EV Salary Sacrifice Charging for HR and Fleet Managers: Complete Guide to Implementation
Source: Shutterstock
Many UK businesses now offer electric vehicle salary sacrifice schemes, but HR and fleet managers are now finding that getting employees into EVs is only half the story. As more staff make the switch to electric, a new challenge has emerged: charging costs are putting people off.
Public charging is expensive - often more than petrol and diesel - whilst over 9 million UK households can't charge at home due to parking limitations. For HR professionals and fleet managers, this creates problems: lower scheme uptake, employees feeling dissatisfied, and sustainability goals that feel out of reach.
The solution? Add EV charging benefits to your existing schemes. By tackling the charging cost challenge head-on, you can turn one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption into your competitive advantage.
The Business Case: Why Charging Benefits Matter Now
The Current Challenge
Public EV charging comes at a premium. At 76p per kWh for the average rapid or ultra-rapid charger, electric vehicle running costs work out to be roughly 19-26 pence per mile, which is considerably higher than the 12-17p per mile of standard petrol cars. For employees without home charging, these costs add up fast.
How Salary Sacrifice Charging Changes Everything
EV charging through salary sacrifice can make a significant difference to the cost of EV charging. At The Charge Scheme, employees pay for charging from their pre-tax income, they save 20-50% on every charge - at home, at work, or on the road. To make this even better, there's no cost to your business!
The numbers speak for themselves. Those who regularly use the public charging network can save up to £4,000 over a typical car lease term, depending on their mileage, vehicle efficiency, tax band, and charging habits.
What This Means For Your Business
For HR teams, adding an EV charging scheme can be particularly helpful.
Employees Actually Want This
Today's workforce wants benefits that match their values. With 83% of millennials showing greater loyalty to environmentally sustainable companies, EV charging benefits deliver exactly what they're looking for - environmental impact reduction with real money in their pockets.
Stand Out in The Talent Market
In a competitive job market, benefits that provide value help you attract and retain the best people. Companies with effective EV charging schemes report higher employee satisfaction and better scheme uptake across the board.
Sustainability Credentials
Supporting the entire EV journey - not just vehicle access - shows a genuine commitment to net-zero goals. Companies that engage employees in comprehensive sustainability programmes typically see 25% reductions in carbon emissions alongside 15% productivity gains through improved workplace wellbeing and job satisfaction.
Less Admin, More Value
Instead of managing complex mileage claims and reimbursements, charging benefits create clear, auditable records that reduce your administrative burden while delivering more value to employees.
What This Means For Fleet Teams
For fleet and procurement managers, charging benefits solve a critical adoption challenge. When employees worry about high charging costs, EV scheme uptake suffers - even with attractive vehicle offerings.
The Charge Scheme removes this barrier by making EVs genuinely more affordable to run. This means higher scheme participation, better utilisation of your EV investments, and faster progress toward fleet electrification targets.
You don't need to change suppliers, renegotiate contracts, or overhaul existing processes. The Charge Scheme bolts directly onto any existing EV salary sacrifice or company car scheme, working with your current leasing partners and fleet management providers.
How to Add The Charge Scheme to Your Benefits Package
Getting Started: Know Your Current Position
Before adding charging benefits to your package, take a quick look at where you stand today. Speak with your existing car scheme members about how they charge, what they're spending, and what's frustrating them. Employees who rely heavily on public charging will become your biggest voices, and they'll see the most savings.
Check that your current benefits setup and payroll systems can handle the additional salary sacrifice arrangements. Most modern payroll systems work with charging benefits, and getting this sorted early keeps everything running smoothly.
Finally, it’s important to get your senior leadership team on board from the start. The business case for charging benefits is compelling, and executive support shows employees you're serious about helping them save money while supporting your sustainability goals.
Legal and Compliance Framework
The good news? EV charging schemes operate within HMRC's salary sacrifice guidelines. EV charging costs qualify as an allowable benefit when structured properly - and that's exactly what we help you do.
Here's what you need to know:
Employee Agreements
Staff need to formally agree to reduce their salary in exchange for charging benefits. This means updating employment contracts or creating separate salary sacrifice agreements - standard stuff that your legal team will be able to handle easily.
HMRC Reporting
Charging benefits go through your normal P11D processes. Because employees pay from their pre-tax salary, there's typically no additional tax liability - just savings!
Records
You'll need detailed records of charging costs, mileage, and business versus personal usage. The good news? We handle all of this automatically, so you don't need to worry about the paperwork.
Technology That Works
The best charging benefit solutions make everything simple for everyone. Employees get a dedicated charging card and app that automatically tracks their usage, whether they're charging at home, at work, or on the road. We provide payroll-ready reports with exact deduction amounts, so there's no manual calculation or guesswork involved.
Your employees deserve technology that's actually easy to use. Our solution lets them manage everything through one simple app - finding chargers, tracking costs, and submitting monthly mileage takes just seconds.
