Anna Cotgreave at Clifford Chance: Invest now to support people in the future
Clifford Chance is driving greater awareness of its health screening benefits to keep its workforce well for longer, according to the firm’s head of reward and benefits, Anna Cotgreave.
Speaking at the Rethinking benefits to attract, retain and engage as age demographics shift REBA webinar on 20 March 2024, she said: “We have a lot of employees now who are working longer."
The law firm offers health screening as part of a “fairly comprehensive healthcare” package. “But we’ve become more aware that as people get older there are different tests that become more relevant to them,” Cotgreave said.
“We do catch people with screening who have various different types of cancer, and because we’re catching it earlier it’s much more treatable,” she added. “So, we want to publicise the healthcare support we have available and invest now to support people in the future.”
The firm is also investing in physiotherapy for employees, making every desk in new office locations sit-standing. “Humans are not designed to sit down all day; it’s not good for the spine,” Cotgreave said. “So, we are mitigating against that.”
And Clifford Chance has extended its group income protection scheme from an automatic cut-off of 65 to align with the state retirement age. “People aren’t leaving work at 65 and that has been the case for 13 years,” Cotgreave added.
A poll conducted during the webinar found that 16% of attendees already plan to revisit their benefits strategy to allow for the changing age demographics in their organisations, 44% plan to in the next 12 to 18 months, but 40% have no current plans to do so.
