As Parliament advances the Employment Rights Bill, employers have already taken steps to improve employee benefits. This includes sick pay, paternity leaves, and family friendly provisions.
Incomes Data Research’s Maternity Leave, Paternity Leave, and Parental Pay Report shows that 62 percent provide two full weeks of pay for paternity leave, and 12 percent provide four full weeks.
Just 14 percent of organizations have increased parental leave. In the meantime, 36 percent have either improved their maternity pay policies or are contemplating doing so. The median occupational maternity payment is $19.5 weeks of pay across the entire economy.
Sick pay, pensions and holidays
The Employment Rights Bill proposes to remove the three-day wait period for sick pay and extend entitlement to lower-paid employees. Most employers exceed the statutory requirements. IDR’s Report on Sick Pay found that occupational sick pay is typically equivalent to 6.5 full weeks of pay in the first year after probation, and increases to 26 full weeks for employees with five years service.
Katherine Heffernan, IDR, says that there are significant differences between the sectors. “Those in the private sector are the worst off, receiving only 12 weeks of occupational sick pay at the end of five years. This compares to 39 weeks for those in the public sector.
Pension provision and holiday entitlement are also being examined. According to IDR’s Benefits Handbook the average employer contribution for defined contribution pension plans is 6.7 percent. This is more than twice the statutory minimum contribution of 3 percent. The average holiday entitlement for non-managerial employees is 32.2 days. This includes eight bank holidays. For managers, the average is 33.5 days.
According to Zest’s latest Report on Employee Benefits only 39 percent believe that their current benefits package is a good value. And almost six out of ten employees (56%) are willing to quit their current job for a better package.
