News
18 October 2021
WDP launches new and improved employee benefits package
We are delighted to announce the launch of a new and exciting benefits package for our workforce.
We know that the work our people do is challenging, complex and important. We exist to support individuals, families, and communities to make significant changes – that’s not an easy thing to do but it is a huge privilege to be part of.
Putting in place new conditions and benefits that support a happy, healthy, and impactful workforce will help us to continue to make a significant and positive difference. We don’t underestimate the importance of this and have introduced a new suite of terms and conditions that respond to the diverse and changing needs of our teams.
Earlier this year, we carried out an extensive consultation with our staff. We listened to their feedback, and it is reflected in our new offer. As well as gathering feedback from our people, we also undertook research and benchmarking work, in our sector and beyond, to ensure we pushed and challenged ourselves. This benchmarking is something that we will be doing every two years from now on. It means that our pay and reward offer should be sector leading and support us to attract and retain the very best people.
Some examples of the new benefits include:
- Annual leave of 30 days, from start of employment, increasing to 33 days over time.
- Sick leave of 6 months full pay, then 6 months half pay, from start of employment.
- An additional day’s leave for the following important life events: birthday, getting married, moving house, and child’s first day of school.
- Maternity leave (including shared maternity leave) of 8 weeks full pay, 8 weeks half pay, then statutory.
- Paternity leave of 3 weeks full pay, 1 week half pay.
- Other support we will be offering our staff includes leave for: IVF (both partners eligible), adoption (replicates maternity leave), gender transition, dependents, compassionate, miscarriage (both partners eligible) and domestic abuse.
Anna Whitton, Chief Executive Officer said: “We spent a great deal of time thinking about the diverse needs of our current and future workforce, the important times in people’s lives, and how we recognise the hard and important work that they do. These new benefits respond more effectively to the individual needs of our staff. We feel that this will not only help us to become more effective and productive, but it will also support our journey towards becoming a truly inclusive employer.”
Yasmin Batliwala, Chair said: “The Board of Trustees and I were extremely impressed with the forward-thinking pay and reward proposals put forward by the WDP senior management team. We were very happy to put our support behind this new suite of benefits and think that they will champion our ambitions to attract, retain, and develop a sector-leading workforce.”
Read more about the full range of benefits available – including health and wellbeing initiatives, financial perks and support, and recognition and development opportunities – in our Benefits Package area.