Wellbeing is the way we think and feel about ourselves, our confidence, and our ability to control things in our life, both at home and at work. We recognise the variation in the personal circumstances of our employees, and the demands and commitments on them in terms of balancing their home and working lives. We also recognise that these demands change during a person’s working life.
To support and promote a sense of physical and mental health among our employees we've established a wellbeing group that includes employee representatives . Its remit is to consider aspects of health and wellbeing associated specifically with physical and mental health, employee resilience and the work environment.
2016 highlights
- Zurich hosted a wellbeing roundtable, where various organisations came together to discuss best practice in integrating employee wellbeing into the business strategy.
- We piloted a series of mental health workshops and resilience training and will extend these further in 2017.
- We provide free fruit in many of our offices.
- We launched our first wellbeing Employee Resource Group (ERG) to employees who have been impacted by cancer.
- As part of our wellbeing week we ran support and awareness sessions with Mind, Bupa and MacMillan Cancer Support, had health monitors in our offices, and ran a six week StepZ Challenge – with employees competing all over the UK.
- Zurich representation on the Mental Health panel at the DiveIn Festival.
Mental and physical wellbeing
Zurich’s Wellbeing programme aims to create an environment where employees are aware of their own and others' health and wellbeing and to take personal responsibility for their own actions.
To support and promote a sense of physical and mental health among our employees we’ve established a Wellbeing Group which includes representatives from our consultation bodies. Its remit is to consider aspects of health and wellbeing associated specifically with physical and mental health, employee resilience and the work environment.
To show our intent to support mental health issues in the workplace we signed the Time to Change organisation pledge in 2014. The Time to Change pledge is a public statement of aspiration that an organisation wants to tackle mental health stigma and discrimination in the workplace. The programme is run by the charities Mind (one of Zurich Cares' national partners) and Rethink Mental Health.
- An employee support facility - ‘Workplace Options’ - a free, confidential and independent phone service that can help with a wide range of issues 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
- A number of flexible working patterns e.g. part-time working, job sharing, compressed hours and home working.
- An industry leading flexible benefits package which includes childcare vouchers, cycle2work, dental care, private healthcare and health screening.
- Support for employees with both long and short term illness, involving occupational health referrals, income protection and rehabilitation.
We recognise the variation in the personal circumstances of our employees and the demands and commitments on them in terms of balancing their home and working lives. We also recognise that these demands change during a person’s working life. We therefore offer employees:
- A number of flexible working patterns e.g. part-time working, job sharing, compressed hours and home working.
- An industry leading flexible benefits package which includes childcare vouchers, cycle2work, dental care, private healthcare and health screening.
- Support for employees with both long and short term illness, involving occupational health referrals, income protection and rehabilitation.
Health and safety
Zurich believes good Health & Safety management is an important element of being a responsible and sustainable company. This contributes to our business performance by reducing injuries and absences due to ill health.
In particular Zurich:
- Protects the health & safety of employees and other persons in Zurich occupied properties and buildings
- Meets health & safety legal and regulatory requirements; striving to exceed them where possible
- Regularly assesses the health & safety risks arising from business activities as the basis for making continuous improvements
- Provides appropriate health & safety training
- Maintains a communication process for health & safety concerns and takes account of views expressed by employees.
As an insurance and risk management provider, we also share our expertise with our commercial customers around health and safety best practice and are in regular dialogue with the health and safety Executive.