"Negative practices towards staff can be harmful to the reputation of an organisation."
- Katharine Moxham, Spokesperson for GRiD
Of those surveyed (500), 86% said it’s a ‘priority’ or ‘fairly important’ to work with employee benefit providers that have strong Environmental, Social & Corporate Governance (ESG) policies – that’s 34% higher than twelve months ago.
Meanwhile, Group Risk Development (GRiD) found that more employers also think partnering with companies that have strong ESG policies is important to staff, increasing from 62% to 88% in the last twelve months. GRiD said these findings demonstrate businesses are recognising the value of incorporating ESG policies into their day-to-day Human Resources (HR) operations.
The industry body believes group risk benefits - including Life Assurance, Income Protection (IP), and Critical Illness (CI) – could be hugely effective in helping organisations comply with the social element of an ESG policy. The affordability of these benefits allow employers to offer support across the workforce – unlike benefits such as Private Medical Insurance (PMI) which might be ringfenced for senior management.
Likewise, since there’s rarely any underwriting with a group risk policy, employees have continuity of cover without needing to go through annual underwriting.
“ESG is going to be increasingly important to businesses of all sizes, but in many cases, the social responsibility element has played second fiddle to environmental & governance concerns. HR departments can rectify this, and increase their focus on social responsibility, by prioritising the wellbeing of their staff,” explained Katharine Moxham, Spokesperson for GRiD.
She said: “Negative practices towards staff can be harmful to the reputation of an organisation but the opposite is also true. Looking after the wellbeing of staff is not just the right thing to do or something that ticks a social responsibility box, but it has a fundamentally positive impact on any organisation.
“It’s also important to consider that if employers are judging their partners on ESG credentials, then the potential customers/clients of the employer will be doing the same. The social aspect of ESG can be the more challenging of the three areas, but caring employers that support the health & wellbeing of their staff will find they’re helping their organisation meet its ESG intentions whilst retaining healthy, happy, and productive staff,” Katharine concluded.
