Cycle to Work: Same. Same. Different!

There’s an unspoken truth within employee benefits…

Never before has an industry managed to turn something as uniquely fun and joyous as cycling into something so confusing as the traditional Cycle to Work voucher scheme.

At Zest, we believe in making benefits engaging, personalised, and simple, and offer the best employee experience in the market. Our flexible employee benefits platform is designed to make benefits highly engaging and automate all scheme administration, ensuring a seamless experience for both employers and employees.

As part of our ongoing mission to bring innovative, personalised, and engaging solutions to employee benefits, we continually search for providers who can genuinely transform employee experiences.

Therefore, in this blog, we turn our attention to the Cycle to Work scheme; its enduring appeal, what innovation we are seeing in the market to deliver the best Cycle to Work scheme experience possible and why sticking with your tried and tested provider may be costing you.

The Enduring Value of Cycle to Work

Since its introduction in 1999, the Cycle to Work scheme has remained appealing for good reason:

• Financial Savings: Salary sacrifice delivers significant and tangible cost savings – typically up to 15% for employers and 47% for employees.
• Health & Wellbeing: Employees who cycle regularly report higher levels of mental and physical well-being, leading to reduced absenteeism and increased productivity.
• Simplicity: Unlike many benefits, it’s straightforward to manage, without Benefit-in-Kind complexities.
• Environmental Responsibility: The scheme supports organisations in achieving sustainability goals by encouraging greener commutes.

However, despite these clear benefits, Cycle to Work has seen limited innovation, causing frustration amongst employers and employees and holding back its potential.

The Perennial Pain Points

Despite the scheme passing its 25th anniversary, HR and Benefit teams still report the same old challenges.

Employees not understanding what’s available or how the scheme works, frustrated with only being able to order once per year, complaining the scheme limits are set too low in relation to their salary, unhappy about having to wait weeks (or even months) for their voucher, having to spend their voucher in one go at one retailer.

Employers also have their frustrations, too – having to process employee orders piecemeal, having to fund the scheme on behalf of employees, chase invoices with finance, change billing entities on an invoice to get it paid, and explain to employees why their request is taking so long.

These are all common micro-experiences that occur every day across many businesses when it comes to Cycle to Work, creating negative feedback loops that discourage participation. The challenge has been that up until recently, Cycle to Work schemes have all been very similar, offering little differentiation – up until recently!

There Are Some Real Innovators in the Space!

Since COVID, we have seen bold new entrants to the market, coming at the scheme from different angles:

• DASH – A complete Cycle to Work platform, aggregating the entire cycling market. Offering employees the ability to purchase, subscribe and access bike-share operators through a modern e-commerce interface that removes any need for vouchers entirely.
• Gogeta – A flexi-voucher offering employees the ability to commit upfront and spend across different retailers within their network as desired over time.
• CycleSaver – Offering access to local bike share operators using Cycle to Work.

All this innovation is being driven by employees wanting benefits that are more relevant to their individual needs and that are accessible as and when they need or want them.

Here, we look at DASH, one of the latest additions to our Zest Marketplace offering.

DASH is quickly becoming a leading Cycle to Work scheme in the UK. Its platform is built around 3 key pillars: Choice, Flexibility and Clarity – the three key qualities they believe are necessary to finally unlock the promise of the Cycle to Work scheme and be the best Cycle to Work scheme in the UK.

When it comes to choice, by acting as an aggregator of the market, DASH already boasts the largest range of bikes and e-bikes in the UK from hundreds of brands and to suit all preferences, needs and budgets, as well as thousands of other eligible products across the accessories, equipment and clothing categories. Impressively, they can also add new products to the platform in minutes, as Jamie Milroy, CEO of DASH, told us:

“Occasionally, someone will come to us to say that a specific cycling product they want isn’t on the platform. We simply ask where we can buy it, check it’s eligible for Cycle to Work and minutes later it’s available, enabling us to deliver a fantastic experience for that individual, but also ensuring we are as inclusive as possible. As the product range has grown, this happens less and less, but it’s a great way for us to learn about new, up-and-coming brands or some of the more niche products in the market – I’m specifically thinking about the adapted cycles space here.”

On the flexibility front, DASH has its innovative subscription offering, enabling employees to rent a bike or e-bike on a rolling basis, without commitment, and inclusive of everything a cyclist needs to get moving: a helmet, lock, theft cover, servicing and repairs. With prices starting at just £25/mth for an e-bike, this opens the door to so many more people commuting by bike, and we think it’s a game-changer.

The flexibility doesn’t stop there, however; with DASH, employees can seamlessly order across multiple brands/retailers at once – no single retailer limitations of voucher-based schemes – and place multiple orders throughout the year without creating additional admin for HR/Payroll. This significantly improves the accessibility of the scheme and the value employees are able to get from it.

Bringing all this together is the platform, and that’s where the clarity comes in. Having all the products clearly displayed shows employees exactly what’s on offer and makes the whole process of buying through Cycle to Work as simple as online shopping. By streamlining the process versus a voucher-based system and improving its familiarity, it dramatically reduces employee confusion and concerns around the process. Prices are also clearly displayed, ensuring people pay the exact cost of their items and not a penny more, eliminating any possibility of retailers adding a surprise surcharge for using the scheme.

Reducing the Admin Pain of Cycle to Work

While DASH’s innovation is centred around the employee experience, you’d be mistaken to assume they’ve neglected the employer experience. As Jamie Milroy puts it: “employers are the gatekeepers in all of this – ensuring their experience is best in class is critical to enabling a lot of the employee-facing innovation/improvement our customers are so excited about.”

To lower the burden on employers and improve the scheme’s overall attractiveness, DASH gives employers flexible payment options: either upfront or monthly, as they recover the cost from employees. The ability to configure multi-entity billing to ensure employee spend is invoiced to the correct legal entity within a group automatically. There are then also auto-approvals, automated payroll calculations, best-in-class account management, and a host of other improvements – all designed to encourage more companies to participate and eliminate unnecessary restrictions imposed on employees.

Time to Refresh Your Cycle to Work Offering

Cycle to Work continues to be one of the most valuable employee benefits available, but its success depends heavily on how effectively it is delivered. DASH, available through Zest Marketplace, provides a modern, engaging, and genuinely inclusive cycling benefit for today’s employees. Any companies considering switching schemes should be speaking with them

Discover how DASH can revolutionise your Cycle to Work experience here or check out the full range of providers available in the Zest Marketplace.