EXCLUSIVE: Busy Bees Group has launched its own mobile phone scheme to around 6,000 staff in its nurseries division.
The scheme, which was introduced at the end of June, allows employees to purchase a new smartphone and pay for it across 24 months via a salary sacrifice arrangement.
Jo Dalby, finance director at Busy Bees Group, said: “We really wanted our employees to access the savings. It helps them manage their costs.”
It is part of a wider offering of voluntary benefits, which includes childcare vouchers, a training programme and a bikes-for-work scheme.
The scheme was first launched as a pilot among Busy Bees Benefits’ office-based staff in April. Around 30% took advantage of the scheme.
Since Busy Bees Nursery launched the scheme, around 20 employees have signed up.
Dalby added: “Not all the nursery employees can join because it will push them below the minimum wage, so we won’t expect quite as high a take up.
“Our system works out, as they go in, whether they can take it or not.”
Provider Busy Bees Benefits distributes the employee communications, which allows staff to log in online to learn about the tariffs, the different phones and the savings available.
Dalby said: “That is all done online so we didn’t have to do anything except for send around the information.”
The pilot launch was communicated via email, because all the office staff have access to computers.
The scheme was communicated to the nursery employees via posters. Dalby added: “It is much harder to communicate when people aren’t on email, so we had some posters to put up for them.”