Employee benefits

If you work for us, you'll have a wide range of employee benefits available to you. They are all designed with your personal well-being and work-life balance in mind. Benefits include generous leave, amazing pension contributions and flexible working arrangements.

Annual leave

Enjoy a comprehensive annual leave package. Full-time employees start with 26 days of holiday, increasing to 31 days after five years, plus bank holidays. Part-time employees receive a pro-rated amount. Depending on your role, you may have the opportunity to purchase additional annual leave, temporarily reduce your hours or take a career break.

Pensions

We contribute 19% to your pension pot.

You can join the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) or Teachers' Pension Scheme depending on your employment status. This is a valuable part of your pay and reward package.

As a member of our pension scheme, you have a flexible and tax efficient way of a decent pension to look forward to in retirement. You also get tax relief on any earnings that you pay into your pension.

It's easy to make your contribution, as we can make a regular deduction from your monthly salary. On average, our employees pay around 5.8% depending on their pay grade.

The scheme includes death in service cover of 3 times your salary. Read about the death benefits at LGPS: Frequently asked questions.

Work-life balance and flexible working

We have a wide range of flexible working options. These vary depending on the job role. You are welcome to discuss options at interview.

For some roles, we offer a hybrid way of working, with time at home and in the workplace, to meet the needs of our customers, for better team working and for your personal needs.

We also have family friendly policies, where there could be flexibility around the hours you work. For some roles, you could work part-time, job share or work term times only. We have policies in place to support parents at all stages including paid time off for IVF, adoption leave, maternity leave and paternity leave.

Health and wellbeing

Employees are our most valuable resource which is why it's important to us that we invest in supporting you to thrive at work. Engagement with employees is vital to constantly improve the services that we offer to you to enable people to be healthy and safe at work.

Our workplace wellbeing site for employees provides links to internal support available and, also, to external agencies. Health and wellbeing topics are covered in various formats: articles, podcasts, and videos, useful exercises and tools.

To support you with any emotional, financial or legal matters, you can use our employee assistance programme (PAM). This provides a free and completely confidential life management and personal support service.

Employees have access to Occupational Health Services. We work together with Optima Health as our Occupational Health provider to support better health and wellbeing and attendance at work.

An eye care voucher scheme is available. If you routinely use a computer as a significant part of your normal day to day work you're entitled to a full eye and eyesight test by an optometrist (that we have a partnership with), paid for by your employer.

In addition to working in a supportive environment, you can get involved in employee events and groups. These help improve our services to Sheffield people. Hubs such as our Employee Equality Hubs provide an opportunity for colleagues to come together around shared interests or characteristics. This includes those who wish to provide allyship.

Learning and development 

We're committed to helping our employees grow and develop. We offer a comprehensive range of learning and development opportunities designed to suit diverse learning styles.

Our learning management system provides flexible, on demand access to a vast library of e-learning courses. This ensures that learning can happen anytime, anywhere.

For those who thrive in a more interactive environment, our facilitated classroom, and virtual classroom training sessions deliver hands-on, collaborative experiences.

Our coaching network pairs employees with seasoned professionals to guide and support their goals.

We recognise the value of informal learning. We provide access to audio learning and e-books to inspire and educate at your own pace.

Salary sacrifice scheme

To help reduce your travel to work costs, you can save on the cost of a new bike and cycling equipment through our cycle scheme. You can get a tax-free bike and pay for it by monthly deductions from your salary.

The Electric Car Benefit Scheme helps employees choose more active or less polluting ways to travel. We've launched a new salary sacrifice scheme that gives you an opportunity to drive a brand-new, zero emission electric vehicle.

Tax free childcare has replaced the childcare vouchers scheme. This government initiative gives eligible working families up to £2,000 free per child towards childcare costs for children under 12 years of age (or under 17 if they are disabled). With the new scheme you set up an online childcare account and can transfer money in from your bank. For every £8 you pay in, the government will add an extra £2, up to £2,000 per child, per year - that's up to £500 every 3 months.

We've also teamed up with Westfield Health Scheme to offer you a reduced rate for private health cover. Westfield Health provide an allowance towards the cost of your dental and optical treatment, physiotherapy and other treatments.

Additional financial benefits

You can access our special offers/discounts with retailers including Costco membership, gyms such as Sheffield City Trust membership, Vodaphone and Northern Rail and other transport providers.

Sheffield Credit Union offers you a safe way to save, and a great value way to borrow.

Pennies from Heaven is a charitable donation from your salary. If you join the scheme, your net monthly salary will be rounded down to the nearest pound monthly. The spare pennies are donated to our nominated charities. They are St Luke's Hospice and Asperger's Children and Carers Together. The maximum you can donate is 99 pence each month.

The Blue Light Card provides those working in social care (as well as the NHS, emergency services and armed forces) with online and in-store discounts. It costs £4.99 for 2 years. You can use your Council ID card or payslip to confirm you work in social care. Visit the Blue Light Card website for further details.

Access to request assistive equipment and technology

If you have a disability there is a range of IT equipment we can give you to help you work. You can also get help through the Government's Access to Work programme and we can help you apply for this if you need IT equipment.

There are different types of equipment and software you can ask for based on what you need help with: for example, assistive hardware such as mice, keyboards, dictaphones, monitors, magnifiers, reflectors, laptops, pen devices and dual screens.

Our commitment to our values 

We work as one team for Sheffield. Together we overcome challenges and involve local people to improve our services and quality of life in our city. Our employees talk about the pride they feel in making a difference. In return for their dedication and contribution, we offer a workplace where people feel supported and can perform at their best.