Do Employee Discount Schemes Work?
2 January 2025
Employee discount schemes are a popular employee benefit. So much more than a staff perk, employee discounts stretch salaries and business budgets further to the point where they can be more effective and sustainable than a company-wide pay rise! What are employee discounts, and how do they fit within your employee benefits strategy? More importantly, do employee discount schemes work? Read on to discover more.
Summary:
What is an Employee Discount Scheme?
How Does an Employee Discount Scheme Work?
Answering Your Most Frequently Asked Questions
Who Gives the Best Employee Discounts?
Do Employee Discount Schemes Work?
How Employee Discount Schemes Enhance Financial Wellbeing
How Discount Schemes Support Your Business
How Do Employee Discounts Fit Within Your Employee Benefits Strategy?
What Should You Expect from Your Employee Discount Scheme Provider?
How Can You Make Your Employee Discounts Scheme Work Harder?
Partner with Pluxee UK to Deliver Employee Discount Schemes that Work
What is an Employee Discount Scheme?
There are different kinds of discount schemes for employees. For example, people working for a company in the retail or service sectors may enjoy a work benefit scheme that offers discounts with purchases from that employer.
Employee discount schemes like ours are different. They’re not a workplace perk specific to one company but an employee benefit that any business can embed into their benefits package. Not limited to a particular retailer - we have discounts, deals, holiday savings and online cashback opportunities with over 150 retailers.
We designed our Employee Discounts Platform to be a universal employee benefit that meets the unique needs of your workforce, ensuring everyone has the opportunity to save money and enjoy more of what matters most to them.
How Does an Employee Discount Scheme Work?
To be most effective, employees should embed their discounts into their daily lives. Using discounts on an ad hoc basis or when they’re looking to save money on a high-end purchase helps, but the significant savings come with consistent use.
In our blog, 'Exploring the Best Employee Benefits: Our Employee Discount Platform', we take a deep dive into the difference employee discounts make when used to pay for the weekly grocery shop all year round.
Small savings build up over time to make a significant difference. £8 saved on a weekly shop may not make your employees stop and think, but repeat the behaviour every week of the year, and that’s £416 back in your employee's pockets.
That’s a considerable saving, and we’re only calculating one area of your employees’ regular spending. Apply this to clothing, shoes, days out, restaurants… the opportunities are endless. Employee discount schemes give your employees more for less, enhancing financial wellbeing, helping them experience more of what matters and bringing more joy to their lives.
Answering Your Most Frequently Asked Questions
We discuss employee discounts with employers and HR professionals daily, and a few questions regularly crop up.
- What retailers do we have on board? We partner with over 150 retailers and are constantly striving to add more.
- What are the discount levels, and do they change? The discount level varies per retailer, with some offering a massive 20%! We work closely with our retail partners to provide the best employee discounts and often run promotions where the savings increase for a limited time.
- Is there an app? There is an app, and it’s compatible with iOS and Android.
- Is the voucher purchasing process easy? Yes! Employees log onto their discounts app or employee benefits platform via their desktops, find the retailer they wish to purchase with, add the amount they need to spend (online or in-store), purchase and download their eVoucher and scan or input the details at the checkout.
- How are the discounts applied? If your employees’ shopping comes to £100 in total, they log into their discounts app and select a voucher for £100 with their chosen retailer. However, if the retailer offers a 6% discount, that £100 voucher will only cost them £94. The savings come from purchasing our discounted vouchers, not by reducing the price at the till.
- Is there a difference between the desktop and app versions? There is. We designed the app to be the handy savings partner your employees can use on the go. It’s filled with the instant discounts they can get with over 150 retailers. The web version is for those with more time to browse and includes online cashback deals alongside holiday discounts and booking services.
- What are the tax implications of offering discounts as an employee benefit? It’s best to seek independent tax advice here.
Who Gives the Best Employee Discounts?
There are several discount scheme providers on the market, and each must establish a commercial relationship with the retail partners. The answer to this question depends on your perception of what ‘best’ means. Is it better to have higher savings with fewer retailers or more savings from the retailers that will make a difference to your employees’ lives?
Do Employee Discount Schemes Work?
To make an employee discount scheme work, you must be clear on your goals and objectives.
Are you trying to improve employee financial wellbeing, enhance engagement, or implement a robust employee benefit offering to create a competitive EVP that will help you attract and retain talent? Employee benefits as a whole and an employee discounts scheme, specifically, can help with all these challenges, as we'll explore during this blog.
How Employee Discount Schemes Enhance Financial Wellbeing
The cost-of-living crisis is hitting many Brits hard, negatively impacting their financial health and causing nationwide financial anxiety to rise.
Our Money Mastery research found that 48% of UK employees rate their financial wellbeing as average, poor, or very poor, and 73% of respondents are more stressed as a result.
57% of HR professionals say they’re witnessing the consequences of poor employee financial wellbeing, and 66% say their employees are notably more stressed.
Money-saving employee benefits boost motivation and performance by alleviating the cost of their everyday essentials. Employees don’t leave their money worries at home. They bring them to work, affecting their focus, motivation, engagement, and productivity.
