Van Wyk chases her dream
Movers and shakers
Veronique Van Wyk began her career at Sanlam in 2016. She was employed as a client service adviser and was promoted to being the trainer at client services in 2018. In 2021, she was promoted to senior learning and development officer for the policy administration department. This meant she was not only a trainer but was also responsible for meeting all the incoming staff of Sanlam in the policy administration department and being the first person to know everyone by their name and their personality. Van Wyk always wanted to lead a team. In December 2022, she was promoted to a "very unfamiliar sector" within Sanlam, which she says entails tremendous challenges on a daily basis as a supervisor of the new business, underwriting and claims departments.
"My job is all about leading a diverse team and ensuring that we reach our sales targets. We take responsibility for the issuing of all new policies, ensuring that all compliance guidelines are followed when accepting new business, the underwriting of new applications, alterations on existing policies, the facilitation of medical tests and the payment of all funeral, life cover and rider benefit claims," she said.
Challenges and accomplishments
Throughout her journey at Sanlam, Van Wyk’s greatest challenge was to train herself on all the systems and various processes at the company. At the time, formal training was not possible, so she had to learn through trial and error, which was difficult due to her perfectionistic nature.
"As much as it challenged me, it also contributed to building good relations because I depended on my team a lot for assistance and guidance on all the new things that I needed to know," she said.
Her current challenge is the mental transition from being a specialist and a sole operator with no team for four years to managing a team of 22 individuals performing eight different functions.
She says it is very challenging to work with 22 diverse individuals, each with their own personality and different functions. "I am grateful for my team; they have made this challenge that I am facing much easier with their work ethic and determination," she said.
Try something new
Van Wyk is motivated and inspired when she tries out new things and challenges herself to do something uncomfortable every day. This she does to avoid falling into a comfort zone because life has a lot of twists and turns and we cannot afford to stagnate.
Other inspirations are her parents, husband and children. "They make me tick and give me reason to push forward and never give up," she said.
Looking ahead in her career, Van Wyk wants to reach a place where she can comfortably say she has mastered all the processes within her department. Her long-term goal is to be part of the "big dogs" one day as a manager or general manager at Sanlam.