Holidays and annual leave
Accent colleagues are entitled to 28 days of holiday, plus bank holidays. If you’re part-time, your annual leave will be worked out pro-rata.
Every year you work with Accent, you get an extra day of leave a year, up to a maximum of 33 days.
If you need extra time off, you can buy up to two additional weeks of annual leave through salary sacrifice (at your manager’s discretion).
Pensions
To help you feel secure about your future, we provide two types of pension scheme, so you can select the one that works best for you. Both pension schemes include life insurance cover, giving you the peace of mind of knowing your loved ones will have financial security in the event of your death in service.
7.5% colleague contribution
The Accent Group Pension Scheme is a defined benefit scheme. It gives you a pension based on the average of your pensionable earnings during your membership in the scheme. This is calculated using a fraction of 1/90th of your pensionable pay, known as the accrual rate, which is then revalued in line with inflation.
The revalued pension amounts earned each year are added together to calculate your guaranteed pension at retirement.
Only around 4% of defined benefit schemes in the UK are still open to new members.
4% matched colleague contribution
The Social Housing Pension Scheme, also known as SHPS DC, is a defined contribution scheme. It pays contributions into your personal ‘pension pot’, which are then invested in funds selected either by you or an investment manager.
The benefits you get when you retire are flexible and depend on the value of your pot at that time.
How auto-enrolment works
All employers are required to auto-enrol their employees into a pension scheme, although this can be affected by your age and salary.
If you decide not to join our Accent Group Pension Scheme when you start working for us, you’ll be auto-enrolled into the SHPS DC scheme. You can opt out if you prefer, but you won’t get any pension on retirement or have any life insurance cover.
Once you’ve selected your preferred Accent pension scheme, you’ll automatically receive life assurance cover. This is three times your gross salary for death in service and a dependent’s pension.
Volunteering days
We encourage our colleagues to volunteer and give back to the community. Each year, everyone in our team has the opportunity to take one paid day off to volunteer with a project that benefits Accent customers and communities. Colleagues can also have two paid days to support customer engagement activities and community events.
For instance, you might end up helping organise one of our community events or customer engagement activities like an Accent Summer Fair.
While volunteering, you’ll still receive your normal pay.
For part-time colleagues, the number of volunteering days you’re offered is calculated pro-rata.
Benefits platform
Hapi is our benefits platform, it offers financial and wellbeing support, online GP service and includes discounts on days out and support with the cost of living including money off 12 supermarkets.
Health and wellbeing
As part of our commitment to supporting the health and wellbeing of our colleagues, we offer a range of benefits designed to make life a little easier and support your wellness.
Book a video or phone consultation with an online GP at a time that suits you, and access free advice, reassurance, diagnosis, private prescriptions and open referrals.
Sign up for our health club membership, and get discounts on your membership at gyms throughout the UK, including PureGym, Nuffield Health, Virgin Active and many more.
Save up to 42% on a bike, e-bike, bike insurance and cycling accessories with our cycle-to-work scheme, Cyclesheme. You won’t have to pay anything upfront either – instead, your payments are taken from your salary.
If you’re a member of the Accent team who uses screens and monitors as part of their work (known as DSE users), we’ll cover the cost of your eye test, and contribute £50 towards the cost of your new frames and lenses.
We’ll contribute up to £10 to the cost of your annual flu vaccination.
You’ll be given free access to confidential support whenever you need it through Wisdom, a wellbeing app that we provide to all colleagues as part of our employee assistance programme. Get emotional support, legal advice and more, 24 hours a day, all year round.
Learning and development
At Accent you can enjoy a learning culture that supports an open mindset, an independent quest for knowledge and shared learning directed towards our mission and goals, our customers, and colleagues.
We actively promote a learning culture to support our colleagues to obtain and maintain the skills, knowledge, and mindset to enable them to own, drive and succeed in their career.
We are committed to the learning and development of our colleagues and all colleagues can look forward to:
- An onboarding induction to their job role, team and Accent
- Access to industry specific training and certification required for job role
- Equal opportunities in all aspects of their development
- A line manager who is committed to colleague development
- Coaching to embed learning, development, and career progression
- Access to online learning resources to support personal development
