How do I get employees to use our salary sacrifice scheme

Setting up your scheme is the easy part, but getting employees to understand it, trust it, and order a car is another matter altogether!

How do I Get Employees to Actually Use Our Salary Sacrifice Scheme?

We've written before about why businesses set up a salary sacrifice scheme, how the mechanics actually work for a small business, and the questions employees are asking both before and after a scheme is set-up.

Setting up a scheme is the easy part, but then getting employees to fully understand it, trust it, and then get involved by ordering a car through it is where many schemes can start to struggle.

There aren’t any hard and fast industry figures that track first uptake across all Salary Sacrifice Car Schemes but as referenced in a previous article it is recognised as being in the region of 5% of qualifying employees ordering through the scheme in the first year.

That isn’t a criticism or reflection of salary sacrifice as a worthy employee benefit but moreover a potential combination of several factors influencing awareness, interest, engagement and action.

There are some factors that can’t be avoided … an employee having just entered a new financial agreement on a new or used car or that electric cars simply don’t work for them.

There are however other factors that can be controlled … and can improve interest, understanding and uptake in the new salary sacrifice car scheme.

For some larger organisations the implementation of a scheme may be nothing more than “something they should do” and something that appears in the careers pages and rolled into their reporting of their ESG credentials … having the scheme itself is more important than it working the full potential in terms of employee uptake.  The scheme is launched … everyone is emailed and encouraged to sign up to the portal and away they go.

NEV Leasing work with SME businesses across Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and the wider East Anglia region and find that they generally don’t implement a scheme just for the PR or to add to their end of year account reports … there is an underlying motivation for introducing the scheme which may be to reduce costs associated with cash allowance, reduce Scope 3 emissions, promote their company as a great place to work, improve staff engagement , or potentially a combination of some or all of these factors.

These are the organisations who are invested in the outcomes and want the scheme to succeed rather than just exist.

Why a scheme can exist and still go nowhere

A salary sacrifice scheme can be technically live, fully compliant, competitively priced, and still sit there with one or two vehicles on it eighteen months later and it happens more often than the marketing around salary sacrifice schemes might suggest.

The reasons for this can be varied but are rarely about the concept of the scheme or the viability of electric vehicles.

Pricing will always feature as the marketing around salary sacrifice promotes some huge potential savings – if those savings are not evident then trust in the scheme will erode and potentially rather quickly.

Employees who don't fully understand what they're signing up to won't sign up. Employees who've heard a rumour that “it's expensive” from a colleague will repeat that to the next person who asks. Similarly employees who only ever interact with a scheme through a static portal, with no one to ask any questions, will often just close the tab and not come back.

The numbers are therefore vitally important, therefore and there are several factors that affect what the employee sees as their net sacrifice.

A salary sacrifice car scheme generates Class 1A NIC savings for the company and there are several things an employer can do with those savings.

 For some these savings pay for the operation and administration of the scheme by   their provider … for others they have a choice – take all or part as genuine cost     reductions to the company … accrue all or part towards potential early termination   charges depending on the level of cover provided by the scheme … or simply pass   them on to the employee to reduce their nett sacrifice.

 Benchmarking published by fleet provider Zenith in February 2026 found that   reinvesting the employer National Insurance savings back into the scheme, to reduce   what employees pay, can increase participation by up to 200%.  That's a significant   impact and can be the difference between a scheme that simply exists to one that   genuinely changes how your business talks about employee benefits.

The question worth asking therefore isn't  “should we offer salary sacrifice.” , it’s more a case of how do we make sure we are doing everything we reasonably can to make sure employees actually know what's on offer, understand it, and feel confident enough to use it.”

Get senior management genuinely behind it, not just signed off on it

There's a big difference between a scheme that's simply been approved and one that is genuinely endorsed and promoted – and for any established employees it is usually an easy spot.

If the launch communication employees receive is simply an email from HR with a portal link attached, the scheme reads as something that exists because someone in ticked a box. If the same scheme is introduced by the owner or a director explaining why the business is doing it, what it's hoping to achieve, and what it means in practice for the people who work there, it reads completely differently. Even more so if the timing of the launch can coincide with the owner or director being the first one to take up the offer.

