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EV company car schemes a key job market incentive, Fleetcheck says
Date: 10 November 2021 | Author: Sean Keywood
EV company car schemes are proving to be a key employee retention and recruitment tool as the job market heats up in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to software firm Fleetcheck.
With more than one million jobs vacancies currently in the UK economy, the company's managing director Peter Golding argued that providing the right company car offering was becoming particularly important, with those based around EVs an especially attractive benefit.
Golding said: "Higher levels of taxation in recent years have seen petrol and diesel company cars become perceived as less of an advantage within an overall employment package but EVs have changed that perception completely in a very short space of time.
"We are hearing a lot of anecdotal evidence from across our customer base that, where EVs are being offered to employees, there is a definite increase in satisfaction.
"It's partially a financial benefit because BIK taxation is so low, but there is also a genuine momentum behind people wanting to adopt EVs."
According to Golding, a particular appeal of EV company car schemes from an employee point of view is how it is the employer that has to bear the financial risk of the vehicle.
He said: "Fleet operators now know that whole life costs for EVs are comparable to petrol and diesel equivalents, but the monthly lease rates still look prohibitively high from a consumer point of view.
"As long as the driver's personal profile makes them a suitable driver of an EV in terms of factors such as vehicle range and having access to off-street charging, there is a currently a very good argument to offer them an option within their budget from a human resources point of view."
Golding added that there were also indications that EVs were proving highly attractive to employees when offered through salary sacrifice schemes.
He said: "Our view is that every employer of every size should be considering offering EV-based salary sacrifice at the moment. It provides a substantial employee benefit at little or no cost to the employer and seems very much a no-brainer."
According to Golding, EVs are set to retain a significant role in the job market, until such time in the future when the UK Government may decide to increase the currently very-low tax rates applied to them.
He said: "At a point in time when the jobs market looks as though it could be more competitive and fluid than for many, many years, the role of EVs in recruitment and retention appears to be something that will only grow while taxation remains low.
"The question, ultimately, is where EV BIK taxation heads after the tax tables that we have until the middle of the decade? Will the government start to move it back to the levels that we have seen for petrol and diesel vehicles, or will it view the company car market as an ongoing means of promoting electrification of the overall car parc?"
