The people at Partners Life

Here at Partners Life we aren’t just insurance market leaders – we are also committed to be a market leading employer as well. After all, the better we look after our staff, the better they can look after you!

We have various offerings in place for staff to cater to their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. We offer a comprehensive set of activities such as weekly onsite Yoga, free flu vaccinations in winter, a wellness month and 21-day fitness challenges to keep staff healthy and performing at their peak. It helps that we have our office right on Takapuna Beach meaning recreational and relaxation options abound.

Modern workplaces can be stressful, and insurance can be particularly challenging considering we often deal with clients at the most difficult times of their lives. Our Employee Assistance Programme also offers staff and their families free 24-hour counselling and support should they need it. This ensures all staff manage the pressures of modern life and are optimally focussed to service our clients.

We are also committed to our staff's learning and career progression. We offer a range of learning and development opportunities including extensive e-learning options and lunch and learn opportunities for staff to pick the brains and benefit from the experience of our senior management team and technical experts in a relaxed, informal way. We are committed to upskilling our people because we believe we can teach people with the right cultural fit anything, as a result we also try to promote from within wherever possible.

Our office is completely open plan with no offices for any of our senior executives or managers. We believe the behaviour of our leaders needs to be visible to our staff so that they can be led by example. Communication between leaders and staff is much easier and therefore more likely when everyone sits near to each other and staff behaviour is also visible to leaders which helps keep the culture in check.

Studies have shown that having an environment that is inclusive of difference results in a significant productivity increase. We therefore firmly believe that building an effective and diverse workplace is an essential part of ensuring our clients feel comfortable with us.

After all, customers are also diverse. We are incredibly proud of the following achievements:

• In our 2018 Diversitas Diversity Audit we scored 8.5 out of a possible 10 for having an inclusive culture, which we were advised was the highest score Diversitas has ever seen from a New Zealand company.

• We were also named a finalist in the 2017 IBM Best Workplace of the Year, in only our second year of running their Employee Engagement Survey.

• We are currently undergoing certification for our 'Rainbow Tick'– a marker awarded to organisations that are inclusive towards all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

In all staff surveys conducted over many years, we have consistently scored highly for our culture. We believe the core to this outcome is summed by best by the Partners Life Managing Director: “find the best people and provide them with a safe, supportive space to do their best work”.

This focus on doing the right things by our staff ensures they do the right thing by our clients.