This matters more for smaller businesses across the region than it does for a national corporate with a benefits team. In an SME, the owner's voice carries real weight. Industry commentary on employee engagement backs this up and cites the most successful schemes as the ones supported by visible leadership backing, not just a sign-off in the approval chain.

When discussing the suitability of a scheme and it’s well-known benefits we start by asking about the businesses motives and what it hopes to achieve as a result of implementing a scheme – both short term and long term.

Retention, recruitment, ESG credentials, replacing a cash allowance, or simply wanting to do something genuinely useful for staff, the answer shapes how the scheme is created, implemented, introduced and talked about. An employee who understands that the business set this up specifically to help with the cost of living, or specifically to back up a genuine sustainability commitment, engages with it differently to an employee who's just been sent a link.

Communication has to be more than one email and a portal

We’re not aware of a salary sacrifice provider that doesn’t give you or your employees access to a portal, but self-service only goes so far and the best schemes have an awareness plan … launch plan and in-life communication plan.

A salary sacrifice portal is a vital component of a scheme. It’s where employees can run illustrations, try different terms, mileages, vehicles and specifications and it’s accessible 24-7 to enable them to look at the options away from work and with family members etc. Ultimately it’s where employees place their order and where employers authorise it – streamlining the process and reducing the admin input to a minimum.

For some employees simply relying on the portal for all information, guidance and quotes is  fine, but for many others, it isn't, and that's where schemes can start to stall.

This is the real difference between a portal-led scheme and a scheme that combines a portal with telephone or zoom call support and regular, in-person conversations.  NEV Leasing run pop-up surgeries at businesses across Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, simple, informal in person sessions where employees can ask anything about EV’s, range, charging, and salary sacrifice as well as getting a detailed quotation created personally for them to match their specific needs.

The launch communications matter just as much as the ongoing ones. A scheme needs a proper introduction and positioning, not just an announcement, posters or digital screens in shared spaces.  

NEV Leasing start with pre-implementation … positioning the scheme and inviting curious employees to ask questions – about all aspects of EV use, charging and salary sacrifice … signposting where to go for information and to ask questions paves the way for future interactions as interest builds.

As the schemes moves to launch the communication assets are created and provided by NEV for every business – tailored to the individual business and the specific future objectives driving the scheme forward.

The plan continues and doesn't stop at launch as potential candidates need to know is exists, new starts need to know where to go and and existing employee need to be reminded of it as at some point it will become relevant to a replacement or renewal need.

The communications should also involve real experience feedback and comment from early adopters … those people who have decided to get fully involved in the scheme can speak with knowledge about why they became interested … how the experience was delivered and even the savings they feel they are making.

The rate matters more than many schemes might admit

Implementing a salary sacrifice scheme is cost neutral to the business – and with suggested savings in providers marketing of 40% and even 50% in some cases it is easy to overlook one of the key fundamental elements that will dictate the success of the scheme once implemented.

If the provider promotes savings of up to 40%-50% …and the employee really doesn’t feel the scheme is providing anything like the savings they expected – or even worse looks more expensive than standard lease rates in the market place then the scheme is already in difficulty and with potential credibility issues.

There are a number of different elements that go into making up the nett sacrifice the employee “pays”

• The business contract hire rate provided for the vehicle in question by the leasing company
• The level of cover for the employer in the event of early termination
• How much of the employer Class 1A NIC savings are passed to the employee
• If the scheme provider charges for the operation and management of the scheme [ usually from the NIC savings ]

A scheme provider that charges the employer the equivalent of the NIC savings to operate the salary sacrifice isn’t necessarily the most expensive to the employee – they may be making savings elsewhere to still be competitive or even cheaper.

A genuinely lower rate doesn't just make one quotation more attractive, it can change how the whole scheme is perceived by employees. A £35 a month difference on a single vehicle sounds modest, but across a three-year agreement, it amounts to over £1,000, and then multiply that across an entire workforce comparing notes and the it could be the difference between a scheme that gets described as “actually worth it” and one that gets quietly written off as expensive.

