Employee benefits: Discount schemes & Pluxee Employee Experience
30 September 2025
Following on from the announcement of our Pluxee Employee Experience, we’re diving into the core benefits at the heart of the offering. This blog is all about employee discount schemes and our discounts marketplace available at the touch of a button via our brand-new app. It’s time to explore the issues users and employers have with staff discount schemes and to demonstrate how the Pluxee Employee Experience platform does things differently.
In a hurry? Here are the top three things to know about employee discount schemes and the Pluxee Employee Experience:
1. Pluxee Employee Experience boosts ROI through high engagement & easy access: Traditional employee discount schemes often suffer from low uptake, wasting investment. Pluxee solves this with a mobile-first, user-friendly app that puts relevant discounts at employees' fingertips. The platform focuses on ease of access, hassle-free onboarding, and ongoing support to ensure both employers and employees get consistent value.
2. Aligned with real employee needs = Real value: Unlike generic schemes, Pluxee partners with 100+ popular retailers offering up to 20% off on daily essentials—not just luxury or niche purchases. This practical approach supports financial wellbeing by helping employees stretch their salaries without encouraging overspending. Discounts are customisable to individual preferences, making them genuinely useful and used.
3. Full transparency & support for HR teams: The platform includes robust reporting tools that track usage, savings, and impact, helping HR teams demonstrate ROI and justify the investment. A dedicated Customer Success Manager ensures smooth onboarding, while UK-based customer care provides ongoing support. Integrated marketing and engagement initiatives help maintain momentum and encourage employees to continue using the platform in the long term.
Got time to stick around? Let's dive a little deeper.
Have you read all about the Pluxee Employee Experience? If not, then dive into our blog, 'Pluxee Employee Experience Platform: Real Perks. Unbeatable Value', for the scoop.
We started with a blog that covered everything, then continued with the series, diving deeper into each core product, starting with our Pluxee Cashback Card and our blog, ‘Pluxee Employee Experience & the best cashback card’ and continued with the recognition platform features -- Pluxee Employee Experience: Employee recognition platforms.
Here, we’re moving on to the employee discounts scheme, better known as the Discounts Marketplace.
More value. Less hassle: Employee discount schemes & the Pluxee Employee Experience
Who doesn’t love saving money?
Yes. That’s a trick question. We all love the chance to spend a little less. Still, just as we found when researching people’s gripes about cashback and rewards cards, we also discovered that some employers have a few concerns about staff discount schemes.
We haven’t just done this research to make content. We did it so that we could create an employee experience platform that delivers at every level for employees and employers.
Here are the eleven ways we’ve tackled the common issues users report with other employee discount schemes and platforms.
1. Enhanced uptake
Poor uptake is the bane of many staff discount schemes, making it challenging to justify the investment. Embedding employee benefits is about more than ticking a box. They’re an impactful way of alleviating the rising cost of living and stretching employee salaries, but only if they use them.
Often, lack of alignment with employee needs is the main culprit for poor uptake, but not with our Discounts Marketplace available through the Pluxee Employee Experience.
As you’ll find as we make our way through the list, we have all the necessary ingredients to boost uptake and make a meaningful impact.
2. Aligned with employee needs
You could partner with a platform that boasts higher discount rates than other options, but if the savings aren’t with retailers that your employees regularly use, then you have to ask: what’s the point?
Great on paper but not in practice.
The Pluxee Employee Experience is different. We still have great deals, but we ensure they're with the retailers that your employees want to spend with. We offer daily discounts and online cashback deals with over 100 retailers, with some offering up to 20% off.
3. Easily accessible
Not knowing where to find or access their employee benefits is another reason for a poor return on investment. If employees can’t easily access their employee discount scheme, they won’t feel the benefits, and you won’t see the results.
To stretch salaries, improve financial wellbeing, enhance employee engagement, and boost retention, your employees must be able to access all their perks easily. Pluxee Employee Experience puts everything in one app, putting the daily discounts your employees need at the touch of a button. Click and go with a smooth and quick redemption process.
We’re making clunky platforms a thing of the past.
4. Hassle-free onboarding
Another challenge some people face when embedding employee discount schemes into their Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is onboarding and integrating the technology with existing systems.
We’ve created Pluxee Employee Experience to eradicate HR headaches, not add to them, and that means getting you off to the best possible start. Our Customer Success Manager is with you from the beginning, guides you through the simple onboarding process, and beyond. We’re delivering scalable benefits to match headcount, deliver value for money and a higher return on investment.
