Benefits
We feel it's vital that our people are well rewarded. So when you say yes to a job at First, we’ll give you access to a highly competitive total reward package that’s proven to attract, motivate and retain the best people. We’re constantly reviewing the details of the package to make sure it’s got everything our people want in a benefits scheme, but the things you'll be able to enjoy currently include:
Additional benefits
Pay – We regularly check our salaries against other companies to make sure we’re competitive and keeping up with changes in the market. We’ll also review your basic pay every year, plus we offer extra performance rewards to recognise individual achievements.
Employee discount – You’ll get 20% discount on all in-store and online purchases. Some exclusions do apply but there’s no limit on the amount of goods you can buy with discount. What’s more, we’ll give a partner or family member who permanently lives with you the discount too!
Holidays – You are entitled to a minimum of 28 days’ statutory holiday per year. Obviously, if you work part-time this will be pro-rated.
Bonus – When we do well financially, we want our people to feel the benefit too. So we have a number of discretionary bonus schemes on offer that reward our employees for helping us to reach our goals.
Salary Sacrifice – Join one of our Salary Sacrifice schemes, covering childcare vouchers, holiday buying, car leasing and cycle to work and you could save money on tax and National Insurance.
Charity Volunteer Day – When you join, you’ll have the opportunity to volunteer for one day at a charity of your choice.
Lifestyle and Community
We recognise that, whatever job you do or whatever level you're at, you need to strike a balance between your work, home and community life.
- We offer a range of options for flexible working, be it part-time work, job sharing or term-time working. We also offer support for staff wishing to study or to take a complete break with our career break scheme of up to nine months’ unpaid leave.
- Supporting Parents - We recognise the importance of family and the need to support working parents in ways that help them balance their work and family lives. We want to ensure that both current and new mums and dads get all the help and support they need.
We give time off for antenatal, midwife, health visitor and parent craft classes as well as maternity pay and leave.
We believe that adoptive parents should have the same support as biological parents. We offer comparable adoption leave and pay within a policy specially designed for adoptive parents, including extra support leading up to the adoption.
We also offer paid time off for staff undergoing IVF treatment and for staff undergoing assessment as prospective foster parents. When the baby arrives, we offer two weeks paid paternity leave to all dads/partners. Parents can then take parental leave of up to 18 weeks’ unpaid leave per child up to the age of five years.
Supporting carers - With one in 6 people in the UK now having some form of caring responsibility, we understand the need to support staff who need to balance their caring and working commitments. Employees with 2 years' continuous service may request up to 9 months' unpaid career leave, for example to travel, carry out voluntary work, or cope with caring responsibilities.
Any decision is at the discretion of the line manager, and will be based on operational needs as well as the employee’s performance, attendance and conduct record. An employee wishing to take 3 months or more career leave should request this type of leave 3 months prior to the desired start date. Employment will be regarded as continuous for the purposes of this leave and benefits. - Supporting the community plays a big part in most of our lives, whether we are supporting schools, health services, charities or local action groups. We have always had a good relationship with the wider community from where we draw our staff and our customers.
The company supports its employees in lots of ways, including when they are on jury service or acting as a school governor or Justice of the Peace. For ex-service men or women and those who belong to the Armed Forces Volunteer Service we offer a week’s paid leave to go on annual training exercises, and for staff wishing to become candidates for any UK or European parliament or assembly, we offer a break of up to 5 years. We’re always happy to discuss individual requirements for other types of public duties such as local authority, prison or other custodial duties. We want to help staff play their part.
This has been a great opportunity for people to flex their leadership skills and take oroln es that they may not normally have in their day-to-day work.
