Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Last Updated: 19 January 2022

When the Covid-19 situation emerged we invoked our pandemic plan to manage our response and have been reviewing at every stage to respond to the ongoing situation. Our dedicated Continuity Management Team (CMT) continues to meet regularly to oversee our response to each development and its impact on our people and our clients.

We transitioned to home working seamlessly at the start of the pandemic, with no interruptions in service delivery to our clients. A small number of our staff continued to work throughout, to support some business-critical processes for our TPA operations.

Our offices have been open, at a reduced capacity since the Summer for those who wanted to return to the office. Our CMT undertook detailed preparation and plans to allow us to re-open safely, with measures in place to comply with government guidance.

Following recent guidance from both the UK and Scottish Governments in response to the Omicron variant, asking those who can work from home to do so, the majority of our people are now home working again. Our offices remain open for those who need to be there.

We know that prolonged home working is a challenge for some, and we’re doing all we can to support our people during what continues to be a difficult time for many.

Looking ahead, our ‘Reimagining Working Life’ group has developed our new hybrid approach which embraces the ‘best of both worlds’ - locking-in the positives of working remotely that have emerged during the pandemic, whilst keeping the office environment which is so important to our culture here at Hymans. A particular focus will be our use of video technology to facilitate client and internal meetings, helping to reduce travel, supporting everyone’s wellbeing and minimising our environmental impact.

But for now, we plan to continue to re-open in a phased approach when restrictions ease again.

We currently don’t expect our people to travel to, or attend, face to face client meetings, unless they are happy to do so. We want to protect everyone and so we have arrangements in place for all our meetings to be held via video or phone calls. Everyone’s safety and wellbeing remains our top priority. Attendance at face to face meetings will continue to be monitored as restrictions ease.

We have robust and secure technology and systems which have enabled us to work from home successfully over a long period. Our IT network is stable and we have the capacity for all staff to work from home. Our cyber security controls continue to protect our home workers; these controls offer the same protection as they would in our offices. Our home workers connect to our network through a secure VPN tunnel which uses multi-factor authentication. We have a mobile computing policy which all staff must adhere to, which outlines our secure working practices outside of the office.

We’ve been in touch with all our key third party suppliers throughout the pandemic to make sure that they similarly have robust business continuity plans in place.

Please also be assured that we have contingency plans in place to provide resource should specific client teams be impacted by absence. Using our business continuity planning, we have coverage within our business teams and across locations if we need to mitigate the impact of team shortages. As mentioned above, our Continuity Management Team is monitoring this closely.

We’re confident that we can support all our clients and provide the services needed from us.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact your usual Hymans Robertson contact or email marketing@hymans.co.uk.

We hope you are coping with these challenging times and wish you and your loved ones continued good health.

Pension Scheme Member Enquiries

If you’re a member of a pension scheme administered by Hymans Robertson please be assured that we’re continuing to work and are making it a priority to process payments and respond to member enquiries. However, the Government have now taken further steps to limit access to offices and may also restrict postal services. As such, for the time being we’d encourage you to contact us by email rather than in writing, even if you’ve already been in contact by post. You’ll find details of your Scheme's dedicated email and helpline number on any correspondence you will already have received from us.  

Don’t worry if you haven’t been in contact recently, or you don’t have the paperwork to hand, below are additional contact details:

For any pensioner payroll enquiries please continue to contact our payroll team on:

Email: TPAPensionerpayroll@hymans.co.uk

Or for general enquires please email TPAenquiries@hymans.co.uk, providing your full name, scheme name and a contact telephone number.

Fraud Guidance

Coronavirus offers criminals an opportunity to approach pension scheme members, savers and investors (especially the more vulnerable in our society) who may be worried about their finances.

Scams are hard to spot and are often disguised with believable websites, testimonials and materials which make them look like the real thing.

If you don’t spot these as fraudulent activity, you could end up disclosing personal or financial information allowing the criminal to misuse your data for fraudulent purposes.

Don’t let a scammer enjoy your retirement, click here for guidance on how you can protect yourself. You can see a list of common fraud techniques here.