Flavours and fragrances giant Givaudan intends to harness its captive further after successfully raising the minimun standard of benefits for its employees.

Speaking on the latest episode of the Global Captive Podcast Christian Frener, head of global benefits at Givaudan, and Nicola Fordham, chief solutions officer at MAXIS Global Benefits Network, discussed the Swiss multinational’s journey in raising benefit standards across regions and the captive’s integral role.

“The introduction of global minimum insurance standards in one of our regions was not an isolated project,” Frener said.

“It’s part of Givaudan’s broad philosophy of total rewards and global employee benefits.

“Our purpose is clear, to ensure consistent and reliable protection for all employees, to promote equity and inclusion across diverse markets and to align local practices with Givaudan’s global people philosophy.

“This goes far beyond compliance. It’s about fairness, dignity, and supporting people through key life moments – illness, disability, as well as parenthood or retirement.”

Undertaking the project to align and introduce a minimum standard of benefits for Givaudan employees was a comprehensive piece of work, which required the involvement of numerous internal and external stakeholders.

“We started by conducting a comprehensive, gap analysis using market and internal data,” Frener added.

“These revealed significant disparities in coverage levels between countries. In some cases, employees lacked even basic medical or disability protection.

“Establishing minimum standards helps us to close these gaps and creates a consistent employee experience wherever someone works, a stronger employer brand positioning Givaudan as a responsible and competitive employer, and greater operational efficiency by using our collective scale and captive solutions to secure better terms and coverage.”

Fordham said while the motivation for corporates to go down this route is often in large part to meet their equity and inclusion aims, it also brings significant advantages in attracting and retaining talent.

“Our clients are increasingly seeing that provision of employee benefits as part of a total reward package and a good EB strategy being a key tool for attracting and retaining their talent,” she said.

“Supporting people with their physical wellness, along with their financial health and mental and emotional wellbeing, ensures they’re fully productive and really engaged in the work that they’re doing for their employers.

“And in a lot of cases at the core, clients just really want to do the right thing for their people.”

Frener concluded by saying their work is not finished, and they have a lot more to achieve on inclusive benefits and improving the wellbeing initiatives provided by the captive-backed programme more broadly.

“We’ve laid a solid foundation with our work on retirement, pension, life insurance, and health coverage, but this is just the beginning,” he added.

“The next step is to integrate health and wellbeing data more effectively, to gain a clearer, more holistic understanding of our employees’ needs and trends.

“This will allow us to move from reactive, to preventive healthcare, expanding the role of our employee benefits captive beyond pure risk financing to include health promotion and prevention initiatives. Then we are also working to align all our benefits even more closely with sustainability and inclusion goals.

Listen to the full discussion with Givaudan’s Christian Frener and Nicola Fordham, of MAXIS Global Benefits Network, here or on any podcast platform. Just search for ‘Global Captive Podcast’.