How would you feel if your boss presented you with a holiday to New York, first-class, simply for your loyalty to the company and hard work? Seems a little too good to be true, right?
Well that’s what one insurance broker has done for three of its longest serving employees, gifting them four days in the Big Apple.
One Call Insurance has a loyalty scheme for staff, with incentives when employees reach milestones with the company, and decided to go big for those reaching 20 years of service.
Nik Springthorpe (pictured), the managing director of One Call Insurance, said that the gift was to show the appreciation the company had for the three staff members who had been there for two decades.
“20 years working for the same company has to be rewarded, it really does,” he said.
The three women, Rebecca Kerry, Selina Griffin and Kelly Ford, all started working at One Call, which has its head office in Yorkshire, in 1998.
“Of late we’ve been wanting to ensure there’s longevity with our staff at One Call,” Springthorpe explained. “We’ve been trading since 1995, the girls that had hit the 20 years have been here since our third year of trading.
“We’ve introduced a loyalty scheme for all our staff, but this is the first year that we’ve had staff reach the 20 years, so we wanted to do something really special for them.”
The managing director said that the loyalty scheme for staff served two purposes - both to reward their staff and create a good company culture, and to help retain staff with good business knowledge.
“I think it’s so important for any business to recognise loyalty, in this day and age it’s very easy for people to move from one business to another, but I think recognition is vitally important,” Springthorpe explained.
“We’ve got rewards for people from passing the probationary period at six months, to two years’ service, five years’ service and 10 years’ service.
“From a business perspective the reason we want to recognise these milestones is that experience is hugely valuable to a business, and experience working in different departments, is extremely valuable.”
The rewards staff receive vary depending on their service. After six months, when they pass probation, the staff member gets free access to an onsite gym and receives a kit bag with a pencil case, pens, a mouse and a cup.
After two years, they receive free annual travel insurance and a bottle of champagne, presented to them by the directors of the company.
After five years, staff members can cash in unused holidays at the end of the year, they receive a free daily lunch in the staff canteen, a company activity day out, unpaid leave days for any emergency holidays they may require, their pension contribution is doubled up, and they receive a silver pen name with their name engraved on it.
Then for 10 years’ service, there is an annual Christmas lunch with the directors, staff receive a white leather luxury chair, an extra day’s holiday flexible to go Christmas shopping, their name displayed on a plaque in reception, a weekend away for two up to the value of £350, a car allowance and health insurance.
Now the company has done something extra special to mark 20 years of service.
“I don’t think we should move away from the fact that 20 years’ service is an extremely long time and these girls came here pretty much straight from school,” Springthorpe explained.
“It’s an incredible feat it really it, so a trip to New York while it’s an amazing gift, it’s nothing by reflection for those 20 years’ service. That’s certainly the board’s opinion.”
The three staff members are planning their trips now, with Ford heading off in six weeks with her partner and the other two women going with their partners around Christmastime.
“None of us have actually been to New York before, it’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go,” Griffin said. “So, when we got presented with it, we were shocked. We’re putting plans into action now, we’ve been googling where we want to go, what we want to see.”
