Employee benefits provider Personal Group has revamped its benefits package for its 250 UK-based employees.
Its enhanced package includes the introduction of private medical insurance as a core benefit, access to an employee loan scheme, and increased basic holiday allowance from 24 days a year to 25 days a year. Employees are now also awarded additional holiday, up to a total of 28 days per year, for service, and can purchase additional days up to a total of 30 days per year. The organisation will also give all staff Christmas Eve as an extra holiday day this year.
Personal Group has also enhanced maternity and paternity pay as part of its changes. It will increase pay for paternity leave from the statutory provision of the lower of £140.98 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings to two weeks of leave at full pay, which can be taken in one week blocks in the first year of the child’s life. Pay for maternity leave will increase from the statutory six weeks of leave at 90% of the employee’s average weekly earnings to two months on full pay.
The organisation has also amended its bereavement and emergency leave, dividing these into two separate policies. This means that Personal Group’s three-day emergency leave benefit no longer includes bereavement leave and can be used for emergency situations only. The newly separate bereavement leave entitles employees to up to two weeks of leave for the death of a spouse or child, one week for the death of a parent or sibling, and three days for the death of a close friend or relative, such as a grandparent, cousin or in-law.
Personal Group’s sales team was provided with upgraded cars and refresher driver safety training as part of its new benefits package.
The enhanced benefits provision will sit alongside Personal Group’s existing core benefits, which include worldwide travel insurance for staff and their families; salary sacrifice schemes for cars, bikes, home technology, parking and holiday purchase; retail discounts; gym membership; access to an employee assistance programme (EAP), and a non-contributory pension scheme. The organisation also funds volunteer trips to Africa twice a year without impacting on employees’ annual leave entitlement, matches employees’ personal fundraising up to £250, and enables employee to donate £100 to a charity of their choice every year.
Rebekah Tapping (pictured), HR director at Personal Group, said: “At Personal Group, we truly believe that our employees are our greatest asset, so we wanted to create a benefits package which was not just a box-ticking exercise, but would make a meaningful difference to our staff, their happiness and wellbeing, as well as benefit their wider family and friends. Many of the new benefits we have introduced in 2018 are around adding greater flexibility and recognition of changing family dynamics and to tackle some of the true issues affecting people in the workplace today.”