How to Get Started: A Simple Guide to Implementing The Charge Scheme
The Charge Scheme handles most of the setup work for you, but you'll still want the right people involved from your side. We work directly with your HR, payroll, and finance teams to ensure a smooth launch that typically takes just 2-4 weeks.
We provide all the employee communications and onboarding materials you need, plus training for your team so they can confidently answer questions about how salary sacrifice works and the savings employees can expect.
What We Set Up for You
Payroll Integration - We configure everything to work with your existing payroll system and provide monthly deduction files that are ready to process. No complex technical setup required.
Employee Onboarding - We handle all employee communications, app setup, and charging card distribution. Your team gets comprehensive support materials, but we manage the day-to-day employee queries.
Legal Compliance - We provide HMRC-compliant salary sacrifice agreements and handle all the regulatory requirements, so you don't need separate legal review.
Your Smooth Rollout
Flexible Launch Options - Whether you want to start with current EV drivers or open it to everyone immediately, we support your preferred approach and provide launch communications.
Ongoing Support - We manage employee questions, provide regular updates on savings achieved, and offer optional reporting on scheme performance and uptake.
Continuous Management - We monitor everything and provide feedback on how the scheme is performing, with suggestions for maximising employee engagement and satisfaction.
The result? A professionally managed launch that gets employees saving money quickly while keeping admin work minimal for your team.
Getting Your Team On Board
Building Awareness and Understanding
Your workplace EV charging implementation needs more than just the right systems; you need everyone to be excited about using them! Many employees won't know much about salary sacrifice or how EV charging costs work and that’s ok! Your emails, intranet posts, lunch and learn webinars, and one-to-one conversations with our Charge Scheme specialists help build understanding and confidence in the scheme.
Tackling Common Concerns
Employees may worry about how salary sacrifice works, whether costs are transparent, and what happens if they need to leave early. Address these head-on in your communications by clearly explaining how salary sacrifice affects take-home pay, pension contributions, and other benefits. The overall effect is positive thanks to tax savings, but people want to understand the full picture.
Building Long-Term Engagement
Employee EV charging benefits work best when people actively use and recommend the scheme. Regular updates about new features, more charge points, and success stories keep momentum. Think about asking employees to share their experiences and answer questions from colleagues - personal stories often work better than corporate messages.
Finally, it is important to listen to feedback and act on it. When employees see their suggestions put into practice, they become stronger advocates and help get more people involved.
Making It Work with Your Existing Benefits
Adding to Your Current EV Schemes
Most businesses rolling out charging benefits already have EV salary sacrifice or company car schemes running. The trick is making charging benefits feel like a natural next step, not something completely separate.
Get your timing right. Launch charging benefits when people are renewing their EV schemes or during open enrollment periods for maximum visibility and uptake. Or introduce them mid-year to boost engagement and show you're always looking out for your team.
Supporting Your Sustainability Goals
Charging benefits strengthen your existing sustainability programmes by addressing the practical challenges that deter people from choosing EVs. When employees know they can charge affordably anywhere, they're more likely to go electric and drive with confidence. Connect charging benefits to your environmental communications and CSR reporting. Providing both vehicles and charging support shows real sustainability leadership that your employees, customers, and stakeholders will notice.
Think about expanding to include home charger installations, renewable energy tariffs, or other EV support. A complete approach shows you're serious about this whilst creating even more value for your people.
Tracking Your Success
Set clear success measures before you launch so you can track impact and prove the investment's worth. Your targets should match your business goals whilst showing real employee value.
Keep an eye on sign-up rates, how people use the scheme, and satisfaction scores. High engagement means you've got the value proposition and communications right.
Track employee savings, admin cost reductions, and overall scheme efficiency. Show ROI through less expensive processing, better staff retention, and stronger recruitment.
Solving Common Challenges
Getting Systems to Talk to Each Other
The Charge Scheme makes payroll integration straightforward. We handle all the complex calculations and provide payroll-ready reports each month, so your team can process salary sacrifice deductions easily and accurately.
Our system works with any payroll provider - no switching required. We generate monthly files with all the information your payroll team needs, taking the guesswork out of EV charging costs. You get clean records of employee mileage and charging expenses, with everything calculated automatically.
Getting People on Board
Some employees might feel nervous about salary sacrifice because they don't know much about it or worry about being locked into contracts. The Charge Scheme takes care of this for you with employee support and clear communication.
We handle all employee onboarding and provide easy-to-understand materials that explain exactly how salary sacrifice works and what savings they can expect. Our team manages employee queries directly, so your HR department doesn't receive questions about charging costs or tax implications.
Our employer portal gives you real-time visibility of uptake and employee engagement, while we provide optional reporting on savings to help you demonstrate the value of the benefit to your workforce.
