EXCLUSIVE: Jelf Employee Benefits has achieved a 14% take-up rate for its Christmas savings club, with 168 employees saving through the scheme over the last 12 months.
The Christmas savings club aims to help the organisation’s employees to save and take control of their finances, while reducing financial stress around the festive season.
Employees can save any amount in multiples of £5 into the savings club, which is deducted from monthly net pay. An average of £9,800 is saved into the Christmas savings club each month, equating to an average of £58 per employee.
The scheme runs from October to the following September. The yearly pay out is in October to help staff financially in the run up to Christmas.
Jelf Employee Benefits, which employs around 1,200 staff, has been running the savings club for the past 11 years. The organisation communicates the scheme to employees via its intranet, and undertook an internal communications drive in 2015 to further promote the scheme to staff.
Katie Vye (pictured), senior Money at Work consultant at Jelf Employee Benefits, said: “There’s still a bit of a taboo about savings clubs, particularly with the high-profile collapse of an independent Christmas savings club a few years ago. That’s why we believe an employer-backed savings club is a much safer way for individuals to save and we would encourage other employers to follow our lead.
“There can also be a reticence amongst employers that these types of schemes are patronising to staff and that a well-educated, well-paid workforce doesn’t want or need them. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We’ve seen take-up from a complete cross section of our staff, and in fact some people find it much easier to participate in a savings scheme via work rather than have the inconvenience of setting up a standalone bank account for such a short-term investment.
“If it makes our employees’ lives easier and puts them in a stronger financial position, with the only resources required being the time to manage the scheme, we think a Christmas savings scheme is well worth it.”