How Can I Promote Salary Sacrifice to my Employees?

Many businesses struggle with getting the benefits of salary sacrifice schemes across to their staff. The word ‘sacrifice’ often comes with negative associations, and staff can be reluctant to sign up to any scheme that makes them feel as though they’re losing out. So how can you communicate the advantages of these schemes to staff, while still ensuring they understand the contract commitment they’re taking on? Here are a few tips:

Carry out a survey

A staff survey will help you to gauge how your staff feel about such schemes so that you can plan how you’ll market the scheme. If staff seem keen on the idea but aren’t familiar with the workings of salary sacrifice, perhaps your communication will focus more on educating employees. If your staff aren’t sure about the idea of sacrificing some of their hard-earned salaries, you can focus on communicating the benefits – which include paying less tax and being able to choose a popular new car.

Work with your provider

The provider you’re working with will have implemented dozens, or even hundreds of these schemes before – there’s no question they can’t answer, and they’ll know how to effectively put across the most important elements of the scheme. Work with your provider to run a workshop for staff, put together a presentation or produce some informative literature that will help your staff understand the workings of the schemes a little better.

Provide extra resources

It always helps to provide extra resources so that staff feel fully supported in these schemes. Give them access to some comprehensive FAQs, so that if they have some questions further down the line, they can see whether their question has already been answered. An interactive cost calculator can also help employees work out what their salary will be if they join a scheme. Employees will need to be able to see exactly how the scheme will affect their own take-home pay, so there’s no use providing a few examples on a leaflet or flyer, as each staff member’s income might be different.

Build excitement

There should be a sense of excitement around the scheme. Once everything is prepared, set a launch date and coordinate some promotional activities that will lead up to the big launch. Special offers, informational teasers and a pre-registration process can all help to build anticipation and excitement before the scheme kicks in.