I've been trying to get C2W up and running at my employer, a major global business for sometime, but have encountered nothing but apathy from the HR department who would have to administer it – they claim it'll be too much work, they can't get the global payroll system amended, there won't be enough take up etc. etc. all of which is bogus and I have counter arguments for. Before I name and shame them (as they have just spent god knows how much publicising their 'green initiative' in the internal magazines, which thoroughly sticks in my craw) I may have one last crack in a meeting with the local HR director (much HR responsibility has been regionalised now).

Anyone got some good links to how the scheme will benefit everyone? Wnat to be sure I've got every angle covered before I go and perform the career limiting move 🙂

do you work for the same company as me – a large oil service company ?

sounds like the same pish im getting despite nearly all my office being keen !

Try speaking to Cyclescheme, the way I understand it they take the majority of the admin work out of the employers hands, and don't charge for the service (they make their money from the discount they organise with the bike shops).

I could, on the other hand, have got it all wrong and be talking absolute bollix, but after 3 years of trying, I do have a nice shiny Orbea CX bike courtesy of EDF and Cyclescheme 😀

or do you work for a certain telecoms company who has british in its name?

Same problem we are having.

they can't get the global payroll system amended

Since every country has different 'systems', what they probably mean is that they need to add a new 'deduction' and code behind it – but depending on how the system is maintained this could expensive.

Wnat to be sure I've got every angle covered before I go and perform the career limiting move

And is it really worth it just to save a few quid off your next bike?

its been 3 months since i emailed – so ive just sent a friendly reminder to hr – as well as instructing all the other interested partys in the office to email them at somepoint.

Apparently we were "looking into it". so its filed under B for Bin

after years of bothering my hr we now have the scheme but due to the trouble of running it ;-( we are allowed 15 people per year to take part in the scheme and we have over 3000 employees. lucky for me i was the first to get a bike as they wanted a trial run. shame i have to wait 200 years for another one lol

And is it really worth it just to save a few quid off your next bike?

I got a Boardman HT Ltd Edition on the C2W scheme and I'm going to end up paying about £685 for it – so that's saved me £315.

Plus, at the end of the year, when the bike has been paid for, it can be sold, and I can get another shiny new one. I probably won't even lose that much money on it either.

Yes, it's worth it!

after years of bothering my hr we now have the scheme but due to the trouble of running it ;-( we are allowed 15 people per year to take part in the scheme and we have over 3000 employees.

one of the conditions is it has to be open to all?

thomthumb it is open to all but only the first 15 can do it after that they go on a reserve list for the following year

@zaskarcarbon

I think you're more likely to find that next year the scheme is no longer in existence

I would probably take a different approach and approach senior management directly, not the HR staff. Sell it to them as a positive PR opportunity, business cares about their workers etc, improving the health of staff…blah blah, isnt our company so committed to green blah blah…..
They should be able to put some weight behind making the HR staff actually do some work for their money 😉

It seems the bigger the company the less likey they are to allow this scheme, i work for the biggest food retailer in this country, and no cycle scheme, we are not allowed to park on the car park and encouraged to be green, turn lights off, shut chilled back up doors, separate all different types of card and plastic etc.. but give me a bike to cycle to work, errrmmm nope sorry cant to that, bloody stupid!

to be fair to the company we do have good cycle facilities at all our aberdeen facilities. – locked in building cycle storage , lockers , showers.

hence why i was hopeful we would get the cycle scheme – the bike room is full now summer is here , over winter there was only 3 of us !

Thanks for the responses – no, I work for a certain large comglomerate that do pharma, materials science, bio tech bit of everything really.

The CLM is a bit tongue in cheek, though I'm as high in the technical ladder as I can get.. any further = management = more flying around away from my family doing work I don't want to do so I'm quite comfortable where I am, can't see the money making me happier.

The payroll excuse is pish. I work in IT and I know that the deduction mechanism is the same as for Childcare vouchers so is already in place in our ERP system.

