Wellbeing at Work

We care about your wellbeing, both at work and at home and offer a range of benefits and support to enable you to balance the demands of life and work. We have a range of wellbeing initiatives throughout the year and these include free flu jabs for staff who are in regular contact with vulnerable members of the public, health check-ups and themed events to support national events such as "no-smoking week".

Flexible working

Flexible working covers a range of people whose circumstances vary and can help you if you have caring responsibilities, making it possible for you to return to work and resume a career or allow you to combine paid work with an outside interest. Flexible working allows you to achieve a better balance between your work life and your other responsibilities.

Many of the jobs we offer are covered by our flexi-time scheme, which allows you to be flexible about the hours you start and finish work, as well as flexibility throughout the working day.

Supportive Leave

We recognise there are times when you may need extra time off work and we offer a range of supportive leave options. Sometimes these are dependant on length of service.

Working Parents

We know it can be a challenge to juggle the competing demands of work life and family life and we want to make sure that you get all the help and support you need.

We offer Maternity, Paternity and Parental Leave
Adoption Leave: We recognise that adoptive parents have the same responsibilities and duties as biological parents and our policies reflect this.
Breastfeeding: We actively support breastfeeding mum's returning to work, and we ensure that mum gets the time and facilities to continue feeding.

Compassionate Leave

We know that there may be people outside of work who depend on you, perhaps you have caring responsibilities, and that there are times when these commitments need to take priority. We offer limited paid leave in order to give you time to fulfil your short-term caring responsibilities.

Emergency Leave

Sometimes unexpected emergencies arise, which mean that you need some time off work. You might find that you have to deal with an emergency as a carer for which you need to be absent from work and we will allow you to take a reasonable amount of unpaid leave to deal with these emergencies.

Workbreak

You may need to have a longer break from work - perhaps because of caring obligations or because you have another interest you want to dedicate some time to. We recognise the benefits of retaining an experienced workforce and have introduced the workbreak scheme to encourage our staff to stay with us. The scheme allows for a complete break from work for up to twelve months without needing to resign unless you subsequently decide not to return at the end of that period. At the end of the workbreak you will be able to return to a job which is both suitable and appropriate which may, where circumstances permit, include your former post.

Job Sharing

You'd like a job, but perhaps aren't looking for full-time employment. As well as many part-time vacancies, we also offer the option of job sharing. In principle, almost any job can be shared successfully. By Job Sharing two people can share one full-time job and work permanently part-time. Job sharing allows you to enjoy the benefits of a full-time post including salary and annual leave (pro rata), sick pay, maternity leave and pension rights and to balance the your career with other responsibilities and activities. If you would like to job share, please tell us when you apply.

Counselling Service

We know there may be times when you need some extra help and support. We operate a counselling service, which is available for all of our employees, and can offer help with overcoming difficulties faced either at work or in your personal life.

Supportive Groups

Employee networks have been encouraged to develop throughout the organisation, which provide forums for mutual support, and make valuable contributions to the development of our working practices and policies.

These groups include the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Group, the Black and Minority Ethnic Workers Support and Development Group and the Workers with a Disability Support Group.

Last Modified: 19/03/2008 10:42:15
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