AXA Mulling To Dispose Malaysia Operation

Years of poor Leadership, mismanagement and gross abuse on its agency members - AXA SA and Affin Bank Bhd are reportedly mulling the sale of their general and life insurance businesses in Malaysia. 

The parties are looking to sell AXA Affin General Insurance Bhd for US$500mil and AXA Affin Life Insurance Bhd for US$150mil.Both financial institutions are in the midst of engaging with advisers for the transaction. 

Given that the developing deal is at a preliminary stage, it is likely that AXA and Affin could maintain their holdings in the general and life insurance businesses. 

AXA Affin General Insurance is 49.99% owned by AXA, with the remaining being owned by Affin. On the other hand, Affin is the majority shareholder of AXA Affin Life Insurance with a 51% equity.

According to AXA Affin General Insurance’s annual report 2018, it posted a net income of RM100mil and RM1.44bil in gross earned premiums in 2018. Meanwhile, AXA Affin Life Insurance registered a lower loss of RM8.1mil in 2018, as compared to a loss of RM17.7mil in the previous year. AXA Affin Life Insurance achieved gross premiums of RM463.4mil in 2018.

AXA Potential Backlash From Bullying

A bully victim who suffered permanent ear damage has been awarded RM616,634.20 by the Kuala Terengganu High Court. The boy, now aged 17, had sued five of his bullies who are now 21 years old, over an incident at Sekolah Menengah Sains Sultan Mahmud four years ago.

He also named the school's senior assistant for students' affairs, then principal, the Education Ministry director-general and the Malaysian government as defendants.

High Court judge Zainal Azman, in his judgment, found that the school was negligent in allowing the bullying to happen in the prefect's dormitory, 

"The school is seen to be negligent for not conducting patrols. It happened in the prefect's dormitory, not by the drain or by the sidewalk. The warden's roster was nicely arranged but it is useless if the duty is not carried out. It is better to resign and be an ordinary teacher. The sixth (senior assistant) and the seventh defendant (principal) were negligent in their duties to ensure the welfare of the school, particularly the safety of students," he said.

In the April 26, 2015 incident, the victim was kicked and slapped by then Form Five students. As a result, the boy, then in Form 2, had his eardrum rupture. He can no longer engage in water-based activities following the injury.

The report said the boy, who scored 5As in his UPSR examination in 2013, also suffered depression from the bullying and eventually transferred to another school in July 2015.

The boy's mother Rusaila Abdullah, 43, said she is thankful for the court's decision.

"We are not after money but justice for our son who until today is still traumatised and have lost his hearing due to the bullying," he said.

AXA Sadist Style Punishment

A company in China shocked the internet by giving cruel punishments to employees who didn’t meet their quota. While most of us would get constructive criticisms for not hitting our quota, this company decided to take the extreme route by making their employees eat live mudfish as punishment.

The construction company which is located Guizhou province also made their employees drink chicken blood after eating the live mudfish. In the viral video, a man was seen giving out live mudfish from a bucket to their workers and after they ate the fish, they drank chicken blood to wash it down.

Nevertheless, the company owner feels that there’s nothing wrong with the punishment and claimed that the staff – who were the shop owners – participated willingly.

7 Months Ago - Having said that, this isn’t the first time a Chinese company has given their underperforming employees an outrageous punishment. Seven months ago, another company forced its employees to crawl on the road for not fulfilling their sales target. 

Every employee’s biggest fear in the workplace would probably be failing to meet deadlines, or disappointing their supervisors. To make matters worse, bosses are notorious for handing out harsh punishments as they do not want to repeatedly deal with employees’ mistakes.

Six employees were seen crawling shamefully on all fours last Monday (Jan 14th). They had to crawl along the road as a punishment because they did not meet their year-end sales target. The incident took place along the streets of Shandong, China and the employees were led by a man carrying the company’s flag. Nearby witnesses were left speechless at the sight of the scene.

