SJ Berwin adds car hire and enhances life assurance in flexible benefits relaunch

Law firm SJ Berwin has introduced a car hire scheme through Zipcar and enhanced its life assurance coverage as it relaunches its one-year-old flexible benefits scheme.

The car hire scheme, available via a salary sacrifice arrangement, offers employees a range of low-emission cars on a pay-as-you-go basis, with hire periods ranging from one hour to a week at a time.

It was introduced as a lifestyle benefit to appeal to the firm’s younger trainee employees. The firm, which has 550 staff in London, has a wide employee demographic, ranging from trainees to high-earners.

Peter Roberts, HR operations manager at SJ Berwin, said: “We added Zipcar to give us something similar to the computer scheme, which is a lifestyle benefit that might attract employees to the site. We have a lot of staff that work and live in London, and we thought it would appeal to them.”

SJ Berwin has also enhanced its life assurance scheme from four-times salary to 10-times salary.

The online flex scheme, which was launched in June 2011 with provider Bluefin, includes a group personal pension (GPP) plan, life assurance, private medical insurance (PMI), a health cash plan, childcare vouchers, bikes for work, dental insurance, health screening, travel insurance, holiday trading (up to three days), a computer scheme and a Zipcar scheme.

“The real driver for the new benefits was to give employees a real reason to re-engage with the scheme,” said Roberts. “We didn’t want them to think that last year’s launch was it.”

Read more about flexible benefits schemes