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Colin Fitzgerald, Distribution Director, Legal & General Group Protection, reveals valuable insights from a series of SME interviews
For SME employers, group income protection (GIP) is much more than an obligatory salary replacement duty. It’s an important part of wellbeing strategy. And in spite of (or maybe because of) their smaller size, SMEs seem to be ahead of the game when it comes to realising the important part wellbeing has to play when it comes to recruitment, retention and growth plans. Perhaps more so than larger counterparts, if research is anything to go by.*
In our view, this has big implications for the insurance industry. Cost is – and always will be – important. Digitisation has risen to that challenge, paving the way for intermediaries to redirect the efficiencies back to the client. Not only in terms of cost, but also in terms of time.
It seems that time might represent the real prize now. SMEs want their intermediaries and insurers to gain a deeper understanding of their business goals, ethos and people. And for GIP to be considered in an integrated ‘wellbeing’ context aligned with their discrete needs.
These represented some of the overriding findings from a series of in-depth SME interviews organised by Legal & General Group Protection earlier this year.**
These interview findings are further reinforced by our Wellbeing at Work Barometer. A higher percentage of employer respondents with 50-249 employees – in comparison with larger and smaller organisations – strongly agreed that a good wellbeing strategy can result in: ‘a positive and supportive culture’; ‘an opportunity to strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)’; ‘Attraction of talent’; ‘increase in staff retention’ and ‘productivity’; and a reduction in ‘absence’ and ‘presenteeism.*
It’s what we’ve instinctively known for some time now, as the usage of our GIP services – in terms of prevention and early intervention – grows. And, in turn, value is increasingly realised. Our annual return-to-work data helps provide the evidence of that value.
Nevertheless, it’s useful to hear direct from the customer that we’re on the right track. It’s also useful to be challenged. And the interviews unearthed a few interesting challenges.
SMEs are open to more help from intermediaries and providers
SMEs understand that wellbeing is vital to the longevity and sustainability of their businesses. And they know that more onus for wellbeing is being placed on them, not only from the government, but also from new recruits, especially Generation Z.
The shift to hybrid working for many has raised specific needs, including a greater focus on social and mental wellbeing. They’re trying to tackle issues like isolation and loneliness and, associated with this, the tendency for people to work longer hours and risk burnout. For this reason, they want flexibility and choice in terms of how benefits are structured and delivered. And they want communication that works across different environments.
Meanwhile, for those involved in merger and acquisition activity, offering like-for-like on employee wellbeing represents an important consideration. Levelling-up is also on the minds of SMEs. Not surprising when you consider that Legal & General’s latest Rebuilding Britain Index found that the health metric had fallen the second farthest of all measures across the lifetime of the index.
At the same time, absenteeism and presenteeism present specific challenges. For SMEs, there are usually only a few key people, so they really need to be present!
Against this backdrop of challenges, our interviewees also reported that the industry can be quite product and transaction focused. As well as being asked about what they want, they really want to be supported to understand their needs.
They want support to understand how GIP, as part of a wider wellbeing programme, can help them tackle their specific business and people challenges. They’re looking for reassurance that they’re doing the right thing. And they want help to achieve greater employee engagement with benefits. Ultimately, they want to know that their business is really well understood.
They value personal relationships. And they generally feel that an intermediary is best placed to help with all this, in collaboration with providers, adding that: intermediaries are a constant; they are well placed to know the business, the ethos and people.
SMEs really want help with employee engagement
They would really welcome more support from both intermediaries and providers in terms of employee engagement with benefits; communication and measurement. They want to realise value in line with all the challenges highlighted here and that means improved usage.
What really stood out from the interviews is that SMEs don’t just want to be provided with generic communication material at onboarding and the point of claim. There’s an ongoing need for support with engagement and for wellbeing to be considered in an integrated way: physical, mental, financial and social wellbeing.
But, uppermost for SMEs, is for intermediaries and providers to really understand their business, the employees, the ethos, the tone of voice, as mentioned earlier. Only then can appropriate topics, channels and measures be considered.
Meeting SME needs; in partnership
Here are the key ways in which Legal & General Group Protection is endeavouring to meet SME employer and employee needs, in partnership with intermediaries:
- Digital innovation: We’re helping save intermediaries’ time throughout the customer journey, as well as provide cost efficiencies and certainties. For example, we recently announced a market-leading, three-year unit rate guarantee for group protection policies (life and income protection) covering 3 to 500 employees, for all business via our digital quote, buy and renew platform ONIX.
- Integrated wellbeing thinking: Our person-centred and outcomes-focused framework Be Well. Get Better. Be Supported. integrates many aspects of wellbeing. It places mental health as the foundation and helping people return to – or stay in – ‘good work’ as the goal. This framework helps further improve usage and outcomes. For example, from the employees covered by Legal & General, where they were unable to work long term due to a mental health illness, over 90% were able to return to work within the deferred period last year.
- Proactive, day-to-day wellbeing support – We’ve partnered with Spectrum.Life to provide a new digital, Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and additional wellbeing services – helping their employees to ‘Be Well’. It can provide access to highly experienced counsellors, skilled in a range of evidence-based therapeutic models, as well as traditional short-term solution focused therapy. It also offers total wellbeing support, from access to live and on-demand fitness classes to money-saving tips, advice, rewards and shopping discounts, helping employees take control of their physical, mental and financial wellbeing. Most importantly it gives employees some great hints and tips on nutrition, with a comprehensive selection of menu choices to help create healthy daily changes to their lifestyle.
- Helping balance ‘fixing the individual’ with ‘fixing work’. As well as all the support and services for individual employees via our framework, we help intermediaries and SMEs focus on the impact of work on health and wellbeing through: access to our in-house vocational clinical specialists who can help with everything from carrying out stress risk assessments to designing reasonable adjustments. Also, support to help SMEs understand how culture and management practices impact mental health and wellbeing and how to make improvements, via our Better Wellbeing podcast series and HR communication toolkit.
- Data-driven mental health and wellbeing strategies: Our dedicated Mental Health Promotions Officer through our Employee Assistance Provider, works closely with intermediaries and SMEs to help design data-driven strategies to monitor, measure and manage bespoke communication campaigns to promote mental health and wellbeing awareness.
- Value of wellbeing investment: Through our exclusive partnership with analytical tool Fruitful Insights, we can help intermediaries and SMEs (with 100+ employees) quantify employee wellbeing impact on productivity. This tool is designed to help intermediaries offer enhanced wellbeing consulting, aligning benefits – as part of an integrated wellbeing programme – with business goals.
*Legal & General Group Protection, Wellbeing at Work Barometer 2022 (1,005 senior managers or above in business with over 10 employees / and 1,040 middle managers or below in business with over 10 employees. Field dates, 1 June 2022 – 11 June 2022)
**Legal & General Group Protection. Qualitative research programme. 20 x online in-depth interviews with employers across a range of SME sizes and sectors. January 2023.