One of the key elements is the upfront business contract hire rate and some portals sit with just generic leasing terms feeding their rate. The best schemes ensure the strongest manufacturer terms are loaded from the outset as many provide increase discounts for salary sacrifice customers . Depending on the size and profile of employees some manufacturers will offer further enhanced terms or run campaigns to boost uptake of their products. There are also often electric car campaigns that are negotiated by funders and can be used for salary sacrifice customers for even larger savings. Finally dealers may have stock vehicles attracting support and bonuses that can be applied to create more attractive rentals for employees.

It’s important therefore to understand how your pricing is created … if there is a check mechanism to establish the opportunity for additional savings and to price check providers during the tender phase to ensure you are comfortable that your employees will enjoy savings that genuinely match up to the marketing headlines.

What you do with the National Insurance savings has a big impact

We've covered this before from the employer's side: when an employee sacrifices salary, the business saves on Class 1A National Insurance contributions, typically in the region of £60 to £120 per month per employee on the scheme, depending on the size of the sacrifice.

Some providers quietly take some or all of that saving as their fee for running the scheme. NEV Leasing doesn't, which means the decision about what happens with it sits entirely with you.

There are three broad routes: keep it as a net saving for the business, reinvest it elsewhere, or pass some or all of it back to employees to reduce what they pay each month. There's no wrong answer, it depends on what the business is trying to achieve, but it's worth making the decision deliberately rather than by default.

Why “this is expensive” is the comment that does some serious damage

Word travels fast in a business of any size, and it potentially travels even faster in the kind of close-knit regional businesses we work with across Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, where people know each other well beyond the office.

If one employee looks at a single vehicle, on a single rate, without understanding what's included or how the savings actually work, and concludes the scheme is “expensive,” compared to what they can see on leasing.com, then that comment will outlast almost anything else said about the scheme.

It can be repeated in the kitchen, on a job site, in the WhatsApp group, and it shapes how the next five people approach it before they've even looked themselves.

This is exactly why competitive rates, passed-through National Insurance savings, and a clear explanation of everything included, insurance, servicing, tyres, breakdown cover, road tax, matter so much. An employee who understands they're comparing a fully maintained, fully insured vehicle against the real cost of owning and running a car privately, rather than against a bare monthly lease figure, reaches a very different conclusion.

We find the three key areas that employees forget when comparing their nett   sacrifice  and some of the headline lease rates on the aggregator sites are … the   salary sacrifice doesn’t require a large initial payment to create the rental shown, the   salary sacrifice is protects against early termination fees to a varying level and   perhaps most importantly is that the quoted figures include fully comprehensive   insurance – with business use.

It is worth noting that a promoted headline rental of £250 achieved by 12 advance rentals and 23 subsequent rentals is the pretty much the same cost as one that is promoted as £365 per month with one month upfront and 23 subsequent rentals – but one looks significantly more on first glance !

It's also why having someone available to answer employee's questions before they form the wrong impression matters to any scheme.  A five-minute conversation on the phone or at a pop-up surgery, working through a real quotation against their actual circumstances, can be the difference between someone truly understanding how it works, getting on board and becoming an advocate for the scheme and someone becoming the reason it never quite gets off the ground.

A scheme is something we manage, not something you launch

The businesses across the region that see the strongest uptake over time tend to treat their scheme as something ongoing rather than a single launch event. New joiners are told about it as part of their onboarding and existing employees are reminded periodically, particularly when offers change, some special offers are announced or new models become available for the first time.

Add to this that the scheme providers remain reachable, by phone, email or in person, rather than disappearing after the initial setup and you have the foundations for a long running and successful scheme.

That's the model NEV Leasing work to, handling the launch communications and assets, the in-life promotion, the monthly payroll reporting, and the regular pop-up surgeries across Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and the wider East Anglia region, so the scheme stays visible and the questions get answered as they come up, not just at the start.

If your business already has a salary sacrifice scheme and uptake hasn't matched what you expected, that's not necessarily a sign the scheme itself is wrong, more often it's a sign the communication, the rate, or the National Insurance decision needs a second look.

Want a no-obligation review of how your current scheme is communicated, priced and engaged with? Call NEV Leasing on 01206 585837, email getintouch@nevleasing.com, or arrange a call back at a time that suits you.

We'll start, as we usually do, with a few questions.