Cycle to work scheme..
Discussion
I work in an industry where its important to be physically fit, and whilst the employer allows no time to train, I believe it should be offering benefits such as gym discounts/C2W schemes to encourage it.
They have looked into the C2W scheme several times, however each time a study is conducted (we are talking about a large organisation of over 1000 people), it gets chopped as not feasible. This is despite there being widespread interest across the organisation for it to get it sorted.
Can anyone allude to the potential stumbling blocks? Why is it so hard to seem to get one of these schemes off the ground?
They have looked into the C2W scheme several times, however each time a study is conducted (we are talking about a large organisation of over 1000 people), it gets chopped as not feasible. This is despite there being widespread interest across the organisation for it to get it sorted.
Can anyone allude to the potential stumbling blocks? Why is it so hard to seem to get one of these schemes off the ground?
Could be several reasons. It took an age for my company to adopt it, some of the reasons below:
Liability - what happens if you hurt yourself on the bike whilst riding to work? It's company property, so is the employer liable? Likewise the bike - who pays to fix it?
What if the bike is stolen on work property, who is responsible for replacing it? Can you even insure a hired bike? I'm fairly sure home insurance won't cover it because you don't own it.
If the employee chooses not to pay the final valuation, how does the company dispose of the bike?
It didn't apply to my company, but you have 1000 potential bike customers at £1000 a bike. Does your company have that sort of cash available if everyone took it up? Do they even have a spare £10k if 10 people took it up? Some companies don't have the cash.
Both you and I know there are practical common sense answers to these questions, but a company has to consider the worst case and make a judgement on that. I'll try to dig out the email they sent to me on the numerous occasions I've asked.
Liability - what happens if you hurt yourself on the bike whilst riding to work? It's company property, so is the employer liable? Likewise the bike - who pays to fix it?
What if the bike is stolen on work property, who is responsible for replacing it? Can you even insure a hired bike? I'm fairly sure home insurance won't cover it because you don't own it.
If the employee chooses not to pay the final valuation, how does the company dispose of the bike?
It didn't apply to my company, but you have 1000 potential bike customers at £1000 a bike. Does your company have that sort of cash available if everyone took it up? Do they even have a spare £10k if 10 people took it up? Some companies don't have the cash.
Both you and I know there are practical common sense answers to these questions, but a company has to consider the worst case and make a judgement on that. I'll try to dig out the email they sent to me on the numerous occasions I've asked.
If your company is 000s in size then they should be able to spare someone to check out and implement the C2W scheme.
I work for a small company (8 employees) and asked if we could do it, they said they would if I set it up. I'm no admin type and I must admit I found it all quite confusing to sort out and I believe it is even more complex now.
I'm vaguely thinking of getting a new bike and I'm not sure I can be bothered to spend the time trying to sort it out again. The savings aren't as good as they once were.
The other aspect worth considering is that quite a lot of bike shops won't sell discounted bikes on the C2W scheme so you have to pay full retail (the bike shop has to pay something like 10% commission to C2W, so there goes a chunk of its profit for starters) so you may be able to match the saving of C2W by haggling on an older model discounted bike.
I work for a small company (8 employees) and asked if we could do it, they said they would if I set it up. I'm no admin type and I must admit I found it all quite confusing to sort out and I believe it is even more complex now.
I'm vaguely thinking of getting a new bike and I'm not sure I can be bothered to spend the time trying to sort it out again. The savings aren't as good as they once were.
The other aspect worth considering is that quite a lot of bike shops won't sell discounted bikes on the C2W scheme so you have to pay full retail (the bike shop has to pay something like 10% commission to C2W, so there goes a chunk of its profit for starters) so you may be able to match the saving of C2W by haggling on an older model discounted bike.
We are 15 people at my company and it is a PITA to setup now
Did id 6 years ago and wasn't too bad
Looked at doing it now, but only I would be getting a bike in the company and I would admin it.
Basically I ran out of patience, as it is hard work to administer for only a couple of bikes.
Our accountant wasn't too familiar with it either, being a small business you have to be quite risk averse and alway read all the small print.
In the end the my boss just bought me the bike I wanted as a bonus, the shop knocked £80 off as it was a cash (well card) sale , as the ctw generated them hassle
If your company is a big/medium company , has a well run scheme and you are upper rate tax payer it is great, but otherwise it was too much hassle for me.
Did id 6 years ago and wasn't too bad
Looked at doing it now, but only I would be getting a bike in the company and I would admin it.
Basically I ran out of patience, as it is hard work to administer for only a couple of bikes.
Our accountant wasn't too familiar with it either, being a small business you have to be quite risk averse and alway read all the small print.
In the end the my boss just bought me the bike I wanted as a bonus, the shop knocked £80 off as it was a cash (well card) sale , as the ctw generated them hassle
If your company is a big/medium company , has a well run scheme and you are upper rate tax payer it is great, but otherwise it was too much hassle for me.
We ran one a few months ago in conjunction with childcare vouchers. It was not very well supported, it was a bit of a pain to organise (not a lot of help form the company that is selling the bikes, all website driven) and once I closed it I got a lot of "oh, will you be doing it again, I've seen how cheap it was now Fred/Jane has got a bike" comments. We're a company with only forty people but I wouldn't want to do it across a large company. Funnily enough the liability issues never crossed my mind until I read this; it's just a tax efficient way to buy a new bike.
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