Google offers most of its products free because it is able to make money from the brands that advertise on it. Brands that want to reach out to audiences are willing to pay huge sums of money to Google. Imagine if something similar happens with your company.
Now, imaging brands have the opportunity to reach out to your employees in a similar manner. Employees are the most-sought-after category of target audience today because of their buying power as well as the virality that takes place within the company.
Brands have been advertising their wares for ages now, at times even without the approval of companies and people, in general. Why else are you frequently inundated with mailers and posters announcing special discounts on meals, or waiver of processing fees for loans or special corporate discounts on a car purchase, and so on? Very often, you will find sales personnel visiting you at work offering heavy discounts on your personal travel and even financial requirements. What distinguishes pure advertising from employee advertising is that, under the latter, there is something special being offered to your employees, which is unavailable to the general public.
Our experience at Vantage Circle tells us that there are hundreds of brands willing to provide something special to our employees. The brands may range from a mobile phone company, or motor insurance firm, to a local restaurant and even an international hotel chain.
These special offerings result in an effective increase of about two to three per cent in the CTC of the employees. In these days of single digit salary hikes, this can be very important. In addition to the financial implications, these special offers also make employees feel more wanted. Their sense of belongingness to the organisation increases.
Let us consider the example of a 28-year old married person with one child, drawing a salary of rupees five lakhs. Following are a few broad assumptions that will give you an idea of the potential savings this person can enjoy.
1. Motor Insurance premium – Rs 6000 (Saving – Rs 500/-)
2. Travel (once a year) – Rs 50,000 (Saving- Rs 2500/-)
3. Phone (one phone every year for self or spouse) – Rs 20,000 (Saving-1000/-)
4. 1 major white good purchase – Rs 20,000 (saving- 1400/-)
5. Dining out (yearly) – Rs 15000 (Saving-Rs 2000/-)
6. Apparels (yearly) – Rs 20,000 (Saving-2000/-)
Total Saving 9,400/- (actually, Rs 10,500/- without tax deductions), which is about two per cent.
This saving can of course increase because with increase in income there is a rise in discretionary spend.
This is rather significant for the employees, and does not cost anything to the company.
So why are companies not doing it in a more organised manner? Because this requires a different skill set and is not the job of the HR or admin. department. It is not merely about procuring the offers from the brands, but also communicating the same to the employees, handling support issues, conveying user-friendliness and so on. Will it not be great to be able to enjoy all these benefits without the pain of managing the programme? That is where companies, such as Vantage Circle come in. They help create this entire offering and manage the programme on behalf of the companies.
Vantage Circle’s employee discount programme provides deals and offers to corporate employees across a wide range of categories such as insurance, travel, dining, apparel and more.
The best part is, the companies do not incur any cost at all.
Promotional Feature