The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has long recognised that great health and wellbeing is a core enabler of employee engagement and organisational performance. Promoting wellbeing by taking a proactive approach to benefits that help prevent stress and create a positive working environment is therefore a priority for us. As the CIPD asserts, it enables employees and organisations to thrive.
It is for this reason that we have made significant improvements to our health and wellbeing benefits for UK employees. Highlights include appointing Bupa Healthcare Insurance to provide private healthcare for UK staff, a flexible vision and dental plan through Unum and a new partnership with YuLife that offers tangible rewards for healthy activities.
Bupa’s appointment has enabled us to launch the Invesco UK Medical Scheme, which provides comprehensive medical cover and gives employees access to Bupa’s specialist treatment, a digital GP, a new digital wellbeing app and a 24-hour nurse helpline. It means our 1,200 UK employees have private healthcare insurance that offers access to a strong hospital network, high service levels and extensive coverage for both them and their loved ones.
In addition to this, our new vision and dental plans with Unum provide a core, employer-funded level of coverage for all staff, with options to increase coverage with a flexible range of options on an individual basis. And we have extended our wellbeing provision yet further by partnering with YuLife, an insurance organisation focused around increasing engagement to improve wellbeing outcomes.
What this partnership means in practice is that all employees have access to the YuLife app, where they can access an all-in-one platform for financial, physical and mental wellbeing, a great resource for flexibly managing their health. The app has been well received and we have seen high levels of engagement from our UK employees in the first month since launch.
We see all of these benefits as critical. Fostering employee wellbeing is good for our people and, as a result, our clients and Invesco overall. It is why we have long invested in wellbeing, whether through our employee assistance programme, which including access to sleep therapists, nutritionists, counsellors, exercise coaches and physiotherapists, or our onsite facilities at our Henley headquarters, where our campus has a gym, a GP and everything needed to encourage and support running, walking and cycling to work.
Because wellbeing matters, it is at the heart of our business priorities. A successful business is not possible without a happy, healthy workforce. And key to that is a health and wellbeing programme which is flexible to employees’ needs, both at work and in their personal lives.
Tony Ark is head of benefits EMEA at Invesco