We think working here’s awesome enough already. But we know our fantastic colleagues deserve more than a few perks here and there. Happily, we have loads.
Have a break, have a… holiday. 25 days of it in fact.
And once you’ve worked here for five years, you’ll get another three days. That’s on top of all the recognised public holidays in your part of the UK. Oh, and you get your birthday off too!
Our pension scheme matches your contributions from 4% up to 10% and you’ll be auto-enrolled within the first few months. You can join earlier, opt out or increase the amount you pay in as you like. We want you to be in tip-top condition – at work and at home. That’s why we offer everyone who works here private healthcare through Bupa. Access to the Trust means you’ll get to see a specialist faster, whether you need a quick check up with an expert, a bit of physio or it’s something more serious, your medical plan cover with Bupa can help.
As with any private healthcare plan, there’s an excess payable and limits on outpatient appointments.
Through Bupa, we also provide access to a 24/7 helpline called Healthy Minds. If you need to talk to someone in confidence about anything that’s on your mind from relationships, to financial worries, legal issues and so on – there’s a trained therapist on hand to help you straightaway. Upon joining, we provide personal accident cover and life assurance, so you are covered in the event of injury, death or serious illness.
Everyone’s an individual here. So, as well as our core benefits, we’ve got stuff you can add (or remove), pretty much on demand.
Depending on your individual wants and needs, you can opt to add a partner or whole family to your private healthcare plan, choose standard or enhanced levels of dental cover, buy and sell holiday, get a bike with our Ride-to-Work cycle scheme, give tax free to charity and save on travel with a season ticket loan. You also get access to Virgin Tribe. This is a Virgin-wide (not just Virgin Media-wide) benefit, which gives you access to discounts across other Virgin brands, including Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Active, as well as heaps of discounts with partner brands.
My Rates gets you discounts on Virgin cable and mobile products, including broadband, landline and TV bundles for just £15.50 a month. Mates Rates discounts does what it says on the tin – and will make you massively popular with your friends. Wellness is big here, too. Once you join, you’ll get access to our internal website, The Retreat, the home of all things ‘wellness’, where you can find loads of info on how to improve your wellbeing. We’ve broken it down into four key areas; Social, Financial, Mental and Physical
In 2020, we launched three additional benefits for all employees. The first is an optional 20-minute health check-up by a qualified health assessor from our provider, Healthy Performance. This is a confidential face-to-face appointment and you’ll get your results the same day.
We’re also giving you access to a range of financial wellbeing benefits and financial education from our partners Salary Finance. Their products are all about making things hassle-free, whether it be for savings or loans, it’s all about simplicity, with all payments taken from your monthly salary.
Finally, we have partnered up with wellbeing experts Unmind to give you and a loved one access to their digital workplace mental health platform. Designed to empower employees to measure, understand and improve their mental wellbeing.
SMART working
Without getting too philosophical, we believe work’s something you do, rather than a place or a period of time. We’re on a mission to help everyone at Virgin Media work in ways that help them thrive. It’s not necessarily about where or when you work, but how well you’re doing the job. You’ll find the three main principles below. Your manager will give you more details and agree your SMART working plan with you when you join.
SMART hours
If it fits with the business, your clients, your team and your manager, you can choose to work anytime between 7am and 7pm – as long as there’s enough team cover between the core hours of 10am and 4pm.
SMART locations
As well as core hours, you’ll have one core workplace. You’ll spend most of your time there, but there’s also potential to use other locations that work for Virgin Media, our customers, your team and you. This might be at home, at other Virgin Media offices, onsite with a customer, at the zoo (if the zoo’s your client). It’s about working wherever you can be most efficient.
SMART workspaces
We’re always looking for ways to make our Virgin Media offices even more SMART working-friendly, featuring things like team neighbourhoods, hot desks, stand-up meeting rooms, interactive displays, deskless offices and vibrant leisure spaces. We know one size doesn’t fit all, so we’ve got different workspaces for different types of activity. It’s all designed to feel comfortable, relaxed and somewhere you’ll enjoy spending time.
Flexible working
SMART working isn’t the same as flexible working, which of course we’re open to. If you want to make changes to your contract or amend the usual working arrangements for your role, you can put a request in for flexible working. We’ll do what we can to help.