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"As we pursued our ambition of becoming a great place to grow, we asked a simple question: ‘Who are our stewards, really?’" Lois Vi O. Dalida, Chief People and Culture Officer, reflects. Drawing on employee data and analytics, the insurer identified four distinct "steward personas" – each offering insights into what drives employee engagement.
Employee engagement is not necessarily about offering more programmes, but understanding what people value and what motivates them. For EastWest Ageas Insurance, this meant looking beyond workforce data such as demographics, attendance and training participation to uncover what its employees needed to thrive. The insight led to four distinct “steward personas” and shaped its employee value proposition (EVP), “live the purple life: where purpose fuels people.”
Turning a large volume of employee data into meaningful insights was a key challenge. By working with its data and analytics team and using clustering techniques, EastWest Ageas Insurance identified patterns in employees’ motivations, preferences and behaviours. This helped the organisation move away from assumptions based on age or job level and towards engagement initiatives grounded in what matters to its people.
This earned EastWest Ageas Insurance the silver award for ‘Excellence in Workplace Culture’ at the HR Excellence Awards 2026, Philippines, alongside a gold for ‘Young HR Talent of the Year’ for Arnold Christian C. Policarpio.
In this interview, Lois Vi O. Dalida, Chief People and Culture Officer discusses how the organisation is using insights to better understand its people, and why combining analytics with empathy will be essential to creating workplaces where employees can experience purpose, growth, wellbeing and belonging.
Read the full interview below.
Q What was the 'lightbulb moment' behind your HR initiative?
Our lightbulb moment came when we realised that improving engagement was not about creating more programmes, but about understanding our people more deeply. We had access to demographics, leave utilisation, training participation, attendance records, and engagement survey results, but those data points only told us what employees were doing, not what motivated them or what they truly valued.
As we pursued our ambition of becoming a great place to grow, we asked a simple question: “Who are our stewards, really?” That question led us to combine employee preference surveys with data analytics and uncover four distinct steward personas.
The insight changed our approach from one-size-fits-all engagement to personalised experiences built around what different groups of employees need to thrive. It ultimately became the foundation of our EVP, “live the purple life: where purpose fuels people.”
Q Innovation rarely comes without obstacles. What was the biggest challenge your team faced along the way, and how did you overcome it?
The biggest challenge was making sense of a vast amount of employee data. We had engagement survey results, demographics, attendance records, activity reports, and other HR metrics, but data alone does not automatically generate insight. In fact, there was a risk of becoming overwhelmed by information without knowing what actions to take.
To overcome this, we partnered closely with our data and analytics team and moved beyond traditional reporting. Using clustering techniques, we identified natural patterns in employee motivations, preferences, and behaviours.
The result was the creation of four steward personas that helped us translate complex data into practical actions. Instead of relying on assumptions about generations or job levels, we could design initiatives based on what genuinely matters to our employees. The biggest lesson was that data becomes powerful only when it helps people feel seen, understood, and valued.
Q How has this initiative influenced your people and organisation - and what conversation do you hope it sparks across the HR community?
The most meaningful impact is that it has changed how we make people decisions. Today, our engagement activities, communication approaches, learning programmes, and recognition initiatives are increasingly shaped by a deeper understanding of what motivates our employees.
The initiative also contributed to a significant milestone for our organisation. We set an ambitious target of achieving 85% engagement by 2027, and we are proud to have already reached that level. While many factors contributed to that success, personalised engagement helped ensure that employees felt more connected to our culture, purpose, and overall experience.
For the HR community, I hope this sparks a conversation about moving beyond broad engagement strategies.
The future of engagement lies in understanding employees as individuals. The goal is not simply to improve survey scores, but to create workplaces where people can genuinely experience purpose, growth, well-being, and belonging.
Q What's next - how are you planning to build on your progress and keep the momentum going?
Reaching 85% engagement is a milestone, but it is not the finish line. In many ways, it raises the bar for what comes next.
Our focus now is sustaining and deepening the employee experience by embedding our personas and EVP throughout the entire employee lifecycle, from attraction and onboarding to development, engagement, and retention.
We also recognise that employee expectations continue to evolve. That is why we will continue refining our personas, gathering feedback, and using data to understand emerging needs and preferences. Personalisation is not a one-time project; it is an ongoing commitment.
Most importantly, we are shifting our attention from the engagement score itself to the employee experience behind the score. Our goal is to ensure that every steward can genuinely live the purple life, regardless of role, tenure, or background.
Q As the HR landscape continues to evolve, what do you believe will be the next big opportunity for HR leaders, and how is your organisation preparing for it?
I believe the next big opportunity for HR leaders is creating highly personalised employee experiences at scale through the thoughtful use of data, analytics, and AI. Organisations have become good at collecting workforce data; the real opportunity is using it to understand people more deeply and respond to their unique needs.
Employees increasingly expect the same level of personalisation at work that they experience as consumers. They want organisations to understand their aspirations, preferred ways of working, development goals, and sources of motivation.
At EastWest Ageas, we began preparing for this future by developing our steward personas and building a data-informed engagement strategy grounded in our EVP, “live the purple life: where purpose fuels people.”
The future of HR will belong to organisations that can combine analytics with empathy. Technology can help us identify patterns, but it is our responsibility as HR leaders to ensure those insights translate into meaningful human experiences that help people and businesses grow together.
Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets section!
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