The thing thats really annoyed me though is that it has been repeatedly raised in the Employee Forum, and dismissed as apparently they had asked around and there wasn't enough interest – I know no one who has been asked, they had to build an EXTRA bike cage to accomodate all the new cyclists and (we made sure of this) when there was a suggestions box for the green initiative about every other response was 'Cycle 2 Work scheme'.
The country head has then said it will no longer be discussed in the employee forum. Grrrrrrrrr…… 👿

It's weird, as that apart they're a really decent employer. I did contact Cyclescheme and forwarded their excellent response, detailing how the admin burden was taken by them in the main, and the company could actaully save on its Corporate tax bill.

I think it's a large case of 'Can't be arsed' and blaming the economic climate as a convenient excuse.

Apologies for spelling/typos .. at least I didn't break in to CAPS 🙂

I've been having problems with my HR too. The person who is setting it up says that there are all sorts of problems and we may have to put it out to tender, which takes a year!! The joys of Euro rules in the public sector.

Firestarter, 15 at a time! Man alive, that's a poor show. Our CFO is a cyclist so it makes it a bit easier. I am taking over the running of the scheme this year and hope to get the nod in the next couple of weeks. My brigade lap this type of thing up as it ticks boxes left, right and centre plus they've just introduced a new fitness policy so it sits nicely alongside that too.
According to Cyclescheme, the first year we did it we had the highest percentage uptake of any company they had dealt with which was good to hear and also helps justify running it every year. They've recently installed 6 bike lockers per wholetime station and most days they are all taken.

not wrong barney ;-( im waiting on an answer from cyclescheme to see if its right they can do that. on last station inspection we were picked up as we had a bike locked in the store room. nuts. we have to bring our cars in the engine house on a night and close the rollers down before we leave on a fire call as weve been broken into so often and had cars bricked. so we sure aint gonna leave a bike locked to a post in the yard. a bike locker is something we can dream of lol tho theyd prop get broken into if outside (even tho we have 7ft tall fences razor wire and cctv)

Im all up for name and shame. Ill tell you mine if you tell me yours?

Anyone got some good links to how the scheme will benefit everyone? Wnat to be sure I've got every angle covered before I go and perform the career limiting move

Make sure you read http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sustainable/cycling/cycletoworkguidance/pdf/518054/ before pressing for this to understand what the c2w scheme really is; particularly read Section 8 'Can the employee keep the cycle at the end of the loan period?' — if the scheme is implemented following the guidelines (and I imagine if you work for a big multinational they will be very reluctant not to), you are unlikely to save any significant amount of money on the bike if you actually want to keep it pass the hire period.

Its very expensive for an employer to start one of these schemes. sure,they save on employers national insurance contributions but they also have to stump up the purchase price of the bike up front.
HR wont be your issue, it will be your finance department.

tf – Member

Anyone got some good links to how the scheme will benefit everyone? Wnat to be sure I've got every angle covered before I go and perform the career limiting move

Make sure you read http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sustainable/cycling/cycletoworkguidance/pdf/518054/ before pressing for this to understand what the c2w scheme really is; particularly read Section 8 'Can the employee keep the cycle at the end of the loan period?' — if the scheme is implemented following the guidelines (and I imagine if you work for a big multinational they will be very reluctant not to), you are unlikely to save any significant amount of money on the bike if you actually want to keep it pass the hire period.

Sorry, simply not true. i've had my last two trek hardtails on my works scheme, and the transfer of ownership fee was 5% or about 1 more monthly payment. My last bike was £315 cheaper than buying it myself.
And this was following the guidlines you mention. The saving comes from the tax break on your gross pay,simple a that. The only caveat with these schemes come at the end if you decide for some reason to hand it back. lets just say it wont be worth much! about 20% of RRP, but why would anyone hand it back??

One thing that might help is there is research out there that shows people who cycle to work take less sick time.

rbrstr – Member
Its very expensive for an employer to start one of these schemes. sure,they save on employers national insurance contributions but they also have to stump up the purchase price of the bike up front.
HR wont be your issue, it will be your finance department.

