Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Last Updated: 21 June 2021

When the Covid-19 situation emerged in early 2020 and the potential impacts to business became apparent, we invoked our pandemic plan in order to manage our response. Our dedicated Continuity Management Team (CMT) continues to meet regularly to oversee the delivery of the plan, responding to each development in the pandemic and its impact on our people and our clients. This response has allowed us to transition to home working seamlessly, with no interruptions in service delivery to our clients.

A small number of our staff have continued to work in our Glasgow office, throughout the pandemic, to support some business-critical processes for our TPA operations. Following guidance from both the UK and Scottish Governments that that those who can work from home should continue to do so, the majority of our people are still home working. All our offices are now open at 10% capacity for those who have a need to return to the office.

Our CMT undertook detailed preparation and plans to allow us to re-open safely, and we have measures in place to comply with government guidance. We plan to continue to reopen in a phased approach with a limited capacity as restrictions ease further. We know that prolonged home working is a challenge for some, and we’re doing all we can to support our people during what is a difficult time for many.

We currently don’t expect our people to travel to, or attend, face to face client meetings – 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 are in contact with all our key third party suppliers to make sure that they similarly have robust business continuity plans in place.

We’re also considering how we can lock-in the positives of our COVID-19 experience and move towards a ‘best of both worlds’ future. 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.

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.