Businesses are feeling the impact of the cost-of-living crisis in more ways than one, but it’s within your power to create financially resilient employees who can be at their best when you need them to be. We discuss this further in our blog, ‘Why it pays to enhance employee financial resilience.’
Our Money Mastery research also revealed that many employees lack the confidence to be open with their employer about their financial situation. If you’re looking for the best way to support employee financial wellbeing, it’s beneficial to be able to have open conversations. Discover how to nurture these in our blog, ‘Employee money worries... Removing the stigma. Providing the solution.’
For further reading on the negative consequences of financial anxiety, dip into our blog, 'Creating a brighter tomorrow… financial health and mental wealth', where we explore the connection between financial and mental wellbeing. It’s a must-read for any employer or HR professional seeking to improve both.
How Discount Schemes Support Your Business
Employee discount schemes support your business in many ways. Every action you take to enhance employee wellbeing will benefit your business. Here’s how:
Improving Employee Financial Wellbeing
When you make life more affordable for your employees, you improve their financial health, leading to better mental and emotional health - reducing employee stress and absenteeism. Alleviating money worries is an impactful way to nurture a loyal workforce.
Increase employee engagement
When employees feel supported, they feel valued. When you stretch their salaries further to help them afford more of what matters, they become more engaged with your business. Businesses with a highly engaged workforce will benefit from 21% greater profitability!
Improve Employee Retention and Attraction
During our Money Mastery research phase, we asked over 2,000 UK employees if they were considering leaving their current roles and what would tempt them to stay. Better financial employee benefits were at the top of the list. Our Employee Discounts Platform enables you to build a competitive Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that helps to reduce employee turnover and attract top talent, saving you money on recruitment costs and helping your business thrive!
A Cost-Effective Way to Give Employees More
A company-wide pay rise can add millions to a business's wage bill, especially in light of the April 2025 wage and NIC increases. Employee Discounts Platforms, alongside other salary-stretching employee benefits, can enhance your offering.
When employers offer their employees cashback-earning and discount schemes, their workforce can save up to £1,679. Graham James, Director, Pluxee UK
When looking for a new role, job hunters compare the employee benefits on offer across organisations alongside the advertised salary. When accompanied by a great employer brand and workplace culture, a strong EVP can tempt employees to stay with you, even when offered a higher salary.
How Do Employee Discounts Fit Within Your Employee Benefits Strategy?
There are five wellbeing pillars, but when discussing employee benefits, we tend to stick to three - financial, mental, and physical.
The most effective employee benefits strategy incorporates all three pillars, and we have specific products to support them all. Yey, with so many retailers on board, our Employee Discounts Platform can enhance your employee benefits strategy beyond the money-saving element.
Improving Mental wellbeing
Where do we start? Being able to afford life's essentials and removing some of the financial strain improves employee mental health. Throw in the fact that your employees can embrace more wellbeing activities, like spas and day trips, and it’s easy to see how our Employee Discounts Platform improves employees’ mental and emotional health.
Enhancing Physical wellbeing
We partner with a wide range of retailers to deliver employee discounts on fishing gear, bikes, home gym equipment, and so much more. Our employee discounts scheme can make it more affordable for employees and their families to enjoy a more active lifestyle.
What Should You Expect from Your Employee Discount Scheme Provider?
Offering employee discounts alongside other employee benefits isn’t enough to guarantee uptake. Even when you provide benefits that will significantly impact your employees’ lives, they need encouragement to use them. Here’s how your employee benefits partner should help:
Benefits Launch
Roadshows are a great way to launch your Employee Discounts Platform. Make it an event employees won’t want to miss, and have your benefits provider explain how employees can use their discounts to stretch their salaries further.
On-Going Marketing and Communications
After the initial launch, it’s essential to keep communicating with your employees. Ensure you partner with a provider that will help. Our in-house marketing team delivers enhanced deals, new retailers and competitions directly to your employees’ inboxes. We also have a self-service Comms Centre where you can download and re-brand marketing materials.
Account Management
A dedicated account manager helps drive your employee discount scheme’s success, delivering regular reports so you can understand how your employees are using their benefits. Your account manager is committed to helping you achieve your goals.
UK-Based Support Service
An employee discount scheme mustn’t require continuous administration - your HR teams are busy enough! Our UK-based Customer Care Team are just a call away to help with any user queries that arise.
How Can You Make Your Employee Discounts Scheme Work Harder?
It takes 21 days to change a habit, and if your employees have been following the same purchasing behaviour for many years, they’ll need encouragement to adopt a new - better way. Regular communication on the employee discounts available and how to access their employee benefits platform will ensure they're always on your employees' minds.
You can do this in various ways, like running internal challenges and creating 'super users' who can set an example and show their colleagues the difference their employee discounts can make to their financial wellbeing.
Explore how we boosted engagement with our Employee Discounts Platform and our cashback-earning Pluxee Card during our 21-Day Money Marathon in our blog, ‘How do you boost engagement with employee benefits?’
Partner with Pluxee UK to Deliver Employee Discount Schemes that Work
At Pluxee, we’re all about making more of life and adding that extra bit of joy that brightens our days. For over four decades, we have been contributing to making work not just a place to be but a place to belong.
