St. James’s Place is a wealth management company employing around 2,500 people across the UK. Alongside its employee benefits package, it offers a range of voluntary benefits, including private medical insurance, health assessments and a discount scheme, to meet the needs of its diverse workforce.
The discount scheme, which is provided by Reward Gateway, sits on its benefits platform. Sophie Tune, reward specialist at St. James’s Place, says: “Employees love to use the platform to save money. It helps their money stretch further, whether they’re using discounts for holidays or the weekly supermarket shop.”
As the scheme gives employees access to more than 900 discounts, a regular communications programme is a must. To support this, the reward team uses information from Reward Gateway to help it promote the top deals and understand which discounts are most popular among employees. This insight shows the most popular discounts are Tesco, John Lewis and Sainsbury’s, showing that employees value the scheme for their everyday shopping.
In addition to offering voluntary benefits that employees can use for their day-to-day spending, St. James’s Place is also keen to shape its offering in line with employee demand. As an example, in July 2024, it added an electric car salary sacrifice scheme provided by Tusker. “We’d had lots of enquiries from employees about electric vehicles so we knew it would be popular,” says Tune. “It also tied in well with what we wanted to do with the existing car allowances. These had been awarded to employees above a certain grade but we wanted to adopt a more modern, inclusive approach and offer something to everyone.”
To roll out the scheme, the communications team created an interactive programme, Beep beep, your new EV scheme; ran a series of blogs about electric vehicles; and included all the information on the organisation’s benefits platform. Employees were also encouraged to share their questions and experiences on the employee experience channel. “The buzz around the scheme has been amazing,” says Tune. “As well as employees reaching out for their colleagues’ opinion on the scheme and electric vehicles more generally, we’ve also seen great feedback on the provider. One employee posted how, when his electric vehicle was involved in an accident, he only had to make one call to Tusker and a replacement vehicle was arranged straightaway.”
One year on, the promotion and activity around the scheme has proved hugely successful and, with 89 orders for electric vehicles already placed, it is rapidly heading towards its 100th car.
