Swiss Re will close its Melbourne office early next year and transfer all client management and facultative underwriting positions to Sydney. The move will mean 10 roles will be relocated to Sydney and six positions will be made redundant.

Keith Scott, Swiss Re’s Business Unit Head for Australia and New Zealand, says clients’ business is best served out of a centralised management structure. “By consolidating our operations in Sydney we bring all our people together in one location to increase knowledge and ideas sharing,” he said. “This will deliver improved and focused services to all our clients.”

The relocations and redundancies come at an embarrassing time for Swiss Re – it’s just been named as one of Australia and NZ’s best employers by a study conducted by Hewitt Associates, in partnership with the Australian Graduate School of Management and the Australian Financial Review’s Boss magazine.

The study covered 160 organisations and 40,000 employees across the region.

Swiss Re has participated in the study since 2003 and was named a “best employer” last year. This year it was awarded a “special commendation for consistent improvement”.

The company’s Head of Human Resources, Kerry Baxter, says the insurance industry has traditionally struggled to attract and retain top new talent.

“It’s not generally seen as an exciting employment prospect,” she said. “We hope we can dispel some of the old myths about the industry through this achievement and create an awareness that reinsurers are employers of choice.”