How to financially support your employees' return to work after having children

So what can you as an employer do to help ease the weight of this financial burden for your employees?

You can provide access to significant tax and national insurance savings on annual nursery costs by implementing a salary sacrifice Workplace Nursery Scheme!

We specialise in helping parents, employers and nurseries benefit from the existing childcare legislation. We've partnered with an expert in this area to navigate the rules and regulations for you, so that you can easily and effectively implement this exciting and family friendly benefit. Having a family focused benefit, like a workplace nursery scheme, as part of your benefit package, can help attract and retain your top talent.

Childcare costs are a significant burden for parents and providing your employees access to reducing these costs will really make your company stand out from its competitors, improving attraction and retention and positively impacting your employer brand.

How does the Workplace Nursery Scheme work?

Employees can use the workplace nursery benefit at their choice of nursery, providing the nursery agree to partake in the scheme. Any children up to the age of 5 can be covered by the Workplace Nursery Scheme, providing the annual nursery fees are more than £7,250.

How will this benefit employees?

They can choose any approved nursery for their children, and achieve Tax and NI savings at their highest rate, on the full amount of nursery fees. They can also use a Workplace Nursery Scheme in conjunction with free hours, Tax Free Childcare (TFC) or Childcare Vouchers.

How will this benefit your business?

This benefit is becoming increasingly popular with employers as it is the only employer supported childcare option available. In a competitive employment market it's important to stand out as an employer of choice by providing access to this benefit for your working parents.

The scheme is fully managed by us and our partner, and we will provide guidance and a full suite of documentation which enables easy implementation, as well as supporting easy integration into your existing payroll, or better still we can provide your payroll solution to keep all your services under one roof.

Employers will save employer's national insurance on the amounts salary sacrificed by the employees for the scheme, but these savings must be returned via a contribution towards the running of the nursery, this is what keeps the scheme compliant. Employees will attend a regular meeting with the nursery to help guide where their employer's contributions are being spent.

What's the employee eligibility criteria?

• Employees must earn above the national minimum wage after salary sacrifice
• Employees must have nursery fees exceeding £7,250 per annum
• Employees must be willing to enter into a minimum 12 month agreement with the nursery
• Employees must use a nursery that is Ofsted registered, not a private dwelling and willing to adopt a Workplace Nursery Scheme

If you're an employer interested in introducing this benefit, or an employee keen to encourage your employer to participate in this scheme - we'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch with Harding Financial on 01483 802010 and ask for Tanya Birnie or Melanie McDonald or email the Corporate Team on [email protected]