Salary sacrifice schemes are a valuable way to enhance your employee benefits offering, providing tax-efficient options that support financial wellbeing, sustainability goals, and lifestyle perks.

But simply offering these schemes isn’t enough. To unlock their full potential, organisations need to focus on how they’re delivered, accessed, and supported.

Whether you’re leading Reward strategy in a large enterprise or managing HR in a growing business, here are practical ways to maximise engagement with salary sacrifice schemes.

1. Harmonise Benefits into a Unified Platform

One of the most effective ways to drive engagement is to make it easy for employees to find and apply for benefits. Harmonising all your employee benefits into a single, flexible platform simplifies the experience and removes barriers to entry.

When employees can explore and enrol in schemes like your salary sacrifice schemes, having all your options in one place increases visibility and uptake. This is especially important for schemes that involve financial decisions where clarity and ease of use are essential.

For larger organisations, this also enables more sophisticated tracking and segmentation. For smaller businesses, it reduces admin and ensures consistency.

2. Integrate Benefits within Your Core HR System

Embedding your benefits platform within your wider HR software suite creates a completely seamless experience.

When employees can access their benefits alongside everyday HR tasks like booking annual leave or checking their shifts, it becomes part of their routine.

This integration helps keep salary sacrifice schemes visible and top of mind, while joining up data and processes and reducing the admin burden for HR managers and reward leaders in the process.

Whether you’re managing a large workforce or a small team, this approach helps reinforce the value of your benefits offering without adding complexity, driving high and consistent engagement.

At The Access Group, our comprehensive employee benefits and engagement solutions not only help over 2,000 businesses harmonise their benefits and rewards offering but can also be deeply integrated as part of the wider Access HR software suite for both small and large businesses.

Check out our supplier page at the top of this article for more information.

3. Offer Human Support Alongside Digital Tools

Technology is essential, but human support also remains a key driver of engagement. Providers who offer dedicated employee support through live chat, scheme workshops, or one-to-one guidance over the phone can significantly improve the employee experience and confidence around salary sacrifice schemes.

This is particularly valuable for schemes like the salary sacrifice car scheme, which may involve more complex decisions. Employees are more likely to engage when they feel informed and supported.

For smaller teams, even offering manager-led briefings or access to expert FAQs can make a big difference.

4. Use Targeted Campaigns to Drive Awareness

Generic communications often get overlooked by employees. Instead, use targeted campaigns to promote your salary sacrifice schemes based on employee needs, roles, or life stages.

For example:

  • Promote electric vehicle schemes to employees with long commutes.
  • Highlight tech schemes to younger employees or those in digital roles.
  • Use lifecycle triggers (e.g. return from parental leave or approaching retirement) to surface relevant benefits.

Use a mix of channels including email, intranet, manager briefings, and digital signage to reinforce messaging and drive action. Even in smaller organisations, a well-timed email or team meeting can spark interest.

It also helps if your employee benefits and engagement tech includes employee communications tools to help cut through the noise and drive engagement with your employee benefits platform.

5. Create Moments of Engagement Throughout the Year

Rather than relying on annual benefit windows, create multiple touchpoints throughout the year to promote salary sacrifice schemes. These could include:

  • Financial wellbeing weeks
  • Sustainability campaigns
  • New joiner onboarding
  • Manager-led benefit briefings

Embedding benefits into key moments helps keep them relevant and encourages employees to take action when it matters most.

6. Use Data to Personalise and Improve

Whether you’re working with a large dataset or simple usage reports, data can help you understand what’s working and where to improve.

Track engagement across schemes and demographics to identify gaps. Are certain schemes underused? Are some departments more engaged than others? Use these insights to refine your offering and personalise communications.

For smaller businesses, even informal feedback or quick pulse surveys can provide valuable direction.

Again, be sure to work with your employee benefits provider here to gain relevant insights to help support your employee benefits strategy.

7. Align Benefits with Broader Business Goals

Salary sacrifice schemes can support wider organisational priorities from sustainability to financial wellbeing. Aligning your benefits strategy with these goals helps increase relevance and secure leadership buy-in.

For example:

  • Position electric vehicle schemes as part of your net-zero strategy.
  • Promote pension salary sacrifice as a tool for long-term financial resilience.
  • Use tech schemes to support hybrid working or digital inclusion.

This alignment helps elevate the role of HR and Reward in driving business impact, not just employee satisfaction.

Conclusion

Maximising engagement with salary sacrifice schemes isn’t just about offering more, it’s about offering smarter. By harmonising platforms, integrating with HR systems, supporting employees with both digital tools and human guidance, and aligning with business goals, you can create a benefits experience that’s easy to use and genuinely valued.

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