Green Employee Benefits with Tom Baker, Octopus Electric Vehicles

Ever wondered how your commute could help save the planet? Join us as we explore the power of green employee benefits. Bill Banham sits down with Tom Baker, Partnership Manager at Octopus Electric Vehicles, who reveals how salary sacrifice schemes can make sustainable commuting more accessible and affordable.

Learn about the staggering impact of transportation on UK emissions and discover how your company can reduce its carbon footprint by embracing greener transportation options.

Employee expectations are changing, with a growing demand for climate-conscious employers. Our conversation centers on how businesses are integrating green benefits like sustainable transport solutions and green pensions to attract and retain eco-minded talent.

Tom provides a deep dive into the innovative initiatives at Octopus Electric Vehicles; highlighting how businesses and individuals can partner with them to support a greener future. 

Whether you're an HR manager juggling various employee requests or a business leader committed to meeting environmental goals, this episode offers actionable insights and inspiration for promoting sustainability through impactful employee benefits.