Would you like to offer your employees a popular benefit that could help boost their work-life balance? Then you might want to consider supplying them with Mintago’s salary sacrifice Holiday Buying Scheme. Here, we look at exactly what this great benefit involves, how it works and the advantages it can provide to you and your team.
What is Mintago’s salary sacrifice Holiday Buying Scheme?
Mintago’s salary sacrifice Holiday Buying Scheme is a cost-effective benefit that can considerably improve the work-life balance of your employees and boost their overall wellbeing. It enables your staff to buy extra leave days through salary sacrifice, giving them the flexibility to extend their time off when needed. It is also likely to be particularly popular among your staff, as recent Mintago research revealed that 40% of employees would choose more annual leave as a benefit.
How does the Holiday Buying Scheme work?
Our Holiday Buying Scheme works through a salary sacrifice arrangement. This means that your employees voluntarily agree to sacrifice part of their salary in return for a specific number of additional annual leave days. They make leave requests via the Mintago app, and the value of the days purchased is usually calculated based on their prorated day rate. The days are then approved by an HR administrator and added to the individual’s leave balance on the standard holiday booking system. The corresponding amount is deducted from their annual gross salary, usually spread over a 12-month period.
You are able to define the eligibility criteria and set limits on the number of days that can be purchased. However, your employees only qualify to participate in the scheme if the amount of salary sacrificed does not reduce their earnings below the national minimum wage. This is a particularly cost-effective scheme, as it provides tax and National Insurance (NI) savings for your employees, as well as NI savings for you.
Why offer Mintago’s salary sacrifice Holiday Buying Scheme?
In addition to these savings, providing your employees with Mintago’s salary sacrifice Holiday Buying Scheme can not only benefit them, but help you keep productivity high. As your employees will be able to buy additional leave, when they need it, this can encourage them to take regular breaks throughout the year, instead of lengthy periods in one go, through standard annual leave. This will help them ease any work-related stress they are experiencing, recharge their batteries and avoid burnout.
The scheme can therefore also help you combat the impact burnout may have on your workplace, as this can seriously affect productivity. According to research conducted by Mental Health UK, one in five people said they were “unable to manage stress and pressure in the workplace”, and a 2023 survey showed that people taking sick leave because of burnout or work-related sickness is costing the UK economy £28 billion per year. Furthermore, this is worryingly on the rise, as a report by Indeed found that 52% of workers were feeling burned out, which was up 9% from a pre-Covid survey. So, offering Mintago’s salary sacrifice Holiday Buying Scheme really is a wise move for you and your employees.
A straightforward scheme
The Holiday Buying Scheme is reassuringly easy to implement and straightforward to manage. You just set the parameters regarding who qualifies for salary sacrifice, how much they can spend and when. You can then choose to either auto-approve or manually approve each request from your employees, depending on your preference. Other than this, there is relatively little admin needed from you, apart from payroll configuration, which is usually straightforward. The required technology is provided directly by Mintago, so this delivers all the necessary infrastructure for implementing the Holiday Buying Scheme for your employees.
The procedure is also straightforward if one of your employees leaves, as typically with a salary sacrifice scheme, you are entitled to deduct any outstanding funds for the cost of the benefit directly from their final pay, and the same process applies here. You can also set limits on the maximum amount your employees can sacrifice, to ensure they have enough to cover the cost.
A scheme that benefits all
With Mintago’s salary sacrifice Holiday Buying Scheme, you can provide a benefit that will make your employees feel more valued and help boost their performance. With extra days off when they need it, your staff can have a better work-life balance and give their best in the workplace, when they’re in. So, this really is a superb scheme that benefits all.
To discover more about Mintago’s salary sacrifice Holiday Buying Scheme, contact us today.