Benefits on a Budget: Employee Discounts Schemes
20 February 2025
Today, workplace perks must go beyond free coffee and a games room. Employees are turning to their employers for support with the high cost of living to alleviate the burden and help them get more from life. Your next potential rising star is comparing your employee benefits offering to your competition. Your job benefits package enables you to remain competitive in a world where employer NIC is higher than ever. Read on to discover how our employee discounts platform supports your people and helps you achieve organisational goals – even when budgets are tight.
Why Do Companies Offer Employee Discounts Schemes?
With employer National Insurance Contributions (NIC) and National Minimum Wage set to increase in April 2025, pressure is mounting on organisations' wage bills. When offering the highest salary isn’t possible, your employee benefits package can help set you apart from the competition. In challenging times, your benefits budget must work harder than ever, delivering value to your employees to ensure you see a return on your investment.
What role does an Employee Discounts Platform play in this?
Offering a competitive salary is no longer enough. 61% of employees want their place of work to support them more with the cost-of-living crisis, and 74% of employees say that the employee benefits on offer form an integral part of the decision-making process when offered a new role.
An attractive job benefits package stretches salaries further and is often more cost-effective and impactful than a one-off cash bonus.
A 2023 report found that 72% of employers had to offer higher salaries than anticipated to secure talent (HR Review). The cost of doing business is high, and offering larger than anticipated salaries to secure top talent isn’t viable for every business.
Salary-stretching employee benefits are a cost-effective and sustainable alternative. Costing your business a fraction of a per-head pay raise, an employee discounts platform puts the power to save in your employees’ hands, making an impact without requiring you to elevate your spending.
Supporting Employee Financial Wellbeing
When prices increase, many of us have choices to make. What’s an essential item? What can we do without? How can we create a balance between cutting back and still living life?
The last question matters. We need to get joy from our lives, and sometimes that means spending money. What employees consider as a ‘need’ will vary, but there are daily essentials we can’t do without. Feeding our families is getting more expensive, but you can alleviate the burden for your employees.
By embedding our Employee Discounts Platform into your business, you can open your employees up to a world of possible savings. Accessible via iOS, Android or desktop, your employees can purchase discounted eVouchers with popular supermarket retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury's, M&S, Morrisons, Asda, and Waitrose, saving money on the weekly shop.
More of what employees want… Whatever that happens to be!
We can provide your employees discounts with over 100 high street chains, 26 restaurant chains, over 42 entertainment venues, and lots of independent stores, too - that’s over 130,000 locations across the UK! More moments of fun with the family, dinner with friends, that little something extra to make your people feel special. It’s these small moments that make life more joyful - and you can make it happen.
The more your people use our Employee Discounts Scheme - the more money they can save, alleviating the burden of the rising cost of living. By making life more affordable for employees, you’re helping reduce stress, creating financially resilient employees able to bring their best selves to work.
Improve Employee Health and Wellbeing
Keeping active is non-negotiable for some employees, and we can understand why. Exercise reduces stress, giving us an endorphin boost that starts our day on a high. With our Employee Discounts Platform, your people can enjoy savings with their favourite sports retailers, including Nike, Foot Locker, Adidas, Decathlon and Halfords.
Make a new pair of trainers, walking boots, at-home gym equipment or a new bike more affordable and promote healthier lifestyle choices. Exercise improves physical and mental health, but there’s also a social and emotional element to consider.
It’s important to know what’s available and who we partner with because employee discounts are another string to your bow, a way to strengthen the value of your benefits offering and increase employee wellbeing. The more you know, the more effectively you can drive uptake and generate excitement.
In our blog, ‘How do you boost engagement with employee benefits?’, we reveal the challenge we set with our employees, which saw them saving considerable amounts - renewing their love for our Employee Discounts Platform.
Are Employee Discounts Taxable?
If you search this question, you’ll find two different answers. If a business that sells a service or product offers employees heavily discounted rates, you’re getting into Benefit in Kind territory, which can incur additional taxes.
Our Employee Discounts Scheme works differently. Employees purchase the employee benefit that opens their workforce up to a world of ways they can save money. How employees use what’s available is up to them, and since the employer doesn’t purchase any products on the employees’ behalf, the scheme isn’t taxable. Still, we always recommend seeking independent tax advice for accurate guidance specific to your business.
