We offer our employees a wide range of benefits to reward them for the value that they bring to Battersea, to support them in their work, to help improve their health and wellbeing, and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Employee health and wellbeing is important to us and so we offer a healthcare cash plan free of charge to all employees, provided by Simply Health. This enables employees to claim 100% of the costs of everyday healthcare, such as dental treatment, eye tests, glasses, contact lenses, physiotherapy, chiropody, osteopath, chiropractor, health screening and much more, up to annual limits.
As a Battersea employee, you will have access to our employee assistance programme to all staff free of charge. It offers completely confidential and impartial support, information, and counselling service to staff on legal, financial, debt management and emotional issues.
To support the mental health and wellbeing of Battersea employees and volunteers, colleagues from across the charity have received accredited Mental Health First Aid training. Our Mental Health First Aiders act as a point of contact for employees or volunteers experiencing mental health issues or emotional distress. They provide non-judgemental support and reassurance, and can signpost to further help such as professional help or self-help strategies. Our Mental Health First Aiders also help us to promote a workplace culture where employees feel comfortable to discuss mental health issues openly and feel supported by their colleagues when they do so.
To support wellbeing and help employees avoid the flu, we’re really pleased to be able to offer all employees free flu vaccinations each year to help them stay healthy over the winter.
Employees who join the healthcare cash plan can get discounts of up to 20% off a range of independent and chain gyms, including Anytime Fitness, Virgin Active, the Gym group, Bannatyne, Places Leisure, Nuffield Health and Better Gym.
We provide life insurance for all our employees, which pays a lump sum equivalent to four times salary to beneficiaries in the case of death during employment at Battersea.
We provide free and confidential access to a bereavement helpline, which provides emotional support and practical guidance from qualified bereavement counsellors.
At Battersea we know that we achieve our ambitions through our people. We are committed to developing people and by investing in learning & development, enabling them to reach their full potential. Here are some of the ways we will support your development at Battersea:
We recognise the value that professional qualifications bring to particular jobs, so cover the cost of up to £450 a year for one professional membership fee of a recognised professional body, which is gained through a qualification and is an essential requirement in the person specification for the job.
Employees who have worked with us for five years or more can request six months unpaid sabbatical leave for personal or professional development, such as learning new skills or travel.
We know it can be expensive to travel to work, so we offer interest free season ticket loans of up to £6,000 to all employees after two months of employment with Battersea.
We offer a Cycle to Work Scheme to support your health and fitness. This enables you to save up to 40% of the cost of the purchase of a bike and safety equipment, up to a maximum value of £2,500, with the cost recovered from your salary over 12months.
We believe work life balance is important and so offer employees 28 days annual leave (pro-rata for part time employees and in the first year of employment), rising to 29 days after 5 years and 30 days after 10 years. This is in addition to eight days paid public holidays every year.
Battersea recognises and appreciates that employees are committed to delivering their work to meet the needs of our animals and the work of the Charity. To enable a good work life balance, in roles where this is appropriate, Battersea offers ad hoc flexible working in the office around our core office hours (10:00am – 4:00pm). Many of our employees work flexibly in different ways.
Battersea enhances paternity pay to two weeks full pay for employees who have worked for Battersea for more than 12 months by the time their baby is born or child is adopted.
Battersea enhances maternity and adoption pay to full pay for the first 12 weeks of maternity/adoption leave for employees who have worked with Battersea for more than 12 months by the time their baby is born or child is adopted.
We provide a group personal pension scheme with generous employer contributions to all members or employees. Our standard contribution rate is 2.67% employees contribution, 5.33% employer contribution and employees can choose to increase their contribution rates and so benefit from a higher employer contribution of up to 10%. Because the GPP pension scheme is a salary sacrifice scheme, Battersea will also invest approximately 50% of the savings it makes on Employer National Insurance Contributions into your pension plan.
The contribution levels are as follows:
| Employee contribution | Battersea contribution |
|---|---|
| 2.67% | 5.33% |
| 3% | 6.20% |
| 5% | 10.3% |
Example of monthly pension contributions for salary of £22,000:
| Employee contribution | Battersea pension contribution |
|---|---|
| 2.67% = £48.95 | 5.33% = £97.72 |
| 3% = £55.00 | 6.20% = £113.67 |
| 5% = £91.67 | 10.3% = £188.83 |
We provide cost price veterinary treatment for employees with dogs and cats which they have rehomed from Battersea.
We offer employees a 20% discount off the cost of Petplan insurance.
We offer our employees a 25% discount in our shops and online shop.