Great Britain: free health check screening and salary increases at Marks and Spencer

On 16 February, the UK retail chain announced its intention to enhance its employees’ health and wellbeing benefits by offering a Virtual GP service, free health check screening, and advice on financial management. With these measures, the group, which already offers employees a 20% discount on products from it Food and Clothing & Home ranges, believes it offers one of ‘the strongest all-round reward offers in retail.’ “We’re making sure that every colleague whatever they do and wherever they work, is properly rewarded and supported at M&S,” said the CEO, Steve Rowe. M&S also announced a minimum wage increase that affects 40,000 people across the UK store network. Effective in April, this increase of more than 5% will bring the base rate of pay to £10 per hour (€11.94) and move it up to £11.25 in London (€13.44). This is higher than the legal minimum wage for those aged 23 and over, which itself will rise to £9.50 (€11.35) in April (c.f. article No.12765). Faced with recruitment challenges, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, and Lidl are also planning to pass the symbolic £10 per hour pay rate this year, while Morrisons was the first supermarket to make the move to £10 in 2021 (c.f. article No.12307).