The shoe repair organisation also felt it was important to avoid offering impersonal benefits.
These include a £25 cash award for expectant mothers to help them buy comfortable maternity clothes for work, as well as £25-worth of Mothercare vouchers for all new parents on the birth of a child.
The organisation also has benefits in place to celebrate an employee’s marriage, which people support advisor Laura Rowley will experience when she marries in 2015.
“When [an employee] gets married, they are given an extra weeks paid holiday and £100 to go towards their big day,” she says. “There is also a Mercedes our managing director and chairman use, which can be hired for free on the weekends if people want it for their wedding.”
Rowley adds that the organisation wanted to show its appreciation for staff by understanding what is important to them.
She says: “We didn’t want to offer something where people charge a card. Babies, birthdays and marriages are the key moments of life and should be celebrated.
“On 18th, 21st, 30th and other key birthdays, we send bottles of champagne to employees. Everybody also gets his or her birthday off, or the day before, or after to recover. It is more personal and one of those things where people think ‘isn’t that lovely’.”
