Zurich offers free antibody testing to 4,500 employees and families
Zurich UK is offering a one-off benefit of Covid-19 antibody (serology) testing for all employees and their immediate families living in the same house (over the age of 18).
A successful pilot was conducted in Switzerland and a full scale offering is now being rolled out to the rest of the globe. Most importantly, employees will not be required to disclose their test result and testing remains entirely optional.
“It’s not surprising that our survey sample showed up to 95% of Zurich UK’s 4,500 employees expressed an interest in receiving this test so we intend to make them COVID secure and easily available. We have chosen Bupa as a reputable and trusted provider. They will be administering approved antibody testing on our behalf. In the short-term, Zurich isn’t committing to any levels of return to office occupancy, instead choosing to align to government guidelines and industry best practice. As social distancing restrictions are reduced, we will in turn, ensure our customer needs are incorporated in our office occupancy levels. At this point, we remain largely home based as a workforce.” – John Keppel, Chief Operating Officer at Zurich UK.
Zurich has also offered its employees a range of benefits to get them through the last few months with minimal financial disruption. Other benefits offered to employees during the Covid-19 crisis include:
• Car park season tickets refunds for all employees until the offices open again, completely at Zurich’s expense
• Refunded corporate gym membership payments
• Free access to the Calm app for six months
• Option to reduce pension salary sacrifice for the year
• Option to sell holiday back to the company
• The provision of additional free office equipment to ensure safe and effective working from home
• Launch of a wellbeing hub which includes Babylon, a virtual GP provider for all staff and families
• Reduced childcare vouchers to just £1
• Emergency loan of up to £750 per person available 72 hours following approval
• Zurich Community Trust has allocated £1.7m to ease the pressure on local and national charity partners selected by employees.
• The business has also made a £13 million donation to the UK insurance and long-term savings industry’s Covid-19 support fund to help people hardest hit by the crisis.
This Covid-19 antibody test is a one-off optional benefit which not linked to a return to office approach. It has been put in place to offer peace of mind around whether employees may have had Covid-19. The tests will be funded by Zurich which will also pick up any associated taxable benefit payments which may be incurred.
