Employee Engagement Surveys

We recently introduced a newly designed Employee Engagement Survey to hear from our employees what we can collectively improve to live the spirit of our new People Strategy. In May 2015 we carried out the new survey for the first time and the reaction was overwhelming, with a response rate of 85% (9 889 employees responded) and more than 20 000 written comments. The results indicated that 64% of Swiss Re employees are engaged, which is within the Financial/Insurance benchmark of 61% and the Global High Performance benchmark of 72%.

Good progress was made since we last ran our former survey in 2013, with positive trends on most questions, including reduced bureaucracy, ability to openly debate issues and employees feeling that their job has an impact on business outcomes.

In terms of key strengths, the survey revealed that our people feel they can accomplish something at work, are encouraged to take the initiative, able to express their views openly, and are empowered to complete their work autonomously.

The survey also highlighted a number of changes employees want us to implement to better support our People Strategy: more clarity on our business strategy, easier access to senior leadership and more career development opportunities within the company.