relevant Management or Leadership development programmes will be an advantage.

EXPERIENCE:

• 2-3 years managing a production team and/or specialist in the Banking/Insurance industry.
• Experience in a New Business environment.
• Experience in people management, development and/or coaching/mentoring.
• Performance Management experience.
• Exposure to extracting and interpretation of data from Management Information Systems will be an advantage.

KNOWLEDGE:

• Knowledge of Financial or Risk products.

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

• Communicate business requirements clearly and accurately to the team.
• Effective communication to other role-players to ensure accurate and efficient processing of transactions requested by the client.
• Query handling with accuracy, urgency and swift conclusion.
• People and performance management within a productivity, quality and customer service orientated driven environment.
• Identify process shortcomings and discrepancies and resolve and communicate with relevant stakeholders.
• Ensure effective management of Service Level Agreements between New Business and other stakeholders, by means of effective capacity planning and absenteeism management.
• Making effective use of MIS to manage the operational effectiveness of the department.
• Ad hoc, daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly planning of operational activities of the team.
• Identify training and development needs via trend analysis and with input of Training & Development team.
• Effectively manage the budget of the department.
• Reporting based on:
• The performance of the team
• Trends identified with possible solutions
• Strategic action plans:
• Identifying action plans along with the rest of the Management team for a specific year (up to 3 years), based on historic performance, input from teams and possible enhancements to remain relevant.
• Conduct regular individual and team meetings to maintain effective communication and a high focus on relationship building.
• Role-model, drive, embed and vest SRS Values and Culture within the business.
• In collaboration with the Chief Underwriter, ensure that the development plan of the team is reviewed monthly, and progress communicated to team members. Ensuring team members remain fully informed about their progress.
• Building relationships with brokers and advisors to ensure adoption of operational processes and client centric outcomes.