Retailer Jollyes has introduced improved range of employee benefits and support measures.
The company, which trades from 109 stores across the UK and has over 1,250 colleagues, has significantly upgraded its parental leave policies as part of its ambition to be one of the best employers in UK retail.
Starting next month, Jollyes’ employees will be entitled to enhanced paid maternity leave of six months, up from six weeks, while paid paternity leave will double to four weeks, up from two weeks. The retailer has also introduced fertility leave of two days per cycle for employees undergoing IVF treatment, as well as neonatal leave and baby loss leave.
Jollyes people director Claire Goldenberg said: “The early response from Jollyes employees to our enhanced parental policies has been fantastic – with the introduction of baby loss leave particularly striking a chord.
“As a working mum myself, it was very important to me that Jollyes parental policies stood alongside the best in the industry.
“We are committed to our goal of being one of the best employers in retail. That’s why we wanted to ensure our parental policies was one of many reasons our people would want to build a long-term career with us – not the other way round.”
Jollyes has also created partnerships with external organisations to improve its people benefits and hiring practices.
The retailer has teamed up with a number of organisations to help broaden the range of people who have the chance to build a career – including over-50’s recruitment platform Rest Less, and Fair Chance Business Alliance, which specialises on securing roles for people with criminal records – and has also pledged to guarantee any ex-servicemen and women who apply for a role an interview through a new partnership with the Armed Forces Covenant.
Jollyes has also partnered with The Retail Trust to launch its ‘Happiness Dashboard’, which provides personalised tips and tools to help employees ‘find their happy’ at work. Jollyes will also receive anonymised data from colleagues who complete a short survey.
In addition, the retailer has teamed up with financial wellbeing app WageStream to enable employees to financially plan, see upcoming payments ahead of time and draw payments in advance when necessary.
Goldenberg added: “We appreciate that the stretch between December and January payday can be a real pinch point for many people’s finances, which was why partnering with WageStream at this time of year was particularly important for us.
“We hope this partnership will help give our incredible people that extra bit of peace of mind over the Christmas period, and in the months to come.”