Growing Successfully
As your scheme gets bigger, The Charge Scheme scales automatically without extra work for your team. Our platform handles growth seamlessly, whether you have 50 or 5,000 employees using the benefit.
We keep everything current for you - monitoring charging costs, updating our 69,000+ charging point network, and ensuring HMRC compliance. You don't need to track market changes or regulatory updates because we handle all the behind-the-scenes work.
The scheme works for all employees from day one, not just current EV drivers. This helps with recruitment and shows your commitment to sustainability, while our reporting tools track performance and highlight growth opportunities.
Best Practices from Early Adopters
Companies like Shaw Education Trust and Europa Worldwide Group have already rolled out The Charge Scheme for business successfully, giving us great insights for other businesses thinking about doing the same.
Shaw Education Trust focused on how charging benefits matched their educational values, showing it as something that supported both employee wellbeing and their sustainability goals. The fact it cost nothing to implement and needed minimal admin work really appealed to their budget-focused environment.
Europa Worldwide Group looked at the practical benefits for their logistics team who are always on the road. By tackling the real challenges their employees faced with public charging, they got strong uptake and happy employees.
What Makes It Work
Leadership Buy-In
The best implementations have clear support from senior leaders who champion the scheme. When executives visibly back it and use it themselves, employees feel more confident and are more likely to join.
Great Communication
The most successful schemes put serious effort into educating employees and keeping communication going. Regular updates, success stories, and quick support keep people engaged long after the initial excitement dies down.
Smooth Integration
Schemes that feel like a natural part of existing benefits get higher adoption than those that feel separate or extra. Making it fit seamlessly with current processes and systems is crucial.
What to Watch Out For
Overlooking Change Management.
While The Charge Scheme handles most employee onboarding and support, your internal communications still matter. Make sure your team understands the benefit well enough to champion it and answer basic questions confidently.
Skipping Proper Testing.
The Charge Scheme provides payroll-ready files, but it's worth working closely with your payroll team during setup to ensure smooth monthly processing. We handle the calculations, but your team needs to be comfortable with the deduction process.
Not Planning for the Long Term.
The Charge Scheme manages day-to-day operations, but you'll want to promote the ongoing savings to maintain employee engagement. Use our optional reporting to share success stories and demonstrate the real financial benefits employees are receiving.
What’s Next For EV Benefits
Keeping Up with Changes
The EV charging world moves fast, with new technologies, pricing, and services popping up all the time. Fleet managers need EV charging strategies that can adapt and respond to what's coming next.
Think about how things like self-driving cars, two-way charging, and smart grid connections might change future charging needs. These are still developing, but understanding what's possible helps you plan.
Keep an eye on rule changes around EV taxes, salary sacrifice, and environmental requirements. Knowing about changes early means you can adapt smoothly instead of scrambling to catch up.
Staying Ahead of the Competition
More businesses are waking up to the importance of EV support. Your edge comes from doing it well, creating a great employee experience, and connecting it to your wider sustainability goals. Look at the whole employee journey from thinking about an EV to owning one and eventually replacing it. Supporting people throughout this journey builds stronger loyalty and gets better sustainability results.
The Charge Scheme for business gives you a proven way to get started with minimal risk and maximum impact. Book a call and explore how a workplace EV charging scheme could boost your employee benefits, support your sustainability goals, and strengthen your competitive position. Your employees, your business, and the environment will all benefit.
You Might Also Like…
Last updated: 08/09/2025
Our pricing is based on data collected from The Charge Scheme Calculator. All final pricing is inclusive of VAT. All deals are subject to credit approval and availability. All deals are subject to excess mileage and damage charges. Prices are calculated based on the following tax saving assumptions; England & Wales, 40% tax rate. The Charge Scheme is a product of The Electric Car Scheme™ – a trusted, trademarked brand dedicated to making electric driving more affordable. All rights reserved. The Electric Car Scheme is the trading style of The Electric Car Scheme Limited (company number 12646157, ICO number ZB030706, VAT number 439430195) and The Electric Car Scheme Holdings Limited (company number 13295877, ICO number ZB252629). Head office & registered address: The Shipping Building, 254 Blyth Road, Hayes, UB3 1HA. The Electric Car Scheme Limited provides services for the administration of salary sacrifice employee benefits. The Electric Car Scheme Holdings Limited is a member of the BVRLA (10608) is authorised and regulated by the FCA under FRN 968270, is an Appointed Representative of Marshall Management Services Ltd under FRN 667174, and is a credit broker and not a lender.
Copyright and Image Usage: All images used on this website are either licensed for commercial use or used with express permission from the copyright holders, in compliance with UK and EU copyright law. We are committed to respecting intellectual property rights and maintaining full compliance with applicable regulations. If you have any questions or concerns regarding image usage or copyright matters, please contact us at marketing@electriccarscheme.com and we will address them promptly.
