The FINANCIAL — Mercer has launched Mercer HarmoniseTM, a digital platform enabling employers and employees to address some of the fundamental health and savings issues facing the UK’s workforce. The platform helps employers to improve employee engagement, increase productivity and reduce benefit administration costs by allowing employees to manage their health, workplace benefits and financial affairs in one place.
Mercer Harmonise, accessible on smartphone, tablet, and desktop, draws together all of an employee’s pensions, insurance and health data – allowing easy planning and management of personal financial and health goals. Employees can set goals, adjust their savings, compare themselves to their peer group, select benefits, and access an increased array of benefits – actions all designed to nudge users into improving their health and finances. All of these digital services are supported by a customer care team of benefit experts and financial advisers who assist users either over the phone, using chat or face-to-face, according to Mercer.
Fiona Dunsire, UK CEO of Mercer commented, “Benefit and health costs are increasing as the workforce ages. Most employees are still not saving enough for retirement and won’t be able to retire until much later in life. This has huge ramifications for the workforce. Across all life stages and ages, employees’ personal worries about their health and financial security are having a dramatic effect on how they operate at work. If employees are worried, distracted, not as healthy as they could be, then they are not as engaged as they could be either. Enabling employees to address their concerns is in the interest of employers and employees. Mercer Harmonise is designed to help.”
Niall O’Callaghan, a Partner at Mercer, led the development of Mercer Harmonise. He said: “Mercer Harmonise is designed to help employees understand where they are financially and where they want to be through an intuitive, dynamic and customized interface. It guides them in taking decisive action to improve their future. For employers, it helps improve their benefits and rewards strategy by driving improved engagement, increased productivity and reduced benefit administration costs. The digital interface is built with an understanding of how individuals receive information in real time supported by modern data visualization tools. Mercer Harmonise will inform, not scare, prompting employees to have greater interest and take more control of their critical workplace benefits.”
He added: “Life is increasingly busy and complex. There’s a lot of noise for us all to manage, often related to health or financial issues. We’ve designed Mercer Harmonise to cut through all the noise and jargon. Information is simple, clear and nudges us to take proactive decisions that bring greater peace of mind. Reducing the stress and worry from our daily lives makes us more productive, more energetic and more engaged in all that we do. It takes us one step closer in making tomorrow, today.”
Mercer Harmonise will offer a broad range of products and benefits including:
Financial wellness (education & guidance)
Retirement savings products (including consolidation and drawdown);
Flexible benefits;
Health products (health risk assessments, digital doctor, medical, optical and dental insurance);
Risk products (including death, disability and related protection products);
General Insurance products (such as travel, home and car insurance products);
Other voluntary benefits (discount schemes and lifestyle offerings).
Financial (digital filing cabinet, wealth report)
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