Zurich Workplace Solutions (ZWS) has confirmed that the majority of companies based in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) signed up to the mandatory Employee Workplace Solutions (Dews) programme by the extended 30 April deadline.
The scheme administrator for Dews, which is a subsidiary of Zurich International Life, said that 1,100 DIFC-based companies were onboarded as of the end of last month.
This represents 85% of all eligible organisations.
Of the 1,100 enroled, 750 have made the gratuity contributions for their employees into the plan, with the remaining due to complete the requirements shortly
Over 16,000 employees have been onboarded and can now access their Dews member portal to view and manage their contributions.
Details
The end-of-service benefits scheme for expatriate workers was introduced within the DIFC to restructure the current employee defined benefit (DB) scheme into a defined contribution (DC) plan that is aligned with international standards.
It officially launched on the 1 of February 2020 with an initial enrolment deadline of 21 April 2020.
There was a last minute rush for enrolment with over 200 companies enroling in the last week of April, while around 350 companies missed the contribution deadline.
Under the DIFC employment law, eligible employers that fail to comply with the deadline could receive a financial penalty of $2,000 (£1,616, €1,853) per employee per breach.
Formalities
Reena Vivek, senior executive officer of ZWS, said: “We have been working closely with organisations and helping them with enrolment and contribution payments.
“In the last week alone, the ZWS team has responded to over 2,500 calls and live chats, and in excess of 4,000 emails.
“We have been coordinating closely with the DIFC and the trustees [Equiom], to help smaller companies who have made significant efforts to comply but have been unable to enrol in time due to factors outside their control.
“A number of these organisations will complete the remaining formalities in the next few days.“
Next steps
For ZWS, it is focusing on supporting employers with ongoing monthly contributions, and additionally helping them setup processes to support employees who wish to make voluntary contributions or transfer accrued gratuity into the Dews plan.
Under a recent directive issued by the DIFC, employees have the benefit of end-of-service-gratuity payment protection if salaries are reduced after 1 March 2020 and if they choose to transfer any accrued gratuity into the Dews Plan.
ZWS will also be helping over 16,000 employees, who are now members of the Dews plan, understand the scheme and its benefits, and assist them with any ongoing support requirements.
Vivek added: “We remain committed to continuing to support the DIFC employer and employee community on their Dews journey and are dedicated to continuously enhancing the support we provide.
“In fact, we are currently working on a number of enhancements to our digital platform to improve the user experience and expect this to be available in the near future.”
