With food prices rising rapidly in recent times, wouldn’t it be great if you could help your employees cut their grocery bills and cope with the cost-of-living crisis better? Well now you can, with a game-changing new employee benefit. Here we take a closer look at how our grocery salary sacrifice scheme can enable you to improve your employees’ financial wellbeing, without raising salaries, and benefit your business by gaining a more loyal, motivated team.
More support needed
With the highest food price inflation seen in decades, your employees need more support than ever to make their finances go further. In fact, according to the Office for National Statistics, although price rises are showing signs of easing slightly, food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose by 12.2% in the year to September 2023, down from 13.6% in August and a high of 19.2% in March, which was the highest annual rate for over 45 years. However, our 2023 research revealed that 65% of employees do not think that their employer is doing enough to support them through this cost-of-living crisis, so why not consider providing your employees with grocery salary sacrifice as a benefit, to boost their financial wellbeing?
What is grocery salary sacrifice?
As this is an innovative idea, you may well ask ‘What is grocery salary sacrifice?’. Well, it is a way that employers can support their teams in these challenging times with a straightforward scheme that allows their employees to cut costs on their groceries by up to 12%, through National Insurance savings. With food prices rising so high, this has the potential to save your staff substantial sums of money. You may not be able to improve the economy, but for struggling employees, this is tantamount to giving them a salary increase, and will undoubtedly be gratefully received. Everyone needs groceries, so unlike many other employee benefits, this is helping your team afford the essentials in life, which is invaluable.
How does grocery salary sacrifice work?
The grocery salary sacrifice scheme is a straightforward idea and works similarly to other salary sacrifice employee benefit schemes. Basically, your employees choose if they want to opt in, give up a fixed amount of salary and receive their grocery budgets in 12 monthly instalments. This is made available for them to spend in all leading UK supermarkets. So, if your staff are reluctant to join because they think they would have to shop from a limited choice of brands, this is not the case. They can continue to buy food at their chosen supermarket, but will just be able to pay less for their groceries.
In addition, it couldn’t be easier for you to set up, as if you choose to adopt the grocery salary sacrifice scheme through Mintago, we take care of all the implementation procedures for you. We even provide Google and Apple wallet integrations and plans to suit all businesses.
Why does this benefit your business?
So, the benefit to your employees is clear, the grocery salary sacrifice scheme can make their weekly shop far more affordable in these financially stretched times. But how does this benefit your business? Well, apart from your duty of care to your employees, if they are suffering from financial stress, it is not good for your organisation, as it can impact productivity, so anything you can do to alleviate such stress is a good business decision. In fact, our 2023 research found that 58% of employees say that money and finances are their leading source of stress, and 49% of employees say that stress and anxiety have a negative impact on their performance at work.
After all, your employees are not machines, so stress is not good for their concentration and engagement in the workplace. Indeed, a recent study has found that financial stress is causing a quarter of employees to experience brain fog and make mistakes, and our own research in 2022 found that 32% of UK adults struggle with day-to-day tasks due to financial concerns, and 43% of UK adults have lost sleep because of this. The grocery salary sacrifice scheme is therefore a great way to improve your team’s financial wellbeing, reduce stress and also create more loyal staff who will appreciate such a helping hand.
Moreover, if you are assisting your employees in this way, you may even be boosting their health, as if they cannot afford to eat healthily this may suffer. So, you could even cut the number of sick days taken, which benefits everyone.
A budget-friendly option
The grocery salary sacrifice scheme is therefore a revolutionary concept that is set to do great good for businesses and employees. It offers a budget-friendly option for your organisation to put more than a few pennies into your people’s pockets, without increasing salaries, and stretches your staff’s weekly budgets further to buy the food they need with less financial stress.
To find out more about Mintago’s great grocery salary sacrifice scheme, and how it could benefit your employees and business, contact us today.