A new company car scheme that offers environmentally-friendly vehicles has been launched by Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC) to help attract 1,200 new school leavers and graduates.
From this month, eligible recruits can choose from seven low CO2-emission cars as part of the School Leavers' and Graduate Entrants' car scheme.
Carolyn Wilkinson, senior employee benefits manager, said PwC wanted to attract "graduates with upper second-class degrees from top universities". She added: "We feel it's important that they drive a suitable car." The scheme was promoted to potential employees at a series of university recruitment days.
If successful, it will be repeated in future years. It is offered through the company's flexible benefits package and includes a choice of cars such as the Chevrolet Matiz 1.0, Citroen C4 1.4i and Mazda MX-5 1.8i.
The contract hire leasing arrangement also includes company-funded driver training, full servicing and insurance, and a carbon offsetting scheme. This differs from the package offered to all other employees, which requires staff to fund participation in the offsetting scheme.
But graduates are not limited to the cars in the new scheme. They can also choose to take the car packages offered to all other PwC employees, although Wilkinson hopes the environmental perks will act as an incentive for them to stick with the graduate scheme.
Employees can also use a dedicated online facility to access information about their cars.