Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International launched a flexible benefits scheme at the beginning of the year. With a large proportion of its perks being offered through salary sacrifice, it directed employees to an online terms and conditions form outlining the rules. This forced staff to read about the implications of salary sacrifice arrangements and tick a box to say they agreed to the terms and conditions of their involvement. Glenn Coleman, head of compensation and benefits, explains: "Nearly everything we have done on benefits requires salary sacrifice so we put together a couple of paragraphs so that if employees wanted to get involved, they actually agreed to the terms."
Although the financial services company is concerned about the risks surrounding salary sacrifice, it is less concerned about the risk of tax breaks being removed from further benefits as happened with HCI. "We're not worried about other benefits being taken. [HCI] was an obvious one that stood out a mile, it was almost too good to be true, so it won't happen again," he adds.
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