Working at Paragon

When you join Paragon, you are joining a company dedicated to rewarding its employees for their contribution towards the success of the business. As well as job satisfaction, real career prospects and a fantastic working environment, we offer our employees a range of other benefits.

Use the links below for more information about working at Paragon:

Not only do we offer competitive salaries and an annual profit-related bonus to every member of staff, employees can also benefit from a stakeholder pension plan, regular sharesave schemes and life assurance.

Our staff can also take advantage of financial savings and discounts from a variety of local and national retailers, restaurants and leisure centres.

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We recognise that a good work-life balance is essential for all our employees and consequently all are entitled to a minimum of 22 days holiday per year, plus bank holidays, and gains an extra day for every year’s service up to a maximum of 30 days.

We also recognise that people are different and therefore our holiday package is flexible; employees have the option to buy or sell up to five days holiday per year to create the holiday package to suit them.

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STARS is an exciting new programme launched in 2009, designed by staff, that focuses on rewarding excellent performance across the Group and recognising employees who demonstrate Paragon’s seven values.

STARS applies to all staff and is based around three key elements:

1) Immediacy - providing the ability for managers to reward individual performance as soon as it happens

2) Consistency - the criteria for recognising excellent performance is clearly defined and is applicable to all across the Group

3) Variety - the recipient can choose a reward with the most value to them as an individual

STARS is a nomination-based system and all employees can nominate, and be nominated by, anyone within and outside their own department.

The rewards are in the form of Bronze, Silver or Gold awards, dependent upon the achievement being recognised:

A Bronze award is presented when an individual or team has performed better than expected or has helped a colleague within or outside their department.

A Silver award is presented for excellent performance in an individual or team’s day-to-day role, or in the service provided to other departments. Putting yourself out to help another individual, taking on extra responsibility and displaying a proactive attitude are other examples of a silver award.

A Gold award is presented to an individual or a team for outstanding performance on a particular task or to someone that continually outperforms and demonstrates the Group’s seven values. Examples include rearranging personal commitments to accommodate work requirements or suggesting an idea that adds real value to the company in the long-term.

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Employee loyalty at Paragon is something we are very proud of and is testament to the culture and family atmosphere that makes working at Paragon so unique.

Employee turnover is low, with nearly 40% of our employees having worked here for over 10 years and 63% having been with us for more than five years.

As a way of thanking staff for their loyalty to the Group, length of service awards are awarded as follows:

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Each year our employees nominate their favourite charities, an election is then held to determine which charity Paragon will sponsor for the year. Paragon's Charity Committee organises various fund-raising events, including raffles, food sales, book sales, a charity golf day, auctions and sponsored events. Each year the target is to raise £10,000.

Paragon has two beneficiaries for 2012; Birmingham Children's Hospital and the Alzheimer's Society.

Previous charities
Our previous charities and the amount raised are listed below:

2011 - £12,203 - Bliss

2010 - £9,110 - Ronald MacDonald House at Birmingham Children's Hospital

2009 - £7,915  - Help for Heroes

2008 - £10,375 - The Alzheimer's Society

2007 - £10,615 - County Air Ambulance

2006 - £23,410 - Cancer Research

2005 - £15,945 - Marie Curie

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Paragon has an active Sports & Social Club, which arranges a variety of events at discounted prices, including:

•   mini breaks

•   theatre and concert tickets

•   exhibition tickets

It costs just £1 a month for a single membership and £3 a month for a joint membership.  If you choose to become a member, your membership fee is deducted from your salary monthly. As well as being eligible for discounts on all the events, you will also be entered into a monthly draw to win cash prizes.

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