Occupational Health, Well-being and Safety at Swiss Re

Swiss Re is committed to taking care of the health, wellbeing, and safety of its employees and to providing a positive and supportive working environment conducive to all aspects of good health.

Swiss Re recognises its duty of care to its employees, and its obligation to provide a safe and healthy working environment that cultivates good mental and physical health. With this statement and other guidance ¹, Swiss Re intends to achieve an effective and consistent approach to the management of wellbeing, health, safety, and welfare of employees. As with all Swiss Re policies, it will be reviewed regularly and will evolve over time if needed to ensure that it meets the needs of our business and employees. Swiss Re aims to prevent occupational ill-health and where this is not possible, minimize its effects. The company encourages employees to be pro-active in enhancing their own health and wellbeing, thereby promoting a healthy and safe working environment. In a culture of trust, co-operation, and mutual respect, Swiss Re is committed to meeting all norms and legal requirements in these efforts towards employees, contractors, and visitors. To retain our high standards, we provide Employee Support Programmes to foster employee wellbeing including:

01 Work/life balance: We understand that a flexible work model motivates individuals and drives performance. Our Own the Way You Work (OTWYW) approach allows employees to flexibly manage their work week, giving them autonomy to decide how, when and where work is carried out while considering their individual, team and client needs. The OTWYW helps to create a better employee experience.

02 Workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion: Diversity is a central component of employee wellbeing in the workplace. Swiss Re strives for a culture where everyone is valued, treated fairly and with respect and where all employees can bring their whole selves to work. We work hard to ensure employees feel a sense of belonging and believe that a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment fosters greater innovation and ultimately better business performance.

For information on our standards for business ethics and moral behavior please refer to the Group Code of Conduct and the Global Standard on Inclusion and Engagement.

03 Mental Health: Our vision and culture help us stay connected, support each other, remain resilient and enable us to deliver our best. We understand that to make the world more resilient, our people need to be resilient first. A person’s mental wellbeing is as important as their physical wellbeing. Therefore, we encourage our employees to be open about their health, both physical and mental, and endeavor to break down the stigma surrounding mental health issues. Since we have an opportunity as an employer to effect real change, we’ve joined The Global Business Collaboration for Better Workplace Mental Health by signing a public pledge to advance progress in workplace mental health.

Pathways, our Global Employee Resource group (ERG) focuses on mental health and wellbeing and raises awareness of mental health. It supports us in creating a workplace that is fully inclusive and accepting, where everyone feels safe to openly share their stories.

04 Crisis intervention: We offer free, locally available Employee Assistance Programmes in most of our locations, through which employees can get confidential, impartial, and professional assistance on issues of a personal or workrelated nature.

The safety, health and well-being of our employees as well as of customers, suppliers, visitors and externals who are in our offices are of utmost concern to us:

• We ensure we are compliant with local regulatory requirements by carrying out health and safety risk assessments, including a fire-risk assessment, which involves identifying potential risks and hazards in our offices and taking steps to remove, mitigate and minimize them.
• We have well-trained competent people responsible for health and safety at Swiss Re.
• We ensure that employees are aware of the health and safety procedures, obligations and requirements and are advised to contact their local safety & security officer to find out more.

All accidents which cause harm or potential harm to our employees, whether inside (also includes any externals inside our premises) or outside the workplace are reported and managed by our incident reporting tool (subject to the local regulatory requirement). These include but are not limited to slips, trips, falls, noise, temperature or quality of air.

At Swiss Re, our occupational health and safety protection works best when employees and the company work together to create a safe and healthy work environment.

¹ The above is written from a global perspective and does not fully reflect all local policies and initiatives.