Employee Benefits company reports record sales after becoming an Employee Owned Trust

My Staff Shop, the Shrewsbury based Employee Benefits company, reports record enquiries about its product range since becoming the only major Employee Benefits Company owned by its own employees in 2022.

My Staff Shop, the Shrewsbury based Employee Benefits company, reports record enquiries about its product range since becoming the only major Employee Benefits Company owned by its own employees in 2022.

At the time, MD David Cartlidge, said “Years of dedication and innovation has made our company the success it is today” adding “It feels fitting that the current employees will now be the beneficiaries of that hard work, providing world class benefits packages for our clients’ employees. This really is the ultimate employee reward programme – for employees, by employees!”

The company attributes its increased enquiry levels and growing number of clients to two key drivers. The first is the need for companies to deliver benefits packages that really make employees feel valued and provide tangible benefits. Face-to-face visits from My Staff Shop employees to explain the benefits of the platform and how to optimise it are key to ensuring staff get the most value from the benefits that their employers introduce.

James Drewry from client Rivus, agrees “The consultant visits are unique and were key for me in ensuring engagement with the platform. You can pay all the money in the world for a platform, but you’re wasting money if no one uses it”.

Secondly, My Staff Shop is active in adding new benefit offers to its services. The most recent of these is Spectrum, a digital healthcare platform which offers clients a wide range of options including online exercise sessions, meditation and mindfulness sessions, and even healthy eating plans developed by expert nutritionists with the aim of boosting wellbeing and improving quality of life both in and out of the workplace.

“There are huge advantages for employees and businesses who have a robust mental health and wellbeing scheme in place” says Verity Gough, My Staff Shop Communications Manager.

“In fact, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel (CIPD) investing in employee wellbeing can lead to increased resilience, better employee engagement, reduced sickness absence and higher performance and productivity, so it’s an absolute no brainer to ensure that employee wellbeing is a priority for every business”

If your business is considering introducing an Employee Benefits Package, My Staff Shop recommend considering the following points:

• What benefits will your employees actually use? A gym membership is lovely for those who want to swap to that gym provider, but take-up can be low, while nearly everyone can benefit from discounts for major supermarkets.
• What are you as a business looking to achieve? If you want to upskill your employees, look for packages with training included. If you want to give your people an ongoing financial benefit, look for discounts on things they actually buy frequently – for Gen Z this may be cinema tickets and low-cost airline discounts while for older staff family friendly days out and childcare may be more important.
• What would be a real asset to staff retention and employment?  For some businesses offering salary sacrifice for EVs or holidays is key – for others development of a great peer to peer recognition scheme holds the key to creating a fulfilled workforce.

“Most importantly”, says Verity “don’t feel that a great package is out of reach just because you don’t have 10,000 staff, smaller businesses often already have a great idea of what would really benefit their employees – the key is to find one which meets your needs and budget”.