What higher education employers can learn from the University of Salford
Higher education employers are trying to support their people while protecting their budgets. It’s a very real challenge. Universities are managing financial pressure, recruitment challenges and rising expectations from employees who need support to feel relevant, accessible and useful in everyday life. A benefits package can look strong on paper, but it only creates value when people understand it, use it and feel the difference. The University of Salford’s experience shows why usage matters. By focusing on awareness, access and engagement, the University turned existing support into something employees could actually experience.
Key challenges facing higher education employers (and how one university responded)
In a hurry? Here are our top three takeaways from our blog exploring what higher education employers can learn from the University of Salford.
1. Value only exists when employees experience it: The University of Salford shows that benefits create impact when employees understand, access and use them — not simply because they're available.
2. Well-used benefits can support retention, financial wellbeing and salary stretch: In a sector facing recruitment pressure, wellbeing challenges and constrained pay budgets, benefits can help employees feel supported while giving universities more ways to strengthen the employee experience.
3. Benefits can deliver measurable value for people, budgets, and wider goals: The University's results show how higher engagement can drive employee savings, platform usage, recognition participation, employer savings, and sustainability outcomes, making value easier to see, feel, and prove.
Got time to stick around? Let's dive a little deeper.
The University of Salford shows what changes when benefits move from being available to being actively used. By improving awareness, access and engagement, the University turned existing support into measurable value for employees and the organisation.
Why does this matter? Because the University's experience doesn't sit in isolation.
Here are the biggest challenges facing higher education employers today, and what other institutions can learn from the University's approach.
Why higher education employers need benefits to work harder
The Office for Students has warned that many institutions face significant financial pressure, with deficits, recruitment challenges, rising operating costs and reduced financial flexibility all adding strain across the sector.
Against this backdrop, HR and reward teams face seven interconnected challenges:
- Improving benefits engagement and utilisation
- Supporting employee financial wellbeing during the cost-of-living crisis
- Reaching deskless and harder-to-engage employees
- Improving retention without increasing salaries
- Demonstrating measurable ROI from wellbeing investments
- Pay increase restrictions
- Supporting sustainability goals
These challenges are exactly what the University of Salford set out to address.
Challenge 1: Employees can't benefit from benefits they don't use
One of the biggest myths in employee benefits is that making support available means employees will use it.
The University of Salford found wanted to reach every employee, even those who are deskless and didn’t have access to digital communications, which was having an impact on their benefits usage.
As James Walsh, Reward Analyst at the University of Salford, explained:
My team and I wanted to help the people who needed it the most, but unfortunately, they were the least engaged with our platform.
Value is not what organisations provide. It is what employees can use when work, money and everyday life collide.
The University of Salford shows what changes when benefits move from being available to being actively used. By improving awareness, access and engagement, the University turned existing support into measurable value for employees and the organisation.
What the University learned by reaching all employees
So, how can universities improve employee benefits engagement?
Knowing the impact their money-saving employee benefits, like discounts and cashback, could have on their deskless teams alongside the morale-boosting power of peer-to-peer recognition, the University focused on improving awareness and accessibility as their top priorities.
They combined:
- Financial wellbeing education
- Dedicated in-person workshops
- Improved communications
- Recognition initiatives
- Continuous engagement activity
The result:
- 150% increase in discount platform usage
- 129% increase in employee savings
- 94% active usage of the reward and recognition platform
Challenge 2: Financial wellbeing is a workforce, not a personal issue
Financial pressure does not stay at home. It shows up in stress, productivity, engagement and retention.
For higher education institutions with constrained salary budgets, helping employees make their money go further can create meaningful value without adding pressure to pay costs.
What the University learned from taking financial wellbeing seriously
How can universities support employee financial wellbeing?
By expanding awareness of financial wellbeing resources through pension education sessions, financial wellbeing webinars, pre-retirement seminars, mortgage advice support, salary sacrifice schemes and everyday savings through employee discounts, the University saw substantial and measurable impacts.
These included:
- Employee discount platform spending increased by 156%
- Employee savings increased by 129%
- Over 2,000 employees actively used the discounts platform
The lesson is simple: employees often need help accessing value they already have.
Challenge 3: Reaching every employee matters
Many businesses rely heavily on digital communications. Yet not every employee works behind a desk.
When communications rely too heavily on digital channels, employees who are not desk-based can miss the support designed for them.
James and his team identified that for some employees, particularly within Estates and operational teams, a digital-first communications approach wasn’t landing, meaning that these teams were less aware of and less likely to access available support.
How the University reshaped their communications
Instead of expecting employees to come to the benefits programme, they took the programme directly to employees.
Key initiatives included:
- Dedicated face-to-face workshops
- Sessions during working hours
- Tailored communications for specific employee groups
The impact was visible in their recognition programme.
By 2024:
- Approximately 94% of employees were active on the recognition platform
- Estates became the 8th most engaged department out of 19
- Estates generated 28% of all nominations in October 2024
Challenge 4: Retention is becoming harder
Higher education employers continue to face recruitment and retention pressures alongside growing concerns around wellbeing and workload. Recent research has shown that 53% of academics and academic-related staff showed probable signs of depression (Education Support).
Higher education employers are under growing pressure to attract and retain talent in an increasingly challenging environment. Workforce movement across the sector is rising, with Advance HE data showing that 20,220 academic staff left their roles in 2022/23, equivalent to 8.4% of the UK's academic workforce and a 15% increase on the previous year (Springer).
Replacing talented employees is costly. Retaining them is increasingly critical, but how can universities reduce employee turnover?
How the University reduced employee turnover
The reduction in turnover sits alongside the University’s wider focus on employee experience, including better benefits engagement, financial wellbeing support and recognition.
Between 2022 and 2024, employee turnover fell from 8.6% to 5.9%. It's an an impressive figure, and one that saves the University time and money.
Still, how can we use the University’s experience to answer the question: What employee benefits do university staff value most?
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but one employee reflected:
The benefits platform at Salford has contributed significantly to my wellbeing. In a cost-of-living crisis, it's really useful to know that we have lots of options to save even more money.
While benefits alone don't drive retention, they can reinforce a culture where employees feel supported and valued.
Challenge 5: Proving the business case
Every HR investment faces increasing scrutiny, and the University of Salford’s experience was no different.
Universities need solutions that benefit employees while supporting organisational objectives, and can help make running the scheme cost-neutral.
How the University generated business savings from employee benefits
One of the biggest wins from the University of Salford case study wasn’t the employee wins; it was how well-used benefits can support organisational financial sustainability.
In 2024, salary sacrifice and annual leave purchase initiatives helped generate £187,689.40 in employer savings through:
- £152,311 from Annual Leave Purchase
- £31,075 annual National Insurance savings from Green Car uptake
Since publishing this case study, this figure has increased again. To date, the Green Car scheme has saved the University approximately £100,000 through NIC reductions.
These savings demonstrate an increasingly important principle: Wellbeing and financial sustainability do not need to compete with each other.
Done well, employee wellbeing and financial sustainability can strengthen each other.
How do salary sacrifice schemes save universities money?
Salary sacrifice schemes save universities money because the employee gives up a portion of their salary to pay for a new bike, electric car or additional annual leave. The repayments are made through salary sacrifice, reducing the rate of take-home pay before tax and NIC are calculated.
The employer National Insurance Contributions reduce in line with the employee’s pay.
Challenge 6: Stretching salaries when pay rises are restricted
Money is one of the deciding factors when employees consider staying or going, but how can higher education employers improve retention without increasing salaries?
Offering a higher rate of pay has become more challenging since employer National Insurance Contributions increased to 15%, making benefits a vital part of pay strategy.
When employees use their Discounts Marketplace and cashback-earning Pluxee Card to their full potential, they can save an average of £1,200 per year.
As we share in our Guide to Driving Resilience During Budget and Policy Change, one Pluxee employee has earned over £800 in cashback alone!
How the University made employees’ wages stretch further
The University gives its workforce access to employee discounts and cashback, giving them two ways to save and earn cashback on the things they’re already spending on.
Between 2022 and 2024, the amount of money employees saved by shopping through our discounts platform increased by 129%.
That’s more money back in their pockets and making life more affordable.
Challenge 7: Supporting sustainability goals
The University’s ‘For Salford, From Salford’ ESG work also shows how employee benefits can create value beyond the workplace.
The University's rooted in its local community. Many students come from across the North West, and the University operates in an area where financial resilience, access to opportunity and good employment matter. Its role as a major employer is not only to provide jobs, but to support the people, families and communities connected to them.
How the University reduced its carbon footprint through employee benefits
By linking CSR, ESG and equity to the employee experience, the University strengthens its position as an employer that people can believe in, not just work for. That matters for retention, reputation and long-term financial resilience.
At the time of publishing this case study, the University had saved 43.14 tonnes of CO₂ via the Green Car scheme.
Three lessons for higher education employers
We’ve pulled multiple highlights from the University of Salford’s case study into this blog, and we can summarise them into three useful lessons on value, equity and measuring success.
- Value must be experienced: Benefits sitting on an intranet don't create impact. Employee understanding and usage do.
- Equity requires different approaches: How do you increase benefits uptake among deskless workers? Not every employee consumes information in the same way. Communications strategies must reflect different working environments.
- Measure outcomes, not activity: Instead of just reviewing the benefits you offer, focus on usage, savings, participation, retention. and financial impact. These metrics build a stronger business case for future investment.
The University of Salford & Pluxee UK: Making value seen, felt, and experienced
The University of Salford’s experience shows what can change when benefits move from being available to being actively used. By improving awareness, accessibility and engagement, the University helped employees make more of the support already in place, while strengthening the business case for continued investment.
For higher education employers, that matters. Budgets are tight, retention is harder, and employees need support that feels relevant to their real lives. The opportunity is not simply to add more benefits. It is to make existing value easier to find, easier to use and easier to prove.
FAQs
What are the biggest challenges facing higher education employers today?
Financial pressure, employee retention, staff wellbeing, benefits engagement and demonstrating ROI are among the biggest challenges facing UK universities.
How can universities improve employee benefits engagement?
Universities can improve engagement through education, targeted communications, manager advocacy, in-person events and regular awareness campaigns.
Why do university employees fail to use available benefits?
Common barriers include lack of awareness, poor communication, limited understanding of value and difficulty accessing benefits.
Do employee benefits improve retention?
Benefits alone do not drive retention, but they can improve the employee experience, strengthen wellbeing and support broader retention strategies.
How can salary sacrifice schemes help universities?
Salary sacrifice schemes can reduce employer National Insurance costs while helping employees save money on key expenses.
How can universities support employee financial wellbeing?
Financial education, savings tools, employee discounts, salary sacrifice schemes and targeted support programmes can help employees improve financial resilience.
What is the ROI of employee wellbeing programmes in higher education?
In the case of the University of Salford, their wellbeing programme delivered ROI through reduced employee turnover and almost £200,000 in NIC savings.
Sources:
