Unleashing Potential

Careers @ HX

So everyone can reach their full potential, we must have clear career pathways for every role.

Recently we've shared salary benchmarking levels with everyone and now add pay ranges to every role advertised. We've updated our career pathways to make sure they're up to date with levels and benchmarking and this transparency will help our team understand their earning potential and what they need to do to develop through the levels.

We have also recently agreed on specific progression metrics which we will measure and review regularly so we can track what progression looks like at HX and where changes can be made to ensure everyone has the opportunity to grow and develop their careers.

Pay @ HX

Our pay principles are to pay fairly and transparently, in line with external benchmarking which is reviewed regularly. Everyone's pay is reviewed annually against core consistent performance criteria.

It's important for Holiday Extras to pay fairly aligned with the cost of living. The Living Wage is an hourly rate that is independently calculated each year, and we're proud to track our minimum wage in line with this.

Disability Confident Employer

We're proud to be a certified Disability Confident Committed Employer (Level 2). Disability Confident is a movement encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people.

Being a Disability Confident Employer is a unique opportunity for us to lead the way in our community, discover incredible talent and support our existing employees to truly live our value of 'Be The Best Version of You'.

We recently worked with The Diversity Trust to carry out an accessibility audit of our Kent campus to ensure the buildings are accessible to all and offer an inclusive and welcoming environment. Based on their recommendations, we have created an action plan covering quick wins and longer term projects to continue to improve our workplace and most actions are now underway!

Personal growth

We want everyone to have the opportunity to grow and develop, in whichever way is important to them. So we have an annual Learning & Development budget that anyone can access to supercharge their skills.

It's also our mission to make sure everyone across the business has personal development goals as well as everything they need to achieve them, level up on their knowledge and unleash their potential.

Last year, we arranged for every HXer to take part in Me:Connect, an opportunity for everyone in the business to attend our workshop and discover their super strengths. Each HXer used this time to set their own personal development goals and coach/mentor others in how these could be achieved.

We are also excited to share that in October 2023, we launched our first HX Mentoring Programme, a 3 part internal accreditation programme that aims to equip our team with all the skills and understanding they need to be a great Mentor before they are paired with a mentee. After the accreditation programme, we'll provide ongoing support and form an HX Mentor community to share learnings.

Flexible working

We all have lives outside of work and flexibility is important – this has always been part of our culture. With quiet areas where you can get your head down, places to collaborate as well as plenty of outdoor space, we understand that life doesn't always fit into a 9-5 schedule. At Holiday Extras, you can have the best of both worlds - a successful career and a balanced life. We're not a 'clock in, clock out' organisation. If you need the flexibility to work from home on occasion, start later or leave earlier, as long as it works for your team, it works for us.

Enhanced parental leave

Time is precious, and time with family is the most precious of all. All our employees who have been with Holiday Extras for 1 year or more* are entitled to up to 12 months of parental leave, with the first 13 weeks paid at the enhanced rate of 100% salary and the next 13 weeks paid at 50% salary. We also offer enhanced Secondary Carer Leave at 100% pay for 4 weeks if you've been at Holiday Extras for more than 1 year.

*prior to their Expected Week of Childbirth or date of matching

We're doing more internally to raise awareness around the benefits of Shared Parental Leave, a scheme which helps eligible parents combine work with family life and provides more choice in how two parents can care for their child. We are doing this by offering Q&A sessions discussing real-life examples and sharing helpful resources and guidance.

Furthermore, we have created an internal 'Family Hub' so anyone who is thinking of starting a family can access all the information they need when it comes to planning their parental leave and recently we added a section on fertility treatments and the support we offer to anyone on this journey.

Mental Health First Aiders

It's time to break the taboos around Mental Health. We empower our team to speak up if they are struggling and support our People Managers to have great conversations by giving them the best tools and the best training. That's why all of our People Managers will receive MHFA accredited training through Changing Minds Kent by the end of 2023.

There's also a network of additional Mental Health First Aiders across the business who can offer support to anyone in the team experiencing symptoms and signpost them to helpful resources.

We have created an action plan for the next 12 months to ensure we are continuing to prioritise mental health and wellbeing at HX.

To show our commitment to working towards better mental health in the workplace, we recently signed the Mindful Employer charter to make sure we continue to do what we can to support our team's mental wellbeing.

Menopause Workplace Pledge

We are proud to have signed the Menopause workplace pledge to demonstrate our commitment to making sure Holiday Extras is a supportive and understanding place for employees going through menopause.

Our goal is to normalise conversations about menopause and to recognise it as a workplace issue. We've held several sessions open to all to drive awareness and understanding of perimenopause and menopause and its associated symptoms and impact on those experiencing it.

We have an internal community group called 'The M Word', set up by employees as a support network for anyone experiencing Perimenopausal or Menopausal symptoms.

Not only that, but we now have over 20 Menopause Champions trained by Henpicked and have now created our own Menopause Training Session which all our People Managers will have attended by March 2024. In January, we ran our very first Men Only Menopause Awareness Session to allow everyone in the business to find out more.

We are excited to announce that we have now created the HX Menopause Guide for our team to raise awareness of menopause and perimenopause and the effects it can have on a person's day to day experience, plus what managers and employees alike can do to support anyone experiencing symptoms.

#IAmRemarkable Workshops

#IAmRemarkable is a Google initiative empowering women and other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond.

We're lucky enough to have several trained facilitators at Holiday Extras who run internal workshops, helping our team learn the importance of self-promotion and challenge the social perception around it.

In the true nature of inspiring and sharing, our awesome trainers have also run sessions externally for Saga Group and Women in Tech – a leading organisation in bringing inclusion, diversity and equity to the STEM industry.

HX Champions

Anyone at the Holiday Extras can sign up to become a HX Champion. Our champions are a group of enthusiastic sustainability advocates who help us drive our sustainability mission forward using their own experiences, expertise, and feedback. So far, they have supported with local careers fairs, helped run mock interview sessions with local schools, launched several internal events such as Veganuary and World Environment Day to raise awareness and have come up with some creative ideas to help embed our strategy.