Best employee benefits/policy for working parents that you have/have heard of?

[pcboo]

I chatted to my friends and some companies offer things like;

1. free private medical insurance for the whole family.
2. A standalone16-week paid paternity leave (separately from shared parental leave).

Have you heard of any good employee benefits/policies for working parents?

We have 6 months full pay on Mat Leave. I've never heard of it anywhere else.

I had six months full pay twice- once in private sector once public.

As above; 6 months full pay on maternity leave. We also get 5 family days” a year. You can split them into 10 half days which is how the majority of us do it.
They’re paid and we can use them for things like sports days, nativities etc.
I work for a school which is part of a bigger trust and they’re absolutely brilliant. Great pension too.

We have several - my fave is our Bright Horizons partnership. I get 10 days back up childcare per year - either as a in-home nanny or through their nurseries. Apparently I can use it for tutors/adult care as well. I only pay £15 a day and the company covers the rest - absolute lifesaver!

Hmmmm best thing we have had from work

1. reduced nursery prices when I worked in the same place, sometimes she would even waive the fee if I came in short notice to cover . Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy the job
2. 10% off at the supermarket dh worked at
3. currently dh works driving buses , and the whole family have a free buss pass for 5 years . It’s saved my dd nearly £100 a month
4. I have worked in a school for the past decade- no perks as such but obviously I was off in the holidays when the kids were little which saved a lot of money.

My company has 6 months full pay maternity leave, and 8 weeks full pay paternity. They've also just introduced infertility benefit to pay for IVF (too late for me sadly!) as well as neurodiversity benefit, to pay for private SEN assessment.

My husband's company gives six months full pay for paternity as well as maternity, so we didn't have to rely on the government's shared leave scheme - we got to have six months off together with our baby, and then I had a further seven months off after he went back to work.

mine has…
-annual bonus and pay increase
-free family health insurance/dental insurance
-3months full pay for maternity/paternity.
-extra appointment leave when doing ivf/adoption etc
-highly subsidised canteen/free tea and coffee
-10 times payout of salary on death (for any reason)
-flexi time/wfh option
-social club with great benefits-highly discounted concerts/sports etc, Christmas parties for kids etc.

not the best but not the worst at all…

We live abroad but DH has 93% of pay for up to 12 months for parental leave (we are sharing so he will get six months full pay). 5 full days a year family related leave for any reason. Appointment leave for the children’s appointments, paid. Full health and dental benefits. Access to children’s and special needs therapy.

How do the family days work for single employees - can they just take the five days as additional holiday?

Six months full maternity pay.
Complete flexi working - choose my own hours which is a lifesaver around school pick up!
Highly subsidised nursery
Pride themselves on being family friendly so paid leave when kids are sick / sports day, nativity etc.

Medical and dental benefits
Discounts on loads of family days out

Company also has a partnership with a summer camp scheme so we get subsidised access 😊

Yes, a lot of the staff who don’t have children use them to go on holiday during term time. Either as a full working week off or by adding them on to the start or the end of school holidays.
I think it’s actually called personal leave on our contract but we just call them family days in our office as we all tend to use them for our DC events.

As well as 24 weeks fully paid mat leave a return to work benefit of £500/month of childcare paid for the first 12 months going back to work.

4 months full pay mat leave. Then 2 months 90% pay. You also get stat pay up to 12 months after the 90% ends.

I can buy an extra weeks leave and have for years.

All hospital appointment time outs are paid in full, we also get a lot of special leave.

Also someone mentioned 10x salary pay out upon death for anything in service. We have the same.

I had it with my previous public sector employer in 1997! Then you could have another 6 months unpaid….We had the best package in the country at that time

@Parker231 why would a single employee need a family day? Surely it's to cover childcare issues etc?

My husband has stand alone 6 months pat leave, so we didn't have to share. So good. I also got 6 months full pay.

Up to 4 "well-being" days to be booked as single days. They're not a specific benefit for parents but I've generally used mine to support my kids and attend things I might not have otherwise been able to justify annual leave. They're brilliant

Flexibility has been the only thing that has allowed me to stay in work as a lone parent. I can get my kids to school then go in to work. I can collect them and then do some evening work using family childcare. A rigid (eg) 9-5 just wouldn't be possible for me with my children's needs and the state of childcare provision locally.

Because parents aren’t the only ones who may have caring responsibilities?

Diageo offer fathers the same benefit as women so 26 weeks paid to be taken in the first 2 years . Lots of men take it after their partner goes back to work so baby gets to stay at home for a while longer rather than go to crèche.

paid days off classed as family days could be discriminatory but the poster has said they are additional days off and everyone is entitled to them. @TribeofFfive - I assume they can be taken at any time and single employees aren’t prohibited from taking the days off during the summer period?

They can be taken at any time but have to be agreeable with the dept. You couldn’t have all the maths teachers off the same week for example. It seems to run smoothly from what I gather but I’m not privy to the whole booking of it.
Even if they’re the same day, we work it between us in our office. My boys had sports day last Thursday morning and a colleague had her DDs in the afternoon. I started at 11.30, she finished at 12.

Next door neighbour got 6 months paternity leave on full pay! Dp gets private health for us all