Thanks to rbrstr I now understand why my company is so reluctant to go on the scheme. It's called elastic cashflow, or something, helps with the end of quarter and end of year figures.

If it was following the guidelines to the letter that last payment would be the 20% it was worth not the 5% you mention.

Sorry, simply not true. i've had my last two trek hardtails on my works scheme, and the transfer of ownership fee was 5% or about 1 more monthly payment.

The guidelines state very clearly 'the employee must pay the employer the full market value of the equipment', and 5% is not a full market value of a 1 year old bike that was used minimum of 50% of time for commuting, which away you look at it. Consequently, under the guidelines, you have gained 'a taxable benefit in kind', no longer qualify for the tax relief that was applied to your hire payments, and now are liable to repay those savings to the tax man. Your employer is probably happy to do it this way that because the tax dodge is legally your problem, not theirs.

The saving comes from the tax break on your gross pay,simple a that.

The tax break applies to a fee you are paying your employers to hire a bike from them, nothing else; if the scheme is implemented in a way that makes it a hire purchase scheme (which I dare to say based on the guidelines is your case), you are no longer eligible for that tax relief.

The whole thing sucks, more so because the fronting websites present it as a hire purchase scheme, which the small print makes clear it is not. I was very keen to have this set up at work, but was pointed toward the small print and having read through it I can see why my employers are not keen — as it is devised it benefits neither the employer or the employee.

thomthumb ive just heard back from cyclescheme and they say an employer can limit the amount of people who get a bike and if they want it could be only one so long as it was first come first served 🙁

I tried (and failed) to get my previous employer to set this up. In spite of the fact that the majority of people there lived within 3 miles of the workplace, almost everyone drove.

I had to fight tooth and nail to get a bike shed built and the only reason they did was because I kept bringing my bike inside for storage.

They came up with all the excuses listed above along with such gems as "it's hilly here so no-one will want to cycle", "can't you just put a plastic bag on the saddle and leave it in the car park".

Didn't help that the MD of the company and his wife (who also worked there) were as un-environmentally friendly as it's possible to be, in fact they used to drive the 3 miles to work separately, both in huge gas guzzlers. 🙁

If it was following the guidelines to the letter that last payment would be the 20% it was worth not the 5% you mention.

I could have been clearer on that,sorry. On my scheme with Evans, if after a year the bike is still a minter, its worth 20%, if its got the odd scratch and ding its worth 5%. I paid a 5% "nominal fee" in both instances.

[/quote]tf – Member

The guidelines state very clearly 'the employee must pay the employer the full market value of the equipment', and 5% is not a full market value of a 1 year old bike that was used minimum of 50% of time for commuting, which away you look at it. Consequently, under the guidelines, you have gained 'a taxable benefit in kind', no longer qualify for the tax relief that was applied to your hire payments, and now are liable to repay those savings to the tax man. Your employer is probably happy to do it this way that because the tax dodge is legally your problem, not theirs.

Under the terms of my agreement i paid 5%,honest, i'm not lying to you!
benefit in kind maybe, thats why you wont get it in writing up front.

tf – Member

The tax break applies to a fee you are paying your employers to hire a bike from them, nothing else; if the scheme is implemented in a way that makes it a hire purchase scheme (which I dare to say based on the guidelines is your case), you are no longer eligible for that tax relief.

The whole thing sucks, more so because the fronting websites present it as a hire purchase scheme, which the small print makes clear it is not. I was very keen to have this set up at work, but was pointed toward the small print and having read through it I can see why my employers are not keen — as it is devised it benefits neither the employer or the employee.

What can i say? my scheme is awesome, thats why its had so much take up i guess. Your'e last sentence is just silly. I saved £315 on my last bike, how exactly did that not benefit me?
as for benefitting the employer, it was their idea, if it doesnt benefit them i couldnt care less