More than half of employees at Tibbett & Britten have taken advantage of the salary sacrifice benefits scheme it implemented earlier this year.
The fact that the supply chain management firm was able to reclaim the VAT on all PCs purchased through its home computing scheme, as well as make tax and NI savings, helped the company self-fund the scheme, which won the award for 'Most effective use of a voluntary benefits plan' at the Employee Benefits Awards 2004.
Andrew Piper, group compensation and benefits manager at Tibbett & Britten, which was recently bought by Exel, said he hoped to re-launch the home computing scheme next year to include the employees from Exel.
During the session 'Tax efficient benefits and salary sacrifice - what you need to know', he added that he was looking into the idea of tax-free bikes and mobile phones as other possible developments.
Tibbett & Britten managed to achieve a take-up of 8%, close to the anticipated 10%. Piper said he thought that take-up may have been higher if employees could buy unbundled computer packages that didn't include as many peripherals.
However, childcare vouchers were not as popular. Less than 20 employees signed up to the scheme to provide cheaper childcare. This was attributed to a largely male workforce.
Piper added that he would also like to explore whether such a scheme could be offered to the group's employees in Europe.