The FINANCIAL — Insurance company GPI Holding was awarded a special prize by Vienna Insurance Group for a project’s implementation last year and was donated EUR 50,000 for the project’s development. The prize was awarded by Martin Simhandl, a member of the Supervisory Board of Vienna Insurance Group, and Barbara Grotschnig, Director of CSR projects.
“What we have seen already is that this is an approach, on the one hand, which involves taking a risk to do something a different way. And this is a way which, at the end of the day, will help everybody on all sides. It is an approach that improves diversity, and diversity in my opinion for an insurance company and insurance group is something very important. If you do that in a way that has a social aspect to it, consequently for GPI Holding, if you for example employ those who do not find jobs so readily, then this is a really good idea and at the end of the day will work out as a winning situation. I think you always have to work towards such things, and if you do that in a socially responsible way, even better,” said Martin Simhandl, member of the Supervisory Board of Vienna Insurance Group.
Vienna Insurance Group has been a member of the Global FTSE4GOOD Index since 2007. It means that the Group belongs to the world’s leading companies whose activities are accompanied by continuous work on human rights and environmental protection. The Group has been awarding special projects through its Special Awards CSR activities since 2012.
“Vienna Insurance Group consists of 50 insurance companies and 25 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. We are the largest insurance group which really makes people and our employees aware of the fact that there are less fortunate individuals in life than we. And that it is important to see what’s going on around us and to help, of course only on a voluntary basis. This is an initiative of social activities within the Group. Every employee can choose what social activity to implement and which social institution to help,” Barbara Groshning mentioned.
“The award given to GPI Holding today is the award for social commitment and we give this award to those companies in the Group that show the most innovative and creative social engagement. EUR 50,000 is given to GPIH and the company can decide what to do with this money.”
GPI Holding has received an honorary award for the first time in the field of women’s empowerment. As a result of the project 600 people were employed in the company. 80% of them are women over 25 years old.
This year, GPI became winner of the Millennium Development Fund Competition and owner of the annual award “Business for Gender Equality” with this project.
“We wanted to expand our sales department and find people who are more likely to fit in with our tasks. With a fairly detailed analysis we realized that we should have been able to give people the opportunity to further their career and give them a chance to get a new position and field of expertise to achieve great success with us. Of course, we have invested in giving them appropriate knowledge through trainings,” said Paata Lomadze, General Director of GPI Holding.
“As you know, the insurance direction in Georgia is very poor and it has a very small history. Our biggest challenge is to explain the importance of insurance services to people in all directions. Today, we and all insurance companies are actually creating a new market, which is the most difficult task, and we need a lot of qualified staff for this.”
“I would like to thank our founders, Vienna Insurance Group, which gave us such a pleasant surprise when we were chosen from other companies in this group and gave us the first prize due to the project implemented in 2017,” Lomadze stated.
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