Home Group builds salary sacrifice car scheme

Home Group launched a salary sacrifice car scheme as part of a move to enhance its benefits package while making savings.

The social housing provider replaced its company car benefit with a cash payment, which staff can use to pay for a car through a salary sacrifice arrangement.

Available to all permanent and fixed-term contract employees, the scheme offers a choice of cars that have a fixed emissions cap of 155g/km of carbon dioxide (CO2). Since the scheme was introduced in July 2012, 30 cars have been delivered and 10 more are awaiting delivery.

The salary sacrifice scheme brings tax and national insurance savings for both the organisation and its employees.

Home Group informed its workforce about the changes to the scheme using intranet messages and emails.

It also held roadshows at its main offices, including questionand- answer sessions with scheme provider Tusker.

Kelly Mitchell, HR business partner, policy and reward at Home Group, says: “We had a good response from employees; it was really promising. In the run-up to launch, we had a lot of employees waiting for the scheme to come into place. For such a big purchase, the level of take-up we have had so far is quite promising.”