Leek Building Society has a very clear purpose and a fundamental part of that is to make a positive difference to the lives of its staff. Driven by this purpose, and in recognition of the cost-of-living crisis, Leek Building Society has taken several steps to promote workplace financial wellbeing, namely:
- launching a workplace saving scheme which included a financial incentive to promote savings habits for lower earners.
- awarding a lump sum cost-of-living payment to all staff.
- maintaining their commitment to pay the voluntary real living wage. In November 2022, they implemented the increase that was announced by the Living Wage Foundation in September and backdated it to 1 January 2022 – going far beyond what was required.
- providing staff with a general pay rise in November 2022 and backdating it to the start of 2022, giving colleagues a welcome lump sum at a time when bills were really starting to rise. The pay rise was tiered with lower earners receiving a higher percentage increase.
- increasing the employer’s contribution to the workplace pension scheme to 7.5%
- improving pay rates for sickness, maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave.
- providing additional support to staff facing challenges linked to increased cost of living.
- introducing free health screening for all employees.
- introducing Grandparent Leave, providing paid time off for staff to support their family following the birth of a grandchild.
Workplace savings: Stark data indicated that going into lockdown 11 million people were non-savers including 7.5 million workers. When that was overlayed with the fact that people with money worries are 5 times more likely to be depressed and 9 times more likely to have sleepless nights, Leek Building Society decided to do something to help their staff develop savings habits that would help combat these statistics. In June 2022, the Society launched a savings plan via payroll deductions, with no minimum payment needed, and a financial incentive for lower earners. When an employee who was eligible for the incentive had contributed into their savings account for six consecutive months, the Society then credited their instant access savings accounts with £100, irrespective of how much they had paid in. The Society put this incentive in place to really support lower earners given they were more likely to be in the cohort of non-savers mentioned above and would therefore help them to have savings available for an unexpected financial emergency.
Cost-of-living payment: to support their staff through the cost-of-living crisis, the Society awarded a £1,600 supplement to all workers (prorated for part-timers).
Living Wage: The Society signed up to the Living Wage Foundation’s (LWF) Living Wage at the end of 2021. In September 2022, following the LWF’s announcement of the new rates for the voluntary Living Wage, the Society not only implemented the increase in November, but also back dated it to the start of 2022. While the Society didn’t have to do this, they felt that it was the right thing to do for their lower paid staff.
2022 pay rise: the Society focused its pay rise on the lowest earners. Those on the Real Living Wage received the highest increase in percentage terms, followed by low earners; then middle earners and then the highest earners. All these changes were made in November 2022, again backdated to the start of the year.
Increasing the employer pension contribution: In December 2021, the employer uplifted its pension contribution from 6% to 7.5%, without requiring any increase in the minimum contribution required from staff, which remains at 3%.
Enhanced occupational sick pay scheme: previously, staff received one month’s full pay if they were off sick, but in December 2021 this was increased to six months for those with serious health conditions.
Improved maternity, paternity adoption and shared parental leave pay: maternity and adoption pay has increased from the statutory levels to three months on full pay, three months on half pay and the rest on SMP. Paternity leave is now 2 weeks of full pay in addition to 2 weeks of statutory.
To find out more about why Leek Building Society made these recent changes, we spoke to Rob Longmore, HR Director, and Lizzie Hall, Head of HR.