Is your office policy costing you candidates? What 116 insurers told us about hiring and retention
In May 2024 we asked 116 UK insurance companies, with Insurance Times and Gerrard White, what their hybrid and flexible working policies were doing to the business. This post is about the recruitment side of the answer: how many people apply, how many accept the offer, the quality of who you end up with, and whether they stay. The full set of findings, with the method and sample, is in what 116 insurers told us about flexible working. The productivity, wellbeing and culture findings have a post of their own.
One thing to hold onto throughout: the survey did not find that everyone wants to work from home. It found that people value having the choice. That distinction runs through every hiring result below.
Does the number of office days affect applications?
Yes, and the effect is strongest at the top end. Companies requiring staff in the office four or five days a week were the most likely to report a fall in applications: 30% of them said so. At the other end, more than half of the companies with no mandatory office days reported an increase. In between, three days a week was where the drop began. Companies mandating three or more days were the group most likely to report fewer applicants.
Hours mattered as well as days. Fixed hours on top of a full-time office requirement made the drop in applications worse. Flexibility around core hours pushed the other way.
Do candidates turn offers down over working policy?
They do, and it is the expensive place to lose them. Offer acceptances fell where companies required three to five days in the office and where hours were fixed. Among companies mandating four or five days, 20% reported fewer acceptances, while more than half of those with no mandatory days reported more.
A large proportion of companies could not say what effect their policy had on acceptances at all. That is a finding in itself, and we come back to it below.
By the time someone declines an offer you have paid for the advert, the screening, the interviews and the hiring manager's time, and the runner-up has often gone. A candidate who rules themselves out at the advert stage costs you nothing. So the advert is where the policy needs to be.
Does flexibility improve the quality of who you hire?
The middle ground did best. Most companies that mandated no office days or one day, combined with flexible working around core hours, reported an increase in the quality of their hires. The largest decreases in quality came from the two extremes: full-time in the office and fully remote.
So this is not a remote-good, office-bad result. Policies with some flexibility and some choice drew from a bigger and better pool. Policies with none, in either direction, drew from a smaller one. The report's own wording is that less flexible organisations are left to hire from a pool that is potentially lower in quality.
Which policies lose staff?
Retention gave the clearest result in the whole survey. Half of the companies mandating four or five office days reported a decrease in staff retention. So did 44% of companies with fixed hours. The report's conclusion is blunt: retention is hardest for the least flexible organisations, and they will need to offer other benefits to make up for the policy.
Hiring and keeping are the same problem viewed from two ends. A policy that puts candidates off at the advert is, a year later, the policy that has them looking at other adverts.
What to put in the job advert
The most practical advice in the report is also the simplest: state the working policy in the advert, in detail, rather than using the words "hybrid" or "flexible" on their own. Those words mean something different in every company, and candidates fill the gap with their own assumptions, which are usually more generous than the reality.
Say how many days a week are in the office. Say whether those days are fixed or chosen by the employee, and if fixed, which. Say whether hours are fixed, flexible around core hours, or fully flexible. Say whether the policy applies to everyone or is agreed individually. Then repeat it early in the process, at first contact, so nobody reaches offer stage with the wrong picture.
The survey found two-thirds of insurers let staff choose their office days and 43% offered flexibility around core hours. If that describes you, it is a selling point. Put it in the advert in words a candidate can picture, not as a policy label.
If you have to be office-based
Some roles need to be in the office, and some businesses want to be. The report does not tell those employers to change; it tells them to be deliberate. First, look at every role and ask which ones really need the fixed pattern, because the fewer people on a rigid contract, the smaller the hiring penalty. Second, where the pattern is non-negotiable, offset it with a package that is worth it: pay, benefits, development, a fast and well-run process. Third, remember the finding about choice. There are candidates who prefer the office. An honest advert reaches them, and an advert that hides the policy behind "hybrid" reaches the wrong people and loses them at offer.
Where policies were heading
When we asked about 2025, 19% of insurers expected their hybrid policy to become more restrictive, 5% expected it to become less restrictive, 55% expected no change and 21% did not know. Given everything above, a move towards more office days is a move that needs measuring: applications per advert, offer acceptance rate and twelve-month retention, split by working pattern, before and after. Most companies in the survey were not measuring any of it.
Where Vermelo comes in
An embedded recruitment team measures the things most employers guess at. Offer acceptance rate by working pattern, where in the process candidates drop out, and what the advert wording does to application numbers are the sort of figures our embedded teams report on as part of running the process. If you want to know what your policy is doing to your hiring, that is the place to start: embedded talent from Vermelo. For individual insurance hires where the working pattern is part of the brief, our sister company Gerrard White recruits across the sector.
Download the full UK Insurance Working Policy Report 2024, or talk to us about what your policy is doing to your hiring.
About the survey
The UK Insurance Working Policy Report 2024 is based on an online survey run by Vermelo between 1 and 31 May 2024, with organisations invited to take part by Insurance Times, Gerrard White and Vermelo. 116 companies completed it. Respondents were C-suite (17%), HR manager and above (46%) and operations manager and above (37%). Percentages are the share of companies reporting an increase or decrease under each policy. Insurance Times covered the findings when they were published: new research shows flexibility in working practices is vital in the insurance sector's war for talent.
Working policy and hiring, answered
Yes, and the hours pattern too. The clearest practical advice in the UK Insurance Working Policy Report 2024 is to specify office expectations in the advert: how many days, whether the days are fixed or chosen, and whether hours are fixed, core-hours flex or fully flexible. 'Hybrid' and 'flexible' mean something different in every company, and candidates fill the gap with their own assumptions. The survey found offer acceptances fell where three to five office days or fixed hours were required, and a candidate who discovers the real policy at offer stage is the most expensive one to lose. Better they rule themselves out at the advert.
By being clear about the policy, honest about who it suits, and generous elsewhere. The survey found not everyone wants hybrid or flexible working; what people value is the choice. So an office-based employer's pitch is to the candidates who prefer the office, made plainly. The report's advice for organisations that must keep full-time office or fixed hours is to review which roles really need it, then offset the policy with a stronger package: pay, benefits, development and a well-run process. Half of the companies mandating four or five office days reported a fall in retention, so the package has to work for keeping people as well as attracting them.
The middle ground did best. Most companies that mandated no office days or one day, combined with core-hours flex, reported an increase in the quality of their hires. The largest decreases in quality came from the two extremes: full-time in the office and fully remote. So the finding is not that remote beats office; it is that policies with some flexibility and choice draw from a bigger and better pool, and policies with none draw from a smaller one. The report's phrase is that less flexible organisations are left to hire from a pool that is potentially lower in quality.