Zurich International employees led an innovative mentoring initiative for Ramsey Grammar School students, fellow employees and the company’s customers and business partners recently.

The programme involved staff from the Isle of Man Business Park-based insurance and employee benefits provider working with UK training consultants Debate Mate, with support from island charity Junior Achievement Isle of Man (JA IoM).

Zurich employees volunteered to be mentors, and they invited customers and brokers to take part too.

Debate Mate brought all the mentors together and liaised with staff at the Ramsey secondary school to organise two virtual training sessions for the volunteers and a half-day initiative at the company’s Zurich House offices.

The programme is designed to bring together young students with professional volunteers, with the aim of building self-confidence and communication skills.

Students share their insights with professionals, while the professionals share their experience of the world of work and offer meaningful careers advice.

Speaking about the sessions, a spokesperson for the firm said: ‘This ‘reverse mentoring’ aspect is uniquely empowering for the students as they feel like they are contributing to the partnership and giving as much as they take, and it provides benefits to the adult professionals taking part too.’

A total of 15 Ramsey Grammar School students spent a half-day at Zurich House.

This followed two virtual training sessions with all the volunteer mentors.

The initiative brought together students from the northern secondary school with volunteers from Zurich on the Isle of Man, and some of Zurich’s customers and brokers in the island, comprising representatives from MAC Group, Chase Wealth Solutions, Barclays, LMS Partners and IQ-EQ who are also supporting the programme.

Zurich Isle of Man employees Stephanie Hatton, Breeshey Rough, Nicola Cain, Robert Kennish and Sophie Christian took part in the programme.

Stephanie said the Debate Mate initiative is a great example of meaningful social impact at its best, and added: ‘We were proud to join forces with Debate Mate and Junior Achievement Isle of Man for our first “Boardroom to Classroom” volunteering initiative at Zurich House.

‘Through interactive debates, real-world career conversations at Zurich House - plus a brilliant pitch activity around financial resilience - young people shared their skills and views with our volunteers.

‘In return, our volunteers offered an insight into the world of work. That’s an example of reverse mentoring magic in action.’

Zurich will be running another Debate Mate event in London later this year.

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