5. Simple & effective
Employee discounts should be simple and effective, not confusing. Employees shouldn’t have to hunt for the best deals or the savings that they want. Likewise, those administering your employee benefits and discount scheme shouldn’t need to rely on a manual.
The Pluxee Employee Experience platform is easy to access, personalise and customise to your needs, whether you’re an employee needing discounts on what matters most or an HR professional managing the scheme.
6. Marketing & communication
Some employers take on a staff discount scheme and then are left to their own devices. Their provider doesn’t offer any promotional content to help them drive uptake and benefits engagement.
Research confirms that having employee discount schemes doesn’t guarantee your workforce will use them. They need to understand the difference they can make to their lives and how to adopt better spending habits.
Bad habits can be hard to break alone, and that’s why Pluxee Employee Experience includes regular marketing and communications directly to your employees. They can also configure their Discounts Marketplace to only show them the retailers that they actually want to spend with.
7. Ongoing engagement initiatives
Some employers have expressed that the interaction and support from their benefits provider starts strong but then dwindles as time passes.
It’s vital to keep that momentum going. That’s why we run regular giveaways and challenges to keep your employees coming back to their perks. They feel the benefits they bring to their lives, and your business sees the return on that investment through higher retention, engagement and motivation levels.
8. User-friendly
Tech may be constantly evolving, but not every employee is tech-savvy. Some platforms operate on the assumption that all employees possess the same skills, which can create barriers for some.
As we’ve already mentioned, our mobile-first employee experience platform makes life simple. It’s a nifty little app that doesn’t require a manual. We will, of course, show you how to use it, but it’s intuitive and user-friendly, the way the best tech should be.
9. Reporting & transparency of value
Employee benefits require an investment, and being able to demonstrate the investment is crucial to securing the required budget. Many HR professionals stumble at this hurdle due to poor reporting functionality.
You can’t report on what you can’t measure.
With the Pluxee Employee Experience dashboard, your benefits administrators will be able to see everything needed to measure the value of our employee discount scheme: enrollment, amount spent, and savings – even where and when employees are feeling the benefit, helping you demonstrate how you’re supporting employee financial wellbeing.
10. Excellent user experience & support
Another issue that sometimes arises with staff discount schemes is that employees may not receive the necessary support if a problem occurs.
Even the best tech can have its moments, and when they occur, your employees may need some support. Some platform providers may leave them in the dark, but our UK-based Customer Care team are available all day to get them back on track.
11. Effective financial wellbeing benefit
Discount schemes deliver savings, but some employers worry that they could encourage their workforce to overspend. We see it with Black Friday mega deals that entice consumers to part with their cash for an offer that’s too good to miss on something they didn’t actually need.
In other words, the discounts actually encourage overspending, which is absolutely not the point of employee benefits.
Our Discounts Marketplace within the Pluxee Employee Experience app is packed full of the savings your employees need. They’re going to buy groceries, toiletries, clothes, and shoes. They’re going to dine out, entertain and explore.
It’s not about spending more. It’s about spending wisely and stretching employees' salaries further with everyday savings.
Employee benefits: Discount schemes & the Pluxee Employee Experience
It’s important to remember what all these eleven points come down to. They’re not ‘gripes’ that sit in isolation; they combine to create an overarching issue: a poor return on investment.
We don’t just want to eradicate HR headaches with the Pluxee Employee Experience; we want to deliver value to your people and business. When employees engage with their employee discounts scheme, they’re improving their financial, mental, and physical wellbeing. They’re less absent, more focused, driven, engaged, and loyal, helping you reduce overheads and drive sustainable growth.
For more information on staff discount schemes, click on the blogs below:
FAQs
What is the average staff discount?
Our retailer discounts differ across the board, with some offering up to 20%.
Is a staff discount a taxable benefit?
No. Our employee discounts scheme is not a taxable benefit.
How does an employee discount scheme work?
Employers enrol in the Pluxee Employee Experience, their entire workforce downloads the Pluxee App, and then all they need to do is register, set their preferences, and instantly access their employee discounts.
How do you use employee discounts?
Every single day! Open the Pluxee Employee Experience app, navigate to the Discounts Marketplace, find the retailer you want to purchase from, and buy a discounted eVoucher at the required value. Then, use that eVoucher at checkout, in-store, or online.
