Asda has increased the take-up of its sharesave scheme after changing providers and adopting a new approach to communicating the perk to staff.
The retailer saw 26,000 of its 175,000-strong workforce take up sharesave, compared to 25,000 the previous year after it promoted the scheme using employee case studies.
Film footage of staff members discussing what they spent previous sharesave gains on and written endorsements of the perk were posted on the firm’s Greenroom website, which serves as a notice board for staff at Asda stores.
A sharesave group was also set up on Facebook to remind people to join the scheme before the closing date in March.
Laura Wilcock, shares manager at Asda, said: “I think [sharesave] is important for retention. Obviously, the majority of our employee base works in stores. They are hourly-paid employees who do not earn much above the minimum wage and often work part-time hours. So if we have a maturity that is in profit it can be a really big ‘wow’ for them and they can make lots of money out of it in addition to what they are earning already.”
Computershare now provides Asda’s sharesave scheme, which has a three-year saving period and offers employees a 20% discount on the share option price. The previous provider was Equinti.
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