ELECTRIC vehicle company car schemes are proving to be a key retention and recruitment tool as the job market heats up following the pandemic.
Fleet management software company FleetCheck said that with more than one million job vacancies in the economy, providing the right company car offering is becoming an especially attractive benefit.
Managing Director Peter Golding said that 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.
He added: “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 benefit-in kind taxation is so low, but there is also a genuine momentum behind people wanting to adopt EVs.
“Especially, there is a high degree of attractiveness to the employer bearing the financial risk of an EV. 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 said that there were also indications that EVs were proving to be highly attractive to employees as part of salary sacrifice schemes. “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.
“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 benefit-in-kind 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?”
