Investing in employee development and growth

Knowledge and skill requirements are changing faster than ever before, so we need to be prepared. As a risk knowledge business, getting the right capabilities to the right people at the right time is strategically important for the success of our individual employees as well as for the company as a whole. This is why we need to facilitate learning with content that is relevant and easy to find exactly when it is needed. A new online platform called MyResource introduced small bite-sized learning nuggets on many development topics allowing employees to maintain and control when and where they learn, thereby leading to more learning outside the classroom. We will continue this journey into 2019 with the launch of a new learning experience platform and access to a wider range of learning content available to all employees.

This development and the introduction of the Development Compass for Managers (see “Investing in a strong leadership pipeline”) has led to a noticeable reduction in classroom and inhouse e-learning training hours. In 2018, our employees completed 165 440 hours of training overall, averaging 11 hours and USD 513 per employee. Formal training at Swiss Re combines technical, professional and leadership skills training. We design our training internally or in collaboration with leading external partners and deliver it through our long-established Swiss Re Academy. Currently, we offer more than 1 000 different training courses. Our employees attend training in areas as diverse as underwriting, finance, sales and negotiation, leadership, diversity and inclusion, interpersonal skills, project management, office tools and language skills.

We recommend that client-facing employees invest at least two days per year in formal sales training. A total of 685 employees participated in sales training during 2018, with an average feedback score of 4.26 (out of 5). Reflecting our efforts in the area of employee development, we continue to outperform our industry peers in the social dimension of the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, with Swiss Re top in human capital development (we scored 80% in this category versus the industry average of 39% and world average of 67%).