Burned-Out Swiss Bankers Get Counseling From Insurers
Burned-Out Swiss Bankers Get Counseling
Peter Frommenwiler/Bloomberg
A pedestrian leaves the UBS AG headquarters in Zurich.
A pedestrian leaves the UBS AG headquarters in Zurich. Photographer: Peter Frommenwiler/Bloomberg
Stressed-out bankers are prompting Swiss insurers to offer psychological counseling and health assessments to cap rising claims from burnout.
Zurich Financial Services AG started extending 30 percent discounts in May for therapy from a network of as many as 70 psychologists in Switzerland. Baloise Holding AG plans next year to introduce client-health evaluations, including measures to prevent long-term exhaustion, or burnout, caused by prolonged periods of stress.
“The more people who don’t get ill because of the preventative offer, the more money can be saved,” said Tilman Hengevoss, market management head at Zurich Financial’s Swiss unit. Burnout is a growing part of the 200 million Swiss francs ($193 million) that Switzerland’s biggest insurer pays out every year to cover the wages of sick workers, he said.
While burnout was originally associated with doctors, the financial crisis has increased work pressures across a range of professions, said Doris Straus, who’s opening a clinic on Oct. 1 near Davos, the site of the World Economic Forum’s annual conference. The increase in stress occurred as banks, securities firms and insurers slashed more than 340,000 jobs worldwide since the start of the credit crunch in 2007.
“It’s difficult to communicate that you have reached the limit, that you can’t work under pressure infinitely,” said Straus, a psychiatrist who has studied burnout syndrome for the past 15 years. “The pressure on the individual at the work place has clearly increased.”
Preventing Burnout
About 41 percent of all Swiss employees say they suffer from mental stress at work with about 10 percent feeling anxiety, according to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in Bern. Those working in finance, health care and social work are particularly at risk.
UBS AG, which cut more than 18,000 jobs, offers counseling in Switzerland and flexible work hours as part of its effort to prevent burnout, said Zurich-based spokeswoman Eveline Mueller- Eichenberger. Switzerland’s largest bank declined to disclose details on personnel changes resulting from stress.
Zurich-based rival Credit Suisse Group AG, which eliminated more than 7,000 jobs during the crisis, declined to comment on burnout or stress-related issues.
Burnout, which cuts productivity and leaves the sufferer feeling helpless, can’t be treated with drugs, said Renate Huter, a psychologist who works with Zurich Financial.
“Any person with a high sense of duty and high performance expectations is at risk,” said Huter. “The increase in burnout is due to social, technological and economic changes.”
Healthy Profit
Employees, who attend four to 10 counseling sessions over three to six months, receive a discount on the average hourly rate of 250 francs, Zurich Financial said. They are taught how to relax and keep work issues in perspective, and learn to organize their workload and solve conflicts.
Zurich Financial expects the counseling, which will be offered to employees of banks and other corporate customers, to save it about 10 million francs a year.
Baloise, the country’s third-largest insurer, plans to introduce health assessments for corporate clients employing at least 100 people, said spokesman Amos Winteler. The Basel-based insurer is still working on details of the program.
“The number of sick leave cases can be reduced by around a third” with this system, Winteler said. “If that is the case, we as a daily benefits insurer would profit.”
Under daily benefits insurance taken out by most Swiss companies, insurers cover 80 percent of the wages of workers who are absent due to illness. Premiums totaled 2.68 billion francs in 2008, according to data compiled by the Zurich-based Swiss Insurance Association.
Work-Life Balance
Zuercher Kantonalbank, Switzerland’s biggest regional bank, initiated a program in 2002 to improve the health and wellbeing of its 4,825 employees. That includes the opening of a sports center and kindergarten services, plus massages and counseling to relieve stress.
“Healthy and satisfied employees are less often ill, less often change jobs and make fewer mistakes,” said Rene Hoppeler, head of human resources at the Zurich-based bank. “The personal work-life balance isn’t a phenomenon of the financial crisis, but rather of today’s achievement-oriented society.”
About 20 percent of the cases examined by Swiss Life AG’s Aviga AG case-management division involve burnout or moderate depression, said spokesman Martin Laederach. Switzerland’s biggest life insurer set up the unit last year with health insurer, Helsana AG.
‘Performance Limits’
“It’s remarkable that these are often people in upscale positions,” said Laederach, adding that about a third of the psychological-disability occurrences of the past two years are linked to burnout. “These cases are often cost- and time- intensive.”
Burnout may become a bigger problem in the wake of the crisis as financial companies try to squeeze more from their 200,000 employees as the economy recovers, Straus said.
“At the moment, there is a culture as if these performance limits do not exist,” she said. “It’s like doping in top sport; there are performance limits.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Carolyn Bandel in Zurich at cbandel@bloomberg.net
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