Health benefits for investment and trading teams

What market pressure does to the body

Pressure on a trading floor can be measured in the body. A study that sampled hormones from traders on a London trading floor, under real working conditions, found that their cortisol rose with both the variance of their trading results and the volatility of the market [1].

A later trial raised cortisol in volunteers over eight days to the levels seen in traders, and found that they became more averse to risk [2]. The authors concluded that risk preferences are highly dynamic. For a fund, the health of the people taking decisions is part of the quality of the decisions themselves.

Long hours and the people who lead funds

Long hours carry a measured risk to the heart and brain. The World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization estimate that working 55 hours or more a week, compared with 35 to 40 hours, is linked to a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from ischaemic heart disease [3].

Leaders feel the load most. A global workplace survey found 46% of leaders reporting a lot of stress the previous day, 7 points more than individual contributors [4]. In Great Britain, workload is the main cause people give for work-related stress, depression or anxiety, and professional occupations report it at a rate of 2,730 cases per 100,000 workers [5].

These figures describe populations, and the useful response for a partner or portfolio manager is a yearly review of their own measurements with the same physician, and a doctor they can reach the day something changes.

Deal travel and investor roadshows

Deal teams and investor relations people spend weeks on the road each year. In a study of the medical records of 13,057 people, those who travelled for work more than 20 nights a month were 2.61 times as likely to rate their own health as fair or poor as those who travelled less [6].

For a partner moving between London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore in a fortnight, the practical answer is a doctor in each city who can see them the same day and a record that travels with them. A concierge who already knows the person turns a fever in a hotel room into an appointment before the next meeting.

Care in the cities where funds and trading desks cluster

Funds gather in a handful of cities, and our 13 cities include the centres where most of them keep desks and offices. Many funds run their largest teams in London and New York, and many have opened offices in Miami, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong to sit closer to their investors.

Trading hours follow the markets. A trader in Singapore who finishes as London opens, or a London desk that stays late for New York, needs a doctor at an hour that suits their day. Founders and partners who live in Monaco use the same membership at home that their teams use in the office.

Many funds have small teams spread across several cities, which makes a separate national plan in each one hard to buy and harder to run. One membership works the same way for a team of a few people in Dubai and a full desk in London, priced per person with a quote.

As the fund grows, new people join the same membership in whichever city they sit, and the firm keeps one invoice and one renewal date.

Confidential mental health care for people under pressure

In a business built on judgement, people are careful about who knows what about their health. Care arranged by a concierge the person contacts directly, outside the firm’s own systems, lets a portfolio manager see a psychiatrist or psychologist without anyone at the fund knowing who asked.

The firm sees how the membership is used across the whole team, with small groups left out, and never who used it. Privacy of that kind makes it easier for people to ask for help early.

A checklist for a fund choosing health benefits

Ask these questions of any partner you consider, ourselves included.

• Can a trader or portfolio manager see a doctor the same day, at an hour that suits the markets they cover?
• Does the same physician review each partner’s health from one year to the next?
• Does care follow people from one of the fund’s offices to the next?
• Can a person reach mental health care directly, without going through the firm?
• Are families covered by the same arrangement and the same concierge?
• Does the firm see anonymised reporting only, with small groups left out?

What The Wellness for teams gives a fund

The Wellness for teams is one membership for the whole firm, with partners and their families included, and it holds inpatient and outpatient care, dental care, diagnostics and health programmes in 13 cities. A concierge arranges everything, and the firm receives one invoice, renewed once a year. Outside the United States it takes the place of national plans at renewal, and in the United States it is the global layer above the medical plan.

The firm sees anonymised reporting only, with small groups left out, under a data processing agreement. Leaders can start in one morning and the whole firm within 10 days. Nobody is refused care, and care beyond the plan is billed at the published fee. Our doctors are registered with the General Medical Council, and care is delivered through registered partner clinics and accredited laboratories.