Axa Labeling Agency Force

About 200 factory workers at a solar panel manufacturing plant staged a peaceful protest outside the factory gates today after a video clip of a production manager labeling operators as “rubbish” surfaced.

The factory workers started gathering in front of Jinko Solar in Prai at about 8.30am this morning. The group shouted out demands for an apology from the production manager and refused to disperse until he apologized.

The video clip, uploaded on Facebook and spread online, has since been deleted. After about an hour, the manager came out to meet with a representative of the workers and publicly apologized. The workers also met with the factory’s management and agreed to disperse with the conditions that the manager publicly apologized, a review of their salaries and allowances and flexible working hours.

It is learnt that some of the factory workers are now in the process of lodging police reports on the incident.

At axa affin Life Insurance Berhad - the chief agency officer labelled agency force as - Jamban, Traitor, Pengkhianat, Penderhaka, Kurang Ajar, Keling Kia, Keling Poh etc and he was well rewarded by the Directors & Shareholders. 

AXA Psychopath Rewarded For Bullying Staffs/Agents

The Chief psychopath Asshole Officer (CAO) of axa affin life insurance berhad easily justify upsetting certain staffs/agents by telling themselves that he is only pushing them to be their best.  He thinks that staff/agent who breaks down (as a result of his bullying) is not strong enough to work in the life insurance profession. 

Bullying at axa affin life insurance berhad takes many forms, from physical assault, verbal abuse and social exclusion to cyber bullying. The CAO officer carried out bullying repeatedly over time, and with an intent to hurt an individual person. The number of bullying is distorted as bullying is not always reported, out of fear of retaliation by the CAO. 

BULLIES PICK ON THOSE WITH LOW SELF-ESTEEM - Bullies have traditionally been viewed as having low IQ and being socially inept – lacking in social cognition. We now know that this often isn’t the case, but it may contribute to people failing to recognise themselves as bullies. Unfortunately - bullies actually score high in their social information processing abilities, as it takes a certain amount of skill to recognise who to target and how. 

What axa CAO does is to seek out staff/agent with low self-esteem (or low production) to pick on. In doing so, he maintains his justification to bully, his standing and increase his confidence, which in turn raises his own self-esteem to unrealistically high levels.

CAO lacks empathy – a sense of understanding for how those affected might feel when he bully. He hurts staff/agent in the brief moment he is attacking them, but afterwards tell himself that it wasn’t a big deal, that the victim somehow deserved it or that it was a one off.

Bullying is especially likely to take place in axa affin life insurance berhad due to stressful workplaces with poor leadership and a culture that rewards aggressive, competitive behaviour. Bullying can trigger an array of mental health issues including depression, burnout, increased absenteeism, low self-confidence and stress.

Axa affin life insurance berhad is breaking the law for not providing a safe place (free of bullying) to work. On the contrary - axa rewards this chief asshole for bullying staffs/agents. Hundreds of staffs/agents resigned and thousands more bolted to join competitors. This group of former staff/agent returns to fight, compete and sabotage axa affin.

AXA Jamban Motivation For Agents

Most of us are aware of the bullying that takes place in schools and universities. People have spoken out about it, articles have been written, experts have given their opinions and there are even organisations that tackle childhood and teenage bullying.

However, it wasn’t until quite recently (and in concurrence with the spate of reports of sexual harassment) that the whole issue of bullying and harassment at the workplace was highlighted in AXA Affin Life Insurance berhad.

Of course, this is a common problem that has been occurring in many companies and industries for many years. In fact, work-related stress is one of the most common and pervasive forms of stress, and in many instances, workplace bullying and a toxic working environment have much to do with it.

So, why has this pervasive problem not been dealt with? Why haven’t better policies been put in place? One reason is denial, which is the usual manner this “epidemic” is dealt with.

AXA Affin Life Insurance Berhad and perpetrators pretend that the problem does not exist, feign ignorance and brush things under the carpet. And so the cycle continues and victims (Staffs/Agents) continue to suffer in silence.

