Yorkshire Building Society gives colleagues early Christmas present

Yorkshire Building Society has announced it is giving all its colleagues an early Christmas gift this year with an extra day off for Christmas Eve. 

As Christmas Eve (24 December) falls on a Thursday this year, it means that colleagues will receive a full five day break over the festive season as they will return to work on Tuesday 29 December.

It also means customers will need to plan ahead if they need to contact the Society around this time as the Society’s branches and call centres will be closed during these dates. Customers that are registered for online account management will be unaffected by this announcement.  

The Society is recognising the immense challenges of 2020 where its staff have gone above and beyond in their roles. As key workers they have kept the vast majority of branches open throughout the pandemic and call centres have remained open to provide essential financial services to customers. 1,400 staff also switched from office to home-working.

Throughout the Covid-19 outbreak, the Society has focused on supporting its customers and colleagues. It has prioritised keeping members in their homes, ensuring their savings are safe and looking after colleagues’ health and wellbeing.

The mutual has not furloughed any staff this year and has also offered colleagues unlimited dependents and carers leave at full pay and anyone who is shielding, unwell or needs to self-isolate and cannot work from home qualifies for paid sick leave at their full salary.

Mike Regnier, Chief Executive of Yorkshire Building Society, said:

 

We wanted to do something that recognised the extraordinary year that our colleagues have been through, and hope that giving colleagues Christmas Eve off this year and providing an extended break to relax and spend time with family at home shows in part my immense gratitude to them.

 

From the beginning, our response to Covid-19 has been to focus on the key priorities of keeping members in their homes, making sure their savings are secure and accessible, and looking after our colleagues’ safety and wellbeing. Without the massive efforts of our colleagues none of this would have been possible.

We have kept as many branches open as we could throughout the pandemic and helped more customers to access our online services so they could manage their money safely from home. I hope customers understand why we have made this decision to recognise our colleagues in this way after this unprecedented year.

All information correct at time of publication.

 

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