More structure, more renumeration

The global economy remains bleak. Yet a distressed global economy does not stop large swathes of people retiring, beginning new pension plans, moving to new jobs or being rewarded properly for their outstanding contributions to their employer. Yes, the employee benefits market place has been shaken by the downturn, but it’s also increasingly responding to it in new, dynamic ways.

“In fact,” says Margrit Schmid, “a financially challenging environment increases the demand for appropriate solutions as deficiencies in state and private systems become even more obvious and accentuated.”

Certainly the need for practical, innovative employee benefits packages also increases when interest rates plunge and returns on savings – be it in cash or the stock market – diminish. It’s also a time when increasingly employers turn to benefit providers seeking security and reliability.

These qualities remain deeply ingrained into Swiss Life Network’s values from the start. “We continue,” says Schmid, “to focus on meeting clients needs with sustainable, top-quality solutions. With our multilingual organisation of highly experienced professionals in Zurich, Luxembourg, and several satellite locations we remain always physically close to our customers and active as their partner worldwide, for every aspect of employee benefits.”

You don’t have to look far to see how Swiss Life Network’s portfolio of products will support your own needs.

Multinational pooling options
Its range of highly competitive solutions include cover for death, disability and as well as illness and accident. These are available for both local and mobile employees. Depending on size you could opt for a company-specific plan allowing you to change the parameters of this arrangement as your own circumstance change while optimising the costs of your employee benefit coverage around the world. Or you can start via a multi-client pool supplying you with many of the advantages of pooling. Both choices mean huge levels of transparency on both global and local levels – plus the ability to gain a wealth of valuable information in the process about your employees and your own cost base.

Expatriate solutions
An ex-pat package can be demanding to be put together. No individual is quite the same, and most ex-pat solutions need to be highly tailored. Every multinational has its own very distinct needs and requirements. However Swiss Life Network has huge experience in developing and designing a package that is right for all your expatriates. We’re the right partner to explore and develop packages which also communicate clearly to your employees that they are indeed hugely valued.

Pension solutions
Swiss Life Network has a wide a range of innovative and highly flexible pension plans – including European pension solutions under the EU IORP Directive. Needless to say Swiss Life Network are experts at designing efficient and cost-effective plans to suit your own requirements. It’s also of huge importance that any pension plan is compliant with the fast-changing legal compliant environment. Says Margrit Schmid, “We leave nothing to chance. Ever.”

A bespoke relationship from the start
For Swiss Life Network the client is its centre of gravity – and the two parties are in constant exchange. “Our solutions reflect what our clients tell us, as far as it is economically viable,” says Schmid.

Whenever Schmid has a conversation with a client she is always learning something new – every time. And she always gets feedback on how solutions and products could be further improved and tweaked. But Schmid knows it’s tricky to always get the balance right, especially between off-the-peg solutions and a bespoke approach that always matches client needs exactly. “Swiss Life Network offers the ability to fine-tune product offerings to specific client requirements.

“For many years we base our value proposition on a set of modular solutions that are continuously adjusted to our clients’ needs. This ensures each client gets a reasonable customer specific bespoke solution, combined with high efficiency and top-quality service.”

Some employee benefits are still often seen as a welcome cost factor to some corporates. But when they look again says Schmid, more and more employers appreciate the added value of employee benefit solutions for their employees. “Added value is not just restricted to increased staff loyalty and retention,” she says. “Making sure employees don’t have to worry about the future leads to improved performance and hence contributes towards the employer’s bottom line. It also enables employers to prove their appreciation of their employees by providing benefits even in economically challenging times. Appropriate employee benefits are also, I would say, a very strong HR tool.”

Cost-effective solutions
Margrit Schmid knows all too well the huge emphasis and pressure on cost-control – which directly results in price pressures on benefit solutions. “We are constantly working on improving our cost-benefit ratios – however prices must still be sustainable from the provider point of view. Our modular system lets us determine with each client which solutions are most appropriate. And by using pooling, our clients can directly improve their cost outlays for pure risk solutions.”

Swiss Life Network’s success is built on three main foundations:

• Its long-term relationships with their own selected Network Partners, who are all industry leaders in their respective markets;

• Flexible and modular offerings for clients, their brokers and consultants. They always listen carefully to their clients and business partners and are constantly developing new solutions;

• Long-standing relationships with clients who continue to entrust their global employee benefit solutions to Swiss Life Network’s organisation, without whom they would not be where they are today.

Times they are-a-changing
How might employee benefit models change over time however? Schmid says financial service regulation is increasingly adding considerable pressure on providers and distributors. “This regulation will probably influence benefit design and our approach to clients, while transparency requirements will force clients to ask for more information and demand more transparent solutions. We are well-positioned to meet these needs thanks to our modular solutions, which already offer extensive information and transparency.”

Based on annual rankings, Schmid knows Swiss Life Network to be the leading provider in the global employee benefits market. “And we’re continuing to experience year-on-year increases in new business, and new global relationships. Our services are clearly in demand. We also regularly ask our clients for feedback, in order to keep improving our offering.”

Did you know?
Swiss Life Network is an association of more than 50 leading life and pension insurance companies worldwide, each in its own market a leading player of employee benefits. With this global presence the Swiss Life Network is the ideal partner for multinational companies for employee benefit solutions worldwide.

The Swiss Life Network is operated by Corporate Solutions, a transnational business unit of Swiss Life, a leading European life and pension insurer.

Swiss Life Network’s multi-lingual staff spread across all the main regions where multinational companies operate. Clients’ always have one main point of contact and access to worldwide expertise and professional experience in employee benefit solutions systematically developed over more than 40 years.

Further information:www.swisslife-network.com; www.swisslife.com