Benefits and perks

As an employee, you will enjoy a range of benefits, including options to make sure you have a good work life balance.

It is important to us to encourage and recognise all of our employees’ efforts and commitment. Employees who have gone above and beyond can be nominated for a ‘Pride Award’.

Employee contribution to local government service is recognised through our Long Service Award scheme.

The local government pension scheme (LGPS) is a secure pension when you retire - you’ll get a pension for life that increases with the cost of living. Your benefits are guaranteed and are not affected by the amount of money in the fund or how it is invested.

We share the cost and pay contributions to your pension too (about twice what you pay). There are no hidden management fees or charges, you simply pay a percentage of your salary.

Salary Finance is an employee benefit to help improve financial wellbeing and happiness in the workplace, with exclusive benefits for employees.

It offers access to free financial education and insights, and affordable loans which you can repay straight from your salary.

You start with 25 days leave a year. After 5 years working with us this will increase to 30 days per year. Also, you’ll get 8 paid bank holidays and an extra paid day at Christmas.

In addition, you can purchase 3 – 10 additional days leave per year. For a special long holiday, wedding or just to spend more time relaxing.

There’s more! There are options for study leave, special leave, flexi leave, compassionate leave, leave for public duties, reservists and special constables.

Flexible working enables employees to harmoniously combine their working lives with their personal lives and responsibilities.

Our flexi-time scheme is one of a number of schemes that support flexible and contemporary ways of working.

Options include: Part-time working, job-share or compressed hours, remote working and others.

We offer more generous maternity, paternity, and adoption leave than the statutory entitlement.

Our occupational scheme provides for the first 6 weeks of maternity/adoption leave at 90% of a week’s pay and if you return to work you are entitled to a further 12 weeks at half pay.

Paternity/adoption leave provides for 5 days paid leave around the time of the birth/placement.

There is also Foster Carer Leave and Dependants Care leave.

Our employees have access to numerous discounts and offers via our ‘MyLifestyle’ portal.

These include money off your weekly food shop, significant discounts at popular high street retailers, purchasing of cycling equipment tax efficiently, donating to charity tax efficiently, discounts off holidays and travel, sport and leisure, home and garden, and much more.

The council is in the First Commuter Travel Club, which gets you unlimited bus travel in your chosen zone - whether you’re travelling for work or leisure - you pay less compared to the cheapest monthly ticket available.

We work with ‘Cycle Solutions’ to provide a Cycle to Work scheme that allows employees to purchase a bike tax-efficiently through salary sacrifice.

All council staff can take advantage of discounted MOTs at our Broad Lane site, including free re-tests.

Sometimes looking after yourself is bottom of your ‘to do’ list. We want to make this easy for you, so we provide a range of benefits to help.

You will have access to mental health and wellbeing support, along with a wide range of social and fitness groups, an independent counselling service and workplace mental health champions. Read more on our social and wellbeing page.

We also offer free flu vaccines, free eye tests, membership discount with Active Lifestyle Centres and lots more.

We encourage our employees to develop whilst they are employed with us. This can mean anything from improving It skills, formal courses and qualifications, e-learning modules, one to one coaching and other learning resources.

Our aim is to provide a range of services to deliver the learning solutions you need.