Time off and Travel

We want you to have a good work-life balance and our holiday entitlement reflects this.

For full-time staff members, when you start your employment you will be entitled to 25 days leave per full year. Your entitlement will increase by one day per year (on the anniversary of joining PCH) up to a maximum of 30 days per year. Bank and public holidays are additional to these entitlements.

For part-time workers, your annual leave and bank holiday entitlement is pro-rated based on your contracted hours. Your annual leave entitlement is also calculated in hours rather than days.

The leave year is from 1st April to 31st March. Annual leave should be taken within the leave year in which it is accrued (except that up to five days (pro-rata for part-time employees) may be carried forward from one leave year to the next. Any leave carried forward must be taken before 31st August).

All annual leave should be approved in advance by your line manager. To ensure that there is sufficient cover for the needs of the business as much notice as possible should be given. We provide a service to our customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so departments who deliver this service and staff who support them such as Finance & IT may work over seasonal holiday periods (but not the bank holidays). You will be told if this affects you.

Some parts of the organisation may at times close down for holiday periods. Dates are published in advance and you will need to keep enough holidays for these periods.

Leave should be booked through the Cascade HR system by staff who have access to the PCH computer system.

We offer Holiday Trading as a benefit that allows employees to trade in holidays for cash or to exchange cash for extra holiday. You will be notified of these opportunities during the Holiday Trading windows each year. You can find more information here.

You may apply to take an unpaid career break leave of up to 6 months after 5 years' service.

In order to apply, you must complete the Career Break Request Form and once the application process is completed and authorised you will be issued a Career Break Agreement.  Please contact HR for a form or guidance. 

We encourage our members of staff to play an active role in our community, but this should not be at the detriment of delivering our service. You must therefore discuss any public duties you undertake (or contemplate undertaking) with your line manager before accepting or continuing a public office. They will agree what facilities and time are reasonable as well as any measures needed to avoid conflicts of interest. In some cases this may mean that we are unable to agree to you undertaking public duties whilst in your current role. 

Any time agreed will be unpaid; however, with the agreement of your line manager you can also use Annual Leave, Flexi leave or TOIL reasonably.

We usually allow leave for employees called to attend court for jury service. If you're called for jury service (also known as jury duty), you'll need to keep your line manager regularly informed about how long you are likely to be away from work and provide a copy of the notification letter.

There is an expectation that you will be paid your usual salary by Plymouth Community Homes during jury service and that you will claim your full entitlement from the court and this will be deducted from your salary. There will be a form with your notification letter which you will need to complete and share with Payroll who will complete their section for you to give to the court. 

We reserve the right to review the situation if you are asked to sit on a long case.

You will find information on the procedure that you will need to follow on the HR pages.

The Fleet Department is the point of contact for any PCH vehicle issues and we have put together a Drivers’ Handbook to help you understand and adhere to our company policy in relation to vehicles and driving on company business.

Your line manager will advise you if you should drive a PCH vehicle in order to carry out your duties. Vehicles can only be used for PCH business and direct commuting from home to work and back if you have been permitted to take your vehicle home at night.

You must advise your manager at the earliest opportunity if you receive any motoring convictions, fines, points or other fixed penalties. If you receive a fixed penalty while on PCH business this will be deducted from your salary unless there are exceptional circumstances.

All drivers of PCH vehicles will receive familiarisation training from the Fleet Department when they start work or when they get a new vehicle.

The following information can be found in the Drivers Handbook which you are obliged to read;

• Mobile Phone Use

• Smoking

• Alcohol / Drugs

• Fitness to drive

• Driving Fines

• Driving Licences

• Motoring Offences and Medical Conditions

Driving License information can be found here.

We encourage staff to car share wherever possible to ease the pressure on parking and also to be environmentally friendly.

Whilst car parking is available at the majority of our sites at the employee’s own risk, spaces are limited and not guaranteed. Other residents of Plumer House, may be using the car parks too so please use car parking areas with caution and courtesy to others. At Plumer House the white spaces only are for PCH staff, the other coloured spaces are dedicated to our other residents.

Cycle to Work allows you to order a new bike, equipment or both up to the value of £2,000.00. Your employer pays for the order up front, you agree to hire the bike from Halfords, who are the legal owner of the bike from the start of the hire period. You pay your employer back through your salary to make tax savings of 32% - 47%.

When your application is successful, you'll be given a Letter of Collection (LoC) to use in-store or online at over 1,250 cycling retailers – including Halfords, tredz.co.uk, and hundreds of independent bike shops.

As well as all of the health and wellbeing benefits of cycling to work, you'll also have exclusive access to a range of other benefits whilst Cycle to Work payments are deducted from your salary.

More information on the scheme can be found here.