Financial services provider One Family offers a range of ISAs and life insurance products. The firm, which is a mutual, employs around 450 people across its offices in Brighton and Peterborough.
Alison Knocker, chief people officer, says: “When I joined in 2021, we needed to shake up the employee value proposition (EVP). We’d always had a caring culture, which we wanted to maintain, but we also needed to attract more people with a greater commercial background.”
To support the project, she brought in consultants Initial CX. They worked with the OneFamily executive team to gain insight into the organisation, but also spoke to employees to understand what they consider OneFamily values should be. “They developed the concept of ’invested’ to bring our values and purpose to life,” adds Knocker. “It applies in so many ways: we’re invested in our people and their wellbeing; our customers; innovation and technology.”
Alongside developing the Invested brand, Knocker also updated the firm’s policies to demonstrate its values. This included enhancing its parental leave arrangements, introducing a menopause policy and ensuring family-friendly hybrid and flexible working, including part-time and compressed hours. “We like our employees to come into the office at least two days a week but we asked each team to create a charter on the best working model for their role,” she adds. “This was very empowering.”
It has also set up three employee networks for ethnicity, neurodiversity and LGBTQ+. “It’s important these groups feel seen but it also educates other employees by helping them understand the issues,” she adds.
OneFamily also relaunched its reward package. As well as paying market rate, providing an enhanced pension scheme and volunteering opportunities, it also offers a health cash plan through Medicash and has introduced a wellbeing app, Help@Hand, offering everything from online GP and counselling to support with family and money issues. “We’re a mutual so we need to find ways to show we want our employees to thrive, without the budget of some of our competitors,” explains Knocker.
This focus on helping employees thrive means personal development is another key part of its proposition. It offers online learning opportunities but also has leadership and women specific development programmes to help it build talent from within.
