MSV Life chief executive David Curmi chooses his words carefully as he talks about the life assurance company’s back office function.

The company’s bulk mail – more than 7,000 letters a month – and extensive document imaging is entrusted to a “remarkable” team of 14 vulnerable people engaged through Empower, the social enterprise.

Keen as the MSV Life ‘family’ is to protect the team, Mr Curmi is quick to point out that only the Archbishop and the Prime Minister have ever seen them at work and that they were once visited by representatives of an inclusion initiative in Ireland who were establishing a similar team.

“We are talking about the team now because it is very opportune for other companies to understand how well this initiative has worked for MSV Life over the past 12 years,” Mr Curmi told The Times Business.

The chief executive offered to talk about the team to encourage firms to emulate MSV Life and support Empower as it works to make the skills of trained vulnerable people available to the local commercial community. Empower board of trustees chairman Joe Gasan told The Sunday Times in an interview last month that the initiative needed “the business community on board” to give it a chance to showcase its employees’ skills and indicate how they can do something positive for firms.

Launched last month, Empower’s objective is to train as many vulnerable people who show a willingness to work as it can. It has 22 people with learning and intellectual disabilities employed on contract: eight carrying out production line support at toy manufacturer Playmobil (Malta) and the back office team at MSV Life.

In 1999, MSV Life originally engaged a team of nine people under agreement with the Eden Foundation, which in 2009 joined forces with Razzett tal-Ħbiberija to form the new foundation for inclusion, Inspire. Empower’s employees are trained under a partnership with Inspire and the Employment and Training Corporation.

The team later grew to 14 people aged 16 to 30. It has now been split into two shifts after their hours were extended in September. Each team is led by a full-time support assistant. MSV Life is charged an hourly rate set by Empower which later pays out the team’s salaries. Mr Curmi is reluctant to divulge the rate, describing it as fair and above board. The team’s remuneration, he added, was MSV Life’s single highest corporate social responsibility expenditure.

“We always sought to engage a full team,” Mr Curmi explained. “We were determined to integrate its members into our wider team and to develop their superb skills. Some functions of the business are dependent on the team now as its contribution adds significant value. We have entrusted it with our filing system – a critical function to the operation – which contains more than 110,000 files. The team members have remarkable sequencing and numeracy skills and the system is complex. Their document-imaging sive.”

Mr Curmi admitted that engaging a team of vulnerable people translated into considerable responsibility for management. At the outset, many displayed challenges like poor social skills which had improved significantly over the years. He has, on occasion, personally sat with one or two for a conversation about behaviour which later let to greater commitment.

He explained how it was imperative not only to understand the challenges the team members personally faced but also to respect their exacting standards. Team members prefer to locate documents themselves rather than allow other members of staff to handle files. They display tremendous ownership of their projects and tasks, and become impatient if delays were necessary.

Mr Curmi said he was personally against extending their hours before the matter was discussed with them, their parents and Inspire, which also monitors their progress.

Now, former team members have gone on to greater things. One left to join another firm full-time. Another has been employed within MSV Life’s underwriting unit following further training.

“Their perfectionist work ethic and good manners are admirable,” Mr Curmi added. “They inject so much pride into their tasks that they set an example to the rest of the team. The initiative has done the entire MSV Life team a great deal of good in terms of inclusion and openness. And the members of the back office team smile a lot, which is wonderful.”