Rewards and Benefits
- Rewards and Benefits
At Leicester College, we aim to attract and retain exceptional staff. We like to support our staff which includes a robust pension plan, ensuring financial stability and future security for our employees. Additionally, we offer a generous annual leave entitlement, allowing staff ample time for rest and personal pursuits. Our family-friendly working practices support a healthy work-life balance, accommodating the diverse needs of our workforce. We are also deeply committed to professional growth, offering excellent training and development opportunities that empower our staff to enhance their skills and advance their careers. Furthermore, our supportive and inclusive work environment promotes well-being and fosters a strong sense of community, making Leicester College not just a place to work, but a place to thrive.
All staff have a generous annual leave entitlement of 29 days for support staff, 47 days for lecturers and 38 days for management grades. This is in addition to 8 Bank Holidays and 4 discretionary days per year.
We employ people on a variety of contracts, full and part-time and term-time, with a wide range of working hours and patterns. Some of our roles are hybrid and split between home and office. If the role you are interested in is a hybrid role this will be mentioned in the recruitment advert.
The College also has a range of policies to support individuals in managing their work-life balance.
Our employees have access to either the Local Government or the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, depending on their role.
Both are recognised as excellent career average pension schemes with a range of benefits and are funded by both employee and generous employer contributions.
All employees have access to our exclusive platform, Leicester College Benefits and Rewards.
This gives us access to savings with over 800 retailers from big names to lesser-known brands. The discounts are awarded on top of any sale that might already be offered by the retailer.
For example, when Currys have their sale of up to 30% for everyone, Leicester College staff, when they purchase a Currys voucher through the scheme, can save approx. 7% more on top of the sale price.
You can also save on your weekly shop for example at ASDA, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. There are also other great savings to be made and these include eating out, entertainment, fashion, holidays or furnishing your home.
Supporting sustainable travel is a priority for the College in achieving its Net Zero target and employees have access to:
Dr Bike – free bicycle MOTs 3 times a year;
Smartgo Green Travel discount hub for public transport. Staff use this hub to benefit from reduced fares, for example from the bus companies in Leicester;
Salary Sacrifice scheme for staff for purchasing bikes via Halfords.
We have on-site nurseries at Freemen’s Park Campus and Abbey Park Campus. They have been graded as ‘Good’ by Ofsted.
Employees may be able to obtain nursery places for their children depending on availability.
We support all our employees to learn and develop in their work at the College. This might be through formal training sessions or opportunities to develop e.g. through our Development Days, wellbeing activities or using the wealth of on-line modules available. We also support our staff in gaining professional teaching and managerial qualifications.
Leicester College provides employees with online and telephone based advice, counselling and support at any time of the day or night via our Employee Assistance Programme. This includes:
Counselling sessions to support your emotional and mental wellbeing;
Advice and guidance on legal issues such as domestic problems, divorce and personal injury;
Financial advice on debt management, pensions and budgeting.
We care about the health and wellbeing of our staff and work hard to ensure the College is a place where staff feel happy and supported when they need it. This might be practical support such as counselling or helping staff to come together by building a sense of community e.g. through staff networks and events.
We have a broad definition of wellbeing incorporating not just mental and physical health but also the difficult issues that can affect our lives such as domestic abuse and menopause. We proactively raise awareness of important wellbeing issues with regular wellbeing newsletters and signpost to places we trust to provide information and advice through our Wellbeing Hub.
Employees who are identified as VDU users can obtain a voucher for an eye test at Specsavers at regular intervals and a contribution will be made towards glasses specifically for VDU use.
Leicester College employees can take advantage of Office 365, which entitles them to download the full version of Microsoft Office for FREE with 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage.
As an employee of Leicester College you can purchase an NUS TOTUM card, which you can then use to obtain student discount in a wide variety of places. To purchase a card you need to apply as a student via the application form using your Leicester College email address available at: www.nus.org.uk/en/nus-extra.
Our fully equipped hair and beauty therapy salons at Freemen’s Park Campus provide the same quality services and fantastic experience as a high street salon – but at a fraction of the price. We can offer amazing discounts compared with other salons because the staff are our learners still in training. However you don’t need to worry about out stylists and beauticians competence as they are always fully supervised by our knowledgeable lecturing staff, who are fully experienced professionals in their industry, with many years of experience.
There are numerous places to enjoy a bite to eat at the College. From a quick snack to a fine dining experience, the choice is yours.
Food Inc. are our campus refectories. They are a great place for students and staff to enjoy a break with friends and colleagues. Food Inc. serves breakfast, lunch, snacks, and beverages throughout the day.
Zest Café is a fabulous café which is staffed and run by our hospitality and catering students and staff at Freemen’s Park Campus. The café is a hidden gem at this campus, situated on the second floor and offering students and staff a variety of snacks and light bites, from chili topped nachos, freshly filled wraps to homemade cakes and biscuits, at a very reasonable cost.
Taste restaurant
Freemen’s Park Campus also features our Taste, our fine dining restaurant. Taste is fully catered and staffed by our food and hospitality students – always under the watchful eye of our industry-experienced lecturing staff, of course.
Our talented up-and-coming chefs promise to cook gourmet delights, whilst our front of house team offer impeccable customer service. The restaurant is also fully licensed. Taste has received some wonderful reviews, which you can read on the Trip Advisor website.
We support employees in terms of maternity/paternity/adoption/shared parental leave and pay including offering additional occupational pay in the case of maternity leave.