Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Childcare

Running a voucher scheme and communicating its benefits

by Personnel Today 18 Feb 2010
by Personnel Today 18 Feb 2010

So you’re launching a voucher scheme. You have gathered feedback from your employees, carried out extensive research on the different programmes available, chosen a scheme, and you’re ready to go.

But will your scheme work? And do you have the resource to manage it effectively?

First, if the vouchers are intended to reward performance, then deciding what to measure is an important initial step.
 
“Start with something easily measurable, like sales performance or absenteeism,” says Andrew Johnson, director general of the UK Gift Card and Voucher Association.

Administration is another consideration, particularly for more complicated schemes, such as those that are points-based. But Johnson says if you have established what the needs of the scheme are, the administration shouldn’t put you off.

“Resource needn’t be a problem, as most of it can be outsourced,” says Johnson. “You can allow an agency to look after the promotion of the scheme, even going as far as giving them access to your intranet.”

Voucher programmes that are part of wider benefit programmes also have set-up procedures that should be considered.

“If the vouchers are part of a flexible benefits scheme, although the flex provider will put in place the salary deduction scheme, there is some important administration; funds have to be made available promptly to the voucher provider,” says Paul McRae, business development director at The Voucher Shop.

But perhaps the most important thing to get right when launching a gift voucher or gift card scheme is communication, according to McRae.

“There is a huge variety in the take-up levels when these schemes are launched,” he says. “Usually it’s between 10% and 20% in the first year – but sometimes it can be as low as 5%, which is often due to companies not communicating the benefits effectively.”

With card-based schemes, a common mistake is that employees simply think they are being offered another credit card, McRae says.

“Companies often get a bit excited about seeing their logo on the card. So we tell them that what they really need to promote is the discounts that are available, because we find that what happens is that take-up rises as the discounts message gets around by word-of-mouth. So, often, in year two of a scheme, we will see take-up climbing by 50% to 100%.”

The Voucher Shop runs roadshow events with its clients to explain the benefits of its schemes. They can be very effective, says McRae, “but it’s important that there is somebody in place at the employer who can liaise with us when organising these events.”

At House of Fraser, business incentives manager Raegan Matthews agrees that regular communication with clients is important to a voucher scheme’s success. “When there are events in stores or one-off sales or Mothers Day events, we would let our clients know, who could then feed back this information to staff,” she says. “We might send them a PDF poster they can print out or an email newsletter to circulate.”

But she acknowledges the administrative burden that this can entail. “Employers who wish to run a complex scheme with regular updates, e-newsletters, presentations and so on might be better choosing to outsource to a specialist agency.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





mktoMunchkin(“589-ITG-580”);

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.


Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Employing ex-soldiers in the workplace
next post
Banking HR professionals don’t have the clout to influence pay or reward for high earners

You may also like

Why 2025 is ‘make or break’ for your...

25 Feb 2025

Working parents increasingly stressed

13 Jan 2025

Childcare and flexible working: proof it can be...

28 Dec 2024

Financial and mental wellbeing at Christmas 

19 Dec 2024

Retention payments to tackle decline in armed forces

22 Nov 2024

Childcare costs stop millennials from saving for retirement

30 Sep 2024

HMRC to clamp down on misapplied childcare scheme

19 Jul 2024

Bright Horizons: ‘New government must raise status of...

3 Jul 2024

Labour to create 100,000 additional childcare places

10 Jun 2024

Employees with access to company childcare do more...

6 Jun 2024

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+