Giving Back
$13.2
More than $13.2 million total corporate and employee contributions to charitable causes.
Social
We're dedicated to making a positive difference in people's lives — and that commitment goes far beyond the benefits we provide our customers.
Through deep community involvement, active advocacy, a vibrant and inclusive work environment, and valuable career opportunities, we're dedicated to providing the resources our employees and those around us need to thrive.
Community members
We build stronger communities by focusing significant resources to improve educational opportunities, promote health and wellness, and support the arts. We encourage employee engagement in community outreach by providing time off for volunteer activities and matching employee giving to qualified organizations. We also forge strong partnerships with educators and other organizations that help us determine how best to support our fellow community members.
Public Education
We believe education is the foundation of strong communities and the key to great futures for our children.
Support for students, teachers and schools in our communities is our single biggest area of giving, accounting for more than half our annual charitable contributions. Education is the key to great futures for our children, so we've created and guided business-education partnerships that develop education leaders and give students access to new opportunities. Our employees are also heavily involved in reading and mentoring programs.
Health & Wellness
Our commitment to health and wellness extends beyond our own employees to all the communities we call home.
We provide our employees the support they need to lead healthy, active lives — and we echo that commitment in the communities where they work, live and play. We contribute to organizations and programs that focus on improving health and quality of life for all, from medical and dental clinics that serve the needy to helping feed the hungry and house the homeless.
Arts & Culture
We support access to arts and culture to spark creativity, enrich diversity and bring our communities to life.
A vibrant arts environment is essential to quality of life, attracting talent and driving economic development in our communities. We support organizations that deliver art, music, theater and other cultural opportunities to students and other residents. Extending access to the arts to everyone sparks creativity, enriches diversity and brings our communities to life.
Advocacy
We participate in public policy discussions on a variety of issues related to our business and industry. One of our primary areas of focus is advocating for greater access to financial protection benefits for workers and their families.
Many employees in the U.S. and U.K. still lack access to affordable financial protection benefits that help them face the unexpected challenges of illness or injury. That's why our primary objective is to raise awareness about the fragile financial condition of families, the frequency of work-limiting illnesses and injuries, the constraints on government safety nets, and how the workplace offers an effective and efficient method of insuring against risk and reducing pressure on poverty assistance programs.
Since our industry is highly regulated — and the government saves money when workers are covered by our benefits — being engaged in public policy makes good business sense. We're committed to working with the government to build strong partnerships that offer innovative solutions to ensure valuable financial protection remains widely accessible and affordable.
Our engagement in
these issues includes:
Funding research on disability trends, the economic impact of financial protection benefits and consumer insurance purchasing habits.- Sponsoring state legislation to encourage greater participation in financial protection benefits through employee auto-enrollment, with the option to opt-out.
Providing expertise to federal and state agencies related to disability benefits.- Active participation in industry associations such as the American Council of Life Insurers.
Our culture and human capital management
The well-being of our employees is one of our top priorities and starts with a dynamic and welcoming workplace that embraces diversity, fosters collaboration and encourages employees to bring their best ideas to work every day.
We've undertaken a multiyear modernization of our main campuses, transforming our workspaces to spark greater collaboration, innovation and flexibility, and we've introduced upgraded food service and fitness amenities to help employees live their best. These new, contemporary workplaces will support the recruitment of top talent and our delivery of best-in-class customer service.
We're also listening to what our employees have to say through feedback from employee engagement surveys, our ethics hotline and other methods to ensure we remain true to our values and provide a positive culture where everyone can thrive.
Live your best you
To help our employees maintain a positive work-life balance, we provide access to benefits and resources they need to enhance their physical, emotional and financial well-being.
Life
We expect our employees to have a sharp focus on our customers, deliver on our commitments and stay at the top of the industry. For them to do this, it's important they enjoy a healthy, balanced lifestyle with time to focus on their own well-being. That's why we offer a generous amount of paid time off and flexible work arrangements. And our parental leave policy is one of the latest examples of how we're enhancing our benefit offerings to better support the different facets of employees' lives.
Health
We offer comprehensive health plans, onsite fitness and health resource centers at our primary facilities, programs that help employees understand and manage chronic health issues, and rewards to encourage healthy behaviors.
Wealth
Employees also have access to resources to help them gain financial peace of mind, including tools to help them with financial basics or more advanced planning. We recognize many of our employees face the challenge of balancing student debt with planning for their financial futures. Our first-of-its-kind student debt relief program provides employees more tools to reduce financial stress and improve overall well-being.
Training and professional development
A great place to work is one where people of every background have the tools to grow and reach their full potential. We have a strong focus on training and professional development. All employees participate in an annual curriculum of training on our Code of Conduct (which covers a variety of topics including ethics, harassment, regulatory compliance and our business practices) privacy, and information security. We also provide employees and managers a variety of training and development programs tailored to their specific roles. And we support the professional development of our employees through our tuition assistance program, offering full-time employees up to $5,250 in annual tuition reimbursement and part-time employees up to $1,500 per year.
Inclusion and diversity
We are committing greater resources to foster a workplace that welcomes diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and reflects our customers and our communities. Our commitment starts at the top, and we’re pleased to have been recognized as being a leader in gender diversity at the board level. We set inclusion and diversity performance goals for the CEO and senior leadership team. In 2018, we also established and staffed an Office of Inclusion & Diversity. A variety of programming and training opportunities are available for all employees to learn about issues such as unconscious bias and inclusion in the workplace.
Our foundation
To lay the foundation for Unum to become the most inclusive, diverse and welcoming company in the employee benefits market, we recently introduced a one-year action plan with three focus areas: to envision, to champion and to build.
- Envision Establish and communicate a shared vision of inclusion and diversity and offer more opportunities for employees to share their concerns or even the next great idea
- Champion Engage and develop a dedicated group of inclusion champions focused on providing our leaders the tools, training and materials needed to model the behavior of an inclusive leader
- Build Build a workforce that reflects the diversity of our customers at all levels
We're creating a workplace where everyone is valued and respected.
Involvement across all levels of the company is crucial to our work, and our Inclusion Council, senior leadership and our employee resource groups help advance Unum's inclusion journey. With more than 1,000 employee members, our employee resource groups represent the full spectrum of what makes us unique and are an integral component of Unum's commitment to driving change in inclusion and diversity.
- Ability Employee Resource Group — provides support to Unum employees with disabilities and caregivers and uses the valuable perspective of having a disability to better serve our customers
- LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group — (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning and others) Employee Resource Group seeks to create a workplace that is inclusive and accepting of all individuals
- Race & Ethnicity Employee Resource Group — represents and empowers all current and future employees of varied races
- Veteran's Networking Group — seeks to continue to serve others by making Unum the veteran employer of choice
- Women's Professional Network — strives to increase the richness of opportunities for women