Bullying in schools has received the attention it rightly deserves, so we should now start highlighting how adults are bullied at their workplace.

A few pertinent questions arise when discussing this topic:

• What kind of behaviour constitutes workplace bullying?

• Why do victims feel like they have no recourse?

• Are there laws to protect victims?

Recognise The Signs - Let’s begin with some examples of workplace bullying. At times, it may be quite obvious, like being yelled at or called derogatory names. Verbal threats and intimidation are also stark examples of bullying. However, such behaviour is quite rare and it is actually the more subtle forms of bullying that are more common and the cause of significant distress.

Listed below are some common forms of workplace bullying, which I am sure many of us have been victim to at some point in our careers:

• Made to carry out meaningless tasks

• Being the subject of rumours or gossip

• Given unrealistic deadlines that are sure to end in failure

• Given excessive amounts of work

• Given too little work, and hence, made to feel useless

• Being socially isolated

• Constantly being criticised and have your opinions or ideas belittled

• Have information deliberately withheld from you

• Forced to attend an ad hoc meeting or given work assignments just as you are about to leave the office

• Deliberately being denied applications for training, leave or promotion

• Repeatedly being sent messages or emails on weekends and after office hours

• Being the recipient of offensive, sexist or racist jokes or innuendos

• Constantly being pitched against other people

• Having your privacy invaded and your work station or personal items tampered with

• Sabotaging of your work

These are some examples of bullying behaviours that are commonplace.

Most of the time, the victim is a subordinate and bosses are by far the most likely to be the perpetrator.

Billion-dollar Impact - When my patients relate their experiences to me, they are often on the verge of throwing in the towel and are tethering on the brink of total burnout. Not uncommonly, patients arrive at my clinic with full-blown depression and/or anxiety. The impact on their quality of life is immense. However, the damage is not limited to the victims of bullying alone.

Corporations, business owners and employers should take note: Workplace bullying has financial impacts that will hit your business.

It will result in reduced productivity (and therefore, profit), increased compensation and medical claims, as well as lower employee morale, which eventually leads to high employee turnover, not to mention the negative impact to the company’s reputation.

One Australian report showed that workplace bullying costs the Australian economy up to AUD36bil (RM104bil) each year. Clearly, this is something we cannot ignore any longer.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age of worker’s rights, occupational health and safety codes, and human resource policies, many employees still feel like they have no recourse.

“The company will get away with it” seems to be the usual perception.

Most of my clients feel that the human resources department is inherently going to protect the perpetrator who holds a more senior position in the organisation.

Change From Top Down - Most of the time, when they cannot take it anymore, victims of bullying resign, with serious repercussions to their careers, finances and personal well-being. Herein lies the problem: bullying per se is not a criminal offence.

Physical assault and sexual harassment or assault can be quickly addressed by making a police report and allowing the law to take its course. But bullying lies in a very grey area and legislation to make bullying an offence is years away.

To curb this menace, the onus lies with progressive organisations taking the lead to put in place formal policies to prevent and deal with cases of workplace bullying and harassment.

These policies must protect the victim and ensure that reports are kept confidential and will not adversely affect their promotions and career advancement.

How To Get Help - So, if you feel that you have been subject to bullying and harassment at your workplace, what can you do to get help? If you feel that discussions with the human resources department or senior management are futile, then do consider seeking help from the Industrial Relations Department. 

Also, do not hesitate to visit your family doctor or a mental health expert to get an assessment on the state of your physical and psychological health. It’s extremely common for people who are being victimised by bullying to suffer physical and psychological effects.

Some common complaints are sleep disturbances, low mood and anxiety, loss of appetite and weight, various musculoskeletal problems, migraine and high blood pressure, to name a few.

It is time to tackle this problem head on. So speak up about it, seek help from experts and understand your rights as an employee.

You don’t have to suffer in silence any longer.