Cisco launches online benefits package for UK and Ireland staff

The company, which has over 2,500 employees in the UK and Ireland, launched the i-Benefit@Cisco scheme in conjunction with Thomsons Online Benefits. 

i-Benefit@Cisco includes core benefits such as pension, life assurance, income protection and holiday, plus additional benefits employees can choose to fit in with their lifestyle. Salary sacrifice was introduced to generate savings on National Insurance contributions, which Cisco put back into the benefit budget with the addition of company paid health assessments to promote a proactive health and wellbeing strategy. Employees can now view their personalised total reward statements and make their benefit selections online. The scheme also allows them to elect to transfer their old pension scheme to the new scheme online with no form filling. This online process was extremely effective with 85% of employees completing the transfer process.
 
Charlie Johnston, HR director, UK and Ireland, commented: "Our reward strategy is driven by our desire to make Cisco a brilliant place to work and help people understand the full breadth of their reward and benefits package, wherever they work and whatever they do. We wanted to drive some real innovation into the delivery of benefits. Since we are such a diverse and growing business, we also wanted to make the most of benefit efficiencies through salary sacrifice and improved administration.

"The launch has been a great success with 94% of employees logging into the system. We look forward to continuing to it in the future both in the UK and Ireland and beyond."