Nottingham City Council is to relaunch its benefits package in a bid to make staff feel valued and to recruit more employees from the local area.
The scheme, which will roll out in October, is intended to improve the image of the council as an employer and boost satisfaction among existing employees in order to boost customer service levels.
Helen Humphries, HR consultant, said: "We had feedback from employees that they didn’t feel valued and weren’t being recognised at work. We’re trying to change our employees’ thinking about us as an employer because we want them to feel better about working for the city and want them to feel valued as employees."
The package, which includes a voluntary benefits scheme run by P&MM, work-life balance policies and salary sacrifice arrangements on home computing schemes, bike loans and childcare vouchers, was shaped by employee preferences as well as some of the Council’s key initiatives for the city.
"Another aspect of the benefits package is the importance of sustainability to do with the green issue. Part of the council’s governance role is to promote public transport. Also, we’ve incorporated a sickness and healthy lifestyle as part of our ‘get Nottingham moving’ programme in [our benefits] Works Perks package and linked that to [the] offering we’re making for gym discounts."
Humphries hopes that this will have additional benefits for the organisation. "The ultimate aim of that is to improve attendance at work." As a public sector body, the Council had to achieve its aims on a budget and NIC savings via salary sacrifice have made the project cost-neutral.