Getty Images launches flexible benefits scheme

Getty%20ImagesGetty Images has launched a flexible benefits scheme to give staff greater flexibility around core benefits and make its package more visible.

The image provider’s new system works around a core benefits structure that includes: private medical insurance (PMI), income protection, critical illness cover, an employee assistance programme (EAP) and travel insurance. Its 460 employees, apart some senior managers, will initially receive the same core level of benefits.

Through flex, staff can then, however, trade their level of cover either up or down for each of these core benefits, although there are a couple of them, such as critical illness cover, that they cannot opt out of altogether. If they choose to trade down, they can then use the funds gained to purchase another benefit through the scheme. The funds remain within the flexible benefits system and there is no cash-back system in place.

Some of the options in the scheme have been introduced by the company for the first time. These include: dental insurance which can also cover dependants; tax-free bikes; health screening and buying or selling holiday.

Melissa Shield, compensation and benefits programme manager at Getty Images, said: “There aren’t too many benefits, we want to protect employees as well, so the socially responsible part of it is not allowing everyone to opt completely out of having benefits.

“So for example, they can opt out of PMI and then use those funds towards purchasing other benefits such as the bikes, childcare or health-screening. For the most part I think that before the benefits were hidden [and] they weren’t advertised or used during the hiring process, they just existed. Now they are very transparent, people know exactly what they have.”

The scheme was communicated using branded brochures, internal meetings and a benefits fair.