Benefits, they're actually awesome and very simple.

At the beginning of the Summer I made the choice to put the breaks on a little from outbound business development and instead talk to our supplier base, understand what they’re doing and then also review our perks platform.?

My oh my its been eye opening!?

Amba has been around in various forms for the past 23 years, we know how company benefits work, we understand the challenges and we get it. We built Lumina to host the benefits a company chooses to have as part of their ‘flexible benefit solution or ‘benefit stack’ for techies.?

Implementing a benefit might seem simple enough; a free lunch Wednesday, an extra day off for a birthday and fruit in the office… but they’re not really benefits, they’re nice to haves.

Many companies believe that implementing a benefit solution like Ambas’ Lumina platform is expensive and I’m not going to sit here and say it's cheap but what it’ll save you in admin, admin and more admin will far outweigh in a matter of months.?

For many companies, it’s seemingly very easy to implement a salary sacrifice cycle to work scheme (which I use because its popular and most SME’s have one).

Once the company has decided it's in the interests of its people to put one in place you then need to; find a provider, do a deal, set it up, communicate it to the workforce, do the payroll adjustments once people start using it and change the report once it's paid off.?

Seems simple enough,, but how much time does all of that actually take? I’d say 2-3 months reviewing for a SME of 150 employees and then another month to get it set up and then every time someone buys a bike, time doing the associated admin.

I’d personally hazard a guess that 5-10 people will take up the scheme.

That's a lot of work for 10 people to benefit from a cheaper bike but importantly, there is zero benefit to everyone who doesn’t use a bike. Months of work, communication, emails, time, energy for a benefit that doesn’t benefit the majority of the workforce.?

I use the cycle to work scheme as an example because it's by far the most popular and it’ll remain an awesome benefit for many companies and its people, but as a singular benefit for the minority of people its a lot of work for little gain to the many.?

That by the way is the same for most benefits.

What if I said that by being with Amba you get all the employee funded benefits for free in one fell swoop and it’ll only cost you the time to demo Lumina and then communicate it to your people?

• Second hand technology - everyone has a phone, not everyone wants or needs the ‘new’ phone, a second hand refurb is great and when it's done at gross pay, it makes it even cheaper. It's great for your companies ESG and CSR and it also applies to computers, laptops, pads and anything else that's tech based and available.?
• Car and EV schemes are fantastic, take even more time to put in place, minutes through Lumina.
• Money management apps and platforms that will show your employees how to make the money you pay them go further. You don’t need to default to pay rises, just educate.
• Salary sacrifice childcare schemes, yes, an employee can set up a scheme and benefit from cheaper childcare!
• Restaurant discounts, film passes and allergy tests are also added.?
• We have an extensive high street discount platform that’ll save an average person around ￡800 per year.
• We even have a solution for discounted gym memberships and wellness platforms that won’t cost you, the employer, anything.?

Amba is also a B-Corp business, the only benefit provider in the UK to have this accreditation and part of our giving back piece is to offer our very own Perks platform within Lumina. It's a shopping? gateway for people who want to shop more ethically.

Companies like Tony’s Chocolate, Scentered, DAME, Who gives a Crap and Wild are all on the platform offering deals and offers.We offer it totally free to suppliers to be on there and it comes as part of the package for you the employer.?

As an employer looking to buy Christmas presents for your staff, imagine being able to buy them all ethically sourced (anything) through a channel that aims to benefit the World.

There's also charities that we’ve found and love, so instead of buying your clients those strangely expensive bottles of wine you’ve never heard of at Christmas, give the equivalent money to a cause that actually needs it, it’s also great for PR.?

Everything above, its 100% free to you the employer to have within Lumina and will benefit everyone, not just the few.

Imagine putting all of that on a job advert?! Then imagine that you don’t actually need to do anything once it’s all in place, if someone buys a new phone or bike through salary sacrifice, all you do is ok it and we do the rest, forever.?

Of course there are regulated benefits and benefits that do cost the company money but again we can manage all of this for you and put it into Lumina.?

Private Medical, pension salary sacrifice, EAP, holiday trading, life assurance, health cash plans.You name it, we have partners that can help and its always cheaper than going directly.?

The summer, based on how cold it suddenly got, is pretty much over but its been great to really tak to our awesome supplier base, re-stock and power into the Autumn with renewed excitement for just how awesome Amba could and should be for your company.?

It’ll cost you nothing but time to take a look at Lumina with myself and get an idea of what you could have as part of your benefit stack.?

Get in touch, find out, I’d love to have a chat.