What Makes an Employee Discount Scheme Cost-Effective?
Employee benefits are an investment that can deliver more value than a pay rise. Recent reports reveal that pay awards are at the lowest level since 2021. At the end of January 2025, the median pay rise over the three months prior was 3% - 1 to 1.5% less than previous years (HR Review).
Rising business costs mean higher consumer costs, so we could get into a position where salaries can’t keep up with inflation. Employee discounts have no cap, and the amount employees can save has no limits. When they use them to their full potential, the savings can be of a higher value than a pay increase - especially in the current climate.
Remember why you're offering employee benefits to your workforce. You’re trying to support employee financial wellbeing, stretching their salary and your tightening budgets as far as possible. Gone are the days of discounts being just a workplace perk or a nice-to-have. Your employee benefits package can make a significant difference to employees’ lives and make achieving business targets more affordable.
Free Bolt Ons
One of the most significant reasons our Employee Discounts Platform is so cost-effective is that you can bolt on other employee benefits at no extra cost.
When you take on our platform, you can access our Green Car and Cycle to Work Salary Sacrifices with no up-front costs. Add our salary deduction schemes - SmartPay and Refurbished Tech - to the mix, and you’ve got five employee benefits in one!
When discussing cost-effective workplace perks, we must mention our salary sacrifice schemes as they reduce employer NIC payments. Discover how much money your business can save in our blog, ‘Salary Sacrifice and Your Business Cost-Savings Strategy’.
How An Employee Discounts Platform Helps Your Business
Employee discount schemes are a cost-effective and appreciated workplace perk that enhances financial wellbeing and gives you more bang for your buck. Your benefits package delivers more than cost efficiencies. It boosts employee engagement, enhances talent attraction, supports employee retention, and helps to reduce absenteeism.
Boost Employee Engagement
As we explore in our Guide to Building a Sustainable and Cost-Effective People Strategy, highly engaged employees increase productivity by 17%.
There are many ways to increase employee engagement. Helping your people afford more of what matters to them is just one of them. As is showing them that you’re in their corner, supporting them when times are tough, and improving their quality of life.
Don’t underestimate the power of happy and loyal employees - they don’t just come to work to do their job; they’re passionate about your business and want to help it thrive.
Attract Talent and Support Employee Retention
74% of employees say that the employee benefits on offer form an integral part of the decision-making process when offered a new role.
Employee benefits form part of your Employee Value Proposition, and potential employees are reviewing this when they consider applying for a role with your business. Culture, flexibility, salary, and values matter - but a fixed salary only goes so far.
Employee benefits offer more, and the talent is scrutinising yours.
Recruiting new employees is expensive. Having vacant roles for extended periods impacts productivity and can cause additional stress to those who remain. Ensure you make the money-saving opportunities known when you advertise a new position, as it can be a bargaining tool when negotiating salaries.
The same thought process applies to those considering whether to leave your business. Retain your talent by making your employee benefits offering too good to walk away from.
Reduce Absenteeism
In our blog, ‘How to support your employees during the cost-of-living crisis,’ we share data from our Money Mastery research.... Have a read of that blog for the whole story. Here, we’ll highlight that 73% of the employee respondents who rated their financial wellbeing as average, poor or very poor said this caused them stress.
Financial anxiety increases absenteeism and lowers productivity when your employees are present. By embedding an Employee Discounts Platform into your benefits package, you’re making their lives more affordable and alleviating their money worries.
Alleviate financial anxiety = less stress and fewer absences!
Get More from Your Benefits Budget with Pluxee UK
We agree that employee benefits help stretch employees’ salaries further and that employee discount schemes can offer more financial value than a pay rise. Especially considering the current trend and climate.
At Pluxee UK, we don’t just want to help your employees get more from life, we want employers to get more for their money.
Whether it be becoming an employer of choice, improving the loyalty and retention of your people, a greater alignment to your cultural values, achieving higher performance or ultimately improving engagement, our company - Pluxee UK gives you the tools and the power to make it happen.
Our account managers are on hand to ensure your employee benefits offering is a success, and our in-house marketers will ensure your people take advantage of every chance to make a saving.
Ready to get more for less and thrive with a cost-effective, money-saving employee benefits strategy?
Sources: HR Review.
