Insurer Zurich UK uses a number of financial education measures to support its 4,500 employees, and has promoted their use during the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic to help employees better understand their financial situations and options available to them.
Zurich began working with Lifeworks in October 2019 in order to give employees access to information around budgeting, investments, retirement planning and other financial concerns. Since March 2020, Zurich has highlighted the scheme to employees and how, through its webinars and videos, they can find out more information on pensions and debt management to ensure that they are paying the right amount and how their retirement savings work, for example.
Steve Collinson, HR director at Zurich UK, says: "We are able to now help out employees in financial difficulty in a number of ways, extending our support throughout the Coronavirus pandemic."
Zurich UK's employees also have access to financial education support, provided by Nudge Global. This provides employees with personalised, 100% product free financial education resources through timely prompts, and money management tools. The scheme also helps employees understand everything about their pension contributions and can choose to increase or decrease them based on their financial situation through personal online consultations. Employees at Zurich UK are automatically enrolled into a defined contribution pension scheme with the business paying 12%, and the employee paying a minimum of 0%, but they can choose to increase this.
The employer also offers emergency fund support for employees in need, which it has been promoting since the pandemic began. "We are able to help employees in financial difficulty in a number of ways," explains Collinson. "In a very practical sense, we have an emergency loan policy which can provide up to £750 emergency funding within 72 hours of a request.
"For employees who have been directly impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic, they have the right counselling and pensions support to ensure that they are well informed enough to make the right decision to contribution levels if they choose to."
