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Guided by a purpose to drive resilience, Swiss Re Asia has built a total rewards strategy that rewards sustainable performance, supports employee wellbeing, and strengthens a culture of fairness, inclusion, and shared achievement.
Swiss Re Asia (Malaysia Branch) believes that resilience begins with its people. Guided by its vision to make the world more resilient, the organisation sees its workforce as central to delivering meaningful impact for clients and society. This has shaped a total rewards philosophy that acknowledges exceptional performance, reinforces shared success, and supports a collaborative work environment. The approach reflects a belief that attracting and retaining top talent requires more than competitive pay, calling for a holistic framework that aligns rewards with sustainable performance and organisational values.
The team also recognises the importance of designing a strategy that works across different markets. With expectations around pay, benefits, and work-life integration varying widely, building a consistent yet flexible framework was essential. Through a collaborative five-phase process that involved stakeholders at every stage, the Swiss Re ensured that principles such as equal pay for equal work and resilience through inclusion remained at the core.
This work has delivered both business and cultural impact. Attrition rates have fallen, and employee engagement has remained steady even amid transformation.
At the HR Excellence Awards 2025, Malaysia, Swiss Re Asia (Malaysia Branch) won the bronze award for 'Excellence in Total Rewards Strategy'. In this interview, Helen Birnie, HR Partner South East Asia explains how embedding trust, fairness, and transparency into the rewards philosophy drives excellence across the organisation.
Q Tell us about your inspiring HR initiative – what sparked the idea, and how did you know it was the right path to take?
Swiss Re's vision is "to make the world more resilient" and our success lies in our ability to apply deep knowledge, intelligent data and capital strength to help our clients and the society anticipate and manage risks. Business success is key to all considerations, including talent and workforce and we believe that rewarding exceptional business and individual performance, whilst at the same time ensuring everyone shares in a combined success, helps foster a collaborative work environment. We also recognise that attracting and retaining top talent requires more than competitive pay, it demands a holistic approach that aligns rewards with sustainable performance and our culture.
Q Every journey has its ups and downs – can you share a challenge your team faced and how you worked through it together?
One of our key challenges was designing a total rewards strategy that balanced global consistency with local flexibility, ensuring that our framework reflected Swiss Re’s global values while staying relevant to diverse markets and cultures. With operations across continents, expectations around pay, benefits, and work-life integration can differ vastly.
To address this, we adopted a collaborative, five-phase approach that emphasised stakeholder engagement at every stage, from proposal to feedback. This allowed us to build alignment around principles such as equal pay for equal work and resilience through inclusion.
Q What impact has this initiative had on your organisation so far, and what do you hope it inspires in the wider HR community?
The impact of our total rewards strategy has been both tangible and cultural.
On the business front, attrition rates have fallen, affirming our ability to retain talent through a fair, transparent, and engaging approach to rewards. Swiss Re has also achieved Top Employer Certification from 2023 to 2025, standing as the only insurer in our category to receive this recognition, a clear testament to the strength of our people practices and HR excellence.
Employee engagement has remained consistent even amid organisational transformation. Participation in programmes like corporate volunteering (47% of staff), iAppreciate, and Continuous Contribution Awards reflect a thriving culture of recognition and belonging.
For the broader HR community, we hope our journey demonstrates that total rewards is about more than pay and perks – it is about creating a resilient, inclusive ecosystem that supports people’s physical, mental, financial, and social wellbeing.
Q Looking back, is there a moment, person, or value that kept you and your team motivated throughout the journey?
The value that anchored us was “We make it happen together.”
There were moments when navigating global complexities and regulatory nuances felt daunting, but our shared belief in resilience through people kept us focused. One defining moment came during the roll-out of the pay transparency initiative in Singapore. Seeing leaders and employees embrace open conversations about compensation reaffirmed that transparency truly builds trust.
We were also deeply inspired by feedback from colleagues who said they felt "seen, valued, and supported”, especially with initiatives such as critical care leave, CSR leave, or own the way you work (OTWYW) flexibility. Each of these moments reminded us that total rewards is not just a framework; it’s a living reflection of our purpose to make the world and our workplace more resilient.
Q If you could offer one golden nugget of wisdom to HR professionals aiming for excellence, what would it be?
Design with empathy, deliver with integrity, and measure what matters.
A truly effective total rewards strategy starts with listening, understanding the evolving needs of your people, and then aligning those insights with organisational purpose. At Swiss Re, we’ve learned that sustainability and inclusion are not add-ons; they’re the foundation of long-term engagement and performance.
Excellence in HR is not about the breadth of your programmes, but the depth of their impact. When you put trust, fairness, and transparency at the heart of your reward philosophy, excellence naturally follows.
Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets section!
Lead image / Provided
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