LONDON, 15 November, 2010: Europeans are certainly a practical bunch, with nearly 50% of workers stating that they would sacrifice pay for a higher pension contribution by their employer, compared to only 13% who would give up some of their salary for a extra vacation days, according to Aon Hewitt, the world’s leading pensions, benefits and human capital consultant.

Surprisingly, the desire for greater pension contributions from employers is uniformly the benefit most requested across all surveyed countries. While pensions have become a hot-button issue across Europe over recent years, this finding demonstrates that European workers are beginning to take their long-term savings and future extremely seriously.

This research is part of Aon Hewitt's European Employee Benefits Benchmark, a survey of more than 7,500 workers from across Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, ten of the leading economies in Europe. The Benchmark focuses on the views of workers across Europe on topics such as retirement, employee benefits and other pension-related issues.

Across Europe, financial security in the event of a serious injury or illness was also a popular ‘salary sacrifice’ option, as was assistance with saving for a major expenditure such as a home, car or school fees.

Perhaps indicating envy of their continental counterparts’ holiday allowance, more than one in five (21%) of British workers  would be happy to sacrifice some of their salary for extra annual leave, nearly double the European average of 13%.
 

NB: Multiple answers were possible

Ian Hinton, the Global Benefits Practice Leader for Europe at Aon Hewitt commented: “Right across the world governments and businesses are struggling with how to prepare for issues surrounding retirement.  At the same time the increase of the retirement age in many countries, and the financial crisis impacting many pension funds has focused people’s minds on their own long-term financial security. It is an absolute turnaround that people are prepared to sacrifice their hard-earned money today for a more financially secure future tomorrow. Despite the protests in France, and Greece, the survey suggests that a growing number of employees do understand why changes are needed to secure their future financial situation. Tension arises, though, when people see the practical consequences of the measures necessary to implement and the impact they will have. 

“The war for talent may not yet be in full swing again, but employers need to begin to re-stock their benefits armoury in preparation. Employees clearly value non-financial benefits, and implementing a flexible benefits strategy could not only help a firm’s staff attraction and retention programme but can actually be extremely cost effective too.”

ENDS

For further information please contact:

David Skapinker, PR Manager, Aon UK

+44 (0)20 7505 7478, david.skapinker@aon.co.uk

Rob Arnott, FD

+44 (0)20 3077 0404, rob.arnott@fd.com

Notes to editors:
Aon Hewitt has recently published two in depth reports, Employee Benefits: Getting the Mix Right and Expectations vs. Reality: Meeting Europe's Retirement Challenge based on the data from the European Employee Benefits Benchmark. These report give insight into some of the retirement, benefits and pension issues across an aging workforce in Europe, key human capital risks for European employers today.  The reports can be downloaded from www.aon.com

About Aon Hewitt
 

Aon Hewitt is the global leader in human capital consulting and outsourcing solutions.  The company partners with organisations to solve their most complex benefits, talent and related financial challenges, and improve business performance.  Aon Hewitt designs, implements, communicates and administers a wide range of human capital, retirement, investment management, health care, compensation and talent management strategies.  With more than 29,000 professionals in 90 countries, Aon Hewitt makes the world a better place to work for clients and their employees.  For more information on Aon Hewitt, please visit www.aonhewitt.com.

About Aon
Aon Corporation (NYSE:AON) is the leading global provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human capital solutions and outsourcing. Through its more than 59,000 colleagues worldwide, Aon unites to deliver distinctive client value via innovative and effective risk management and workforce productivity solutions. Aon's industry-leading global resources and technical expertise are delivered locally in over 120 countries. Named the world's best broker by Euromoney magazine's 2008, 2009 and 2010 Insurance Survey, Aon also ranked highest on Business Insurance's listing of the world's insurance brokers based on commercial retail, wholesale, reinsurance and personal lines brokerage revenues in 2008 and 2009. A.M. Best deemed Aon the number one insurance broker based on revenues in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and Aon was voted best insurance intermediary 2007-2010, best reinsurance intermediary 2006-2010, best captives manager 2009-2010, and best employee benefits consulting firm 2007-2009 by the readers of Business Insurance. Visit http://www.aon.com for more information on Aon and http://www.aon.com/unitedin2010 to learn about Aon's global partnership and shirt sponsorship with Manchester United.
 

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