A complete guide to employee discount schemes
Employee discount schemes are hugely popular with employees and they’re a go-to perk guaranteed to be a hit with your staff.
They aren’t just limited to discounts on the occasional meal out or summer outfit either. Over the course of a year, they can save employees loads on their weekly/monthly shop, holidays and home improvements.
For the business, employee discount schemes can help your employees’ paycheques go further and can support employee retention, employee financial wellbeing and recruitment too.
So, let’s dive straight into this guide designed to give you all the info you need to source, set-up and run a successful employee discount scheme for you and your staff.
How the employee discount scheme works
Typically, employees can access their employee discounts through a dedicated platform.
Through this, they can get their discounts while in-store on their mobile or at home shopping on their desktop or tablet. This is how our employee discounts scheme works at Caboodle.
Employees access the Salary Extras app or log on to their employee benefits platform on desktop or tablet, find the retailer they’re looking for, enter their purchase amount and get a discount code instantly in their inbox.
Employees get access to a huge range of discounts from the weekly shop to DIY, holidays to dining out, from books to flowers.
How popular are employee discounts?
Employee benefits in general play a huge part in the success of many areas of your business, including recruitment, retention and the overall wellbeing of your team.
- 75% of employees say they’re more likely to stay with their employer because of their benefit programme (Willis Towers Watson)
- 80% of employees would choose additional benefits over a pay raise (Harvard Business Review)
- 69% of employees report that they might choose one job over another if it offered better benefits (One Medical).
We’ve taken a more in-depth look at which benefits employees look for previously on our blog and the research helps paint an insightful picture of the types of benefits employees expect and how benefits can support key HR and business goals.
Research by Glassdoor shows that 17% value employee discounts more than a pay rise and is one of the top 10 most popular employee benefits.
The popularity of your discounts may depend on the variety and choice of discounts on offer for staff.
The wider the choice, the more areas an employee can save and therefore the more they’ll benefit.
When sourcing an employee discount scheme, this is crucial to keep in mind.
How employee discounts can support your staff
- Employees save on the weekly/monthly shop
- Save further on sale prices
- Save big on big purchases
- Makes brand new tech more accessible
Speaking of choice, a wide variety of employee discounts can help staff save on just about anything.
Savings on regular expenses like the weekly shop can really add up throughout the year.
As employee discounts can usually be used on top of sale prices, the savings can be even greater.
Employees can save on big purchases like holidays, appliances, or even whole kitchen suites. Big purchases like these can come with big savings through an employee discounts scheme.
Employee discounts can help staff save on brand-new tech too.
Now more than ever we’ve become reliant on tech for work, education, entertainment and keeping in touch with our loved ones.
The reliability of our tech has therefore become even more important. Brand-new tech can be expensive, however.
A scheme like the employee discount scheme can really help here, helping make newer and more reliable tech more affordable for staff.
These are just a small number of ways in which an employee discount scheme can support your staff.
Benefits for employers
Key benefits of an employee discounts scheme for employers include:
- Improved employee retention
- Improved employee financial wellbeing
- Improved employee benefits platform engagement
- No admin
By helping make employees’ paycheques go further and by providing savings they may not find elsewhere, businesses can improve employee retention by introducing the employee discounts scheme.
Companies can support their employees with their financial wellbeing through helping them save and giving greater control over their finances.
Hosting employee discounts through your employee benefits platform can help improve engagement with your platform and therefore your other benefits too.
And as the scheme doesn’t require any management or administration over application processes for example, it’s quick and easy to set-up and easy to run.
Why employee discounts are so important right now
- We’re facing difficult economic times
- Employee discount schemes can help staff save in the short and long term
The world and indeed our finances have faced dramatic change in recent times.
Whatever financial situation you find yourself in right now, you’ve probably found yourself looking for a tighter grip over your finances in recent times.
This will continue to be important as the UK looks to rebuild its economy.
But what does this have to do with employee discounts?
Well, any employee benefit that can help employees save and give greater control over finances is going to be incredibly important right now and in the coming years.
The employee discount scheme has the potential to save your staff hundreds and potentially thousands over the course of a year and over the course of their employment with you.
In short, the scheme is a no-brainer to implement, especially considering how low-cost and low-admin the scheme is to set up and run.
Finding the right employee discount scheme provider for you and your employees
So, you’ve decided to implement an employee discount scheme. Finding the right provider is crucial for a number of reasons.
Budget has been a big barrier for many businesses in implementing employee benefits, 84% of businesses in-fact, according to research.
The employee discount scheme is usually a low-cost scheme, however it can help to find a supplier with various options when it comes to the scheme to help fit it into your employee benefits budget.
The scheme also needs to appeal to all the demographics within your workforce, with discounts everyone can take advantage of.
When finding a provider, one that can incorporate any of your existing benefits into an employee benefits platform and add new schemes as you expand is also a bonus.
At Access Engage, we provide all this and more.
So, if you’re looking to introduce employee discounts to your staff, get in touch and we’ll walk you through your options.
