JP Morgan has extended several of the benefits offered via its flexible benefits scheme to cover employees’ parents.
Its Family Homecare scheme, which is provided by Allianz Global Assistance, has been available its its 14,500 UK employees and their partners for two years. It has now been extended to cover employees’ parents and parents in law should an unforeseen accident, operation or illness occur.
The benefit, which staff can take up at the same rate as for themselves is Employees offered via the bank’s flexible benefits portal Elements.
There is also no maximum age limit up to which parents can be covered.
Services offered through the Family Homecare scheme include: personal assistance and help getting dressed; domestic assistance and help with household duties; ironing, laundry and shopping; preparation of meals; assistance getting in and out of bed and travel home from hospital.
JP Morgan has also extended dental cover and health screening benefits to cover employees’ parents.
It is currently in the process of communicating this year’s enrolmement window for its flexible benefits scheme via roadshows, which will take place between 18 February and 3 March in London, Bournemouth, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
When logging onto the Elements site, each employee will see location-orientated images. For instance, employees based in London will see the website with London CGI images, likewise for Bournemouth, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Each benefits area is also represented by an animal (pictured). For example, flexible enrolment is represented by a meerkat, health by an owl, money by an elephant, protection by a fox, lifestyle benefits by a donkey and the new parental section of the scheme by a hedgehog.
JP Morgan will give away teddy bears of each of the animals at the promotional roadshows for the scheme.
Adam Brooke, employee benefits and wellness manager (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), at JP Morgan said: “We found that eldercare really resonates with our diverse workforce.
“We wanted to acknowledge the requests from employees to widen the benefit offerings to the wider family, particularly parents, and have therefore introduced a number of specific parental benefits for 2015.
“Our regional head of HR sent an email to all staff informing them of our new eldercare cover, and now all employees will be receiving a personalised mini guide to their home address, outlining what is offered.
“If these new benefits prove popular with employees, we will look to further expand the offering.
“We hope take-up will be between 5 and 10%, because over the last few years eldercare has been an area that has grown immensely.”
