Video: Elliot Rees-Davies global head of reward at Aspen Insurance on wellbeing allowances

The wellbeing programme at Aspen Insurance has been completely overhauled with the introduction of £1,000 per employee wellbeing allowance. Watch Elliot Rees-Davies, global head of reward as he outlines the organisation's wellbeing strategy.

The business has tried to keep wellbeing simple with the introduction of three hubs: health, financial and lifestyle. A big part of this strategy was to be less paternalistic and to give employees more flexibility by introducing the wellness allowance. It did this for two reasons, first because the company genuinely cares for its employees' wellbeing and second because they wanted to be different in the marketplace.

Looking beyond physical and mental wellness, the organisation also looked at financial wellbeing and in particular the company pension scheme. Rees-Davies explains that they also wanted to give employees more flexibility with their pension contributions.

"The refreshing thing is that 11% increased their pension contributions. I think that treating people as adults and allowing people to have and make those choices themselves actually has a positive effect," says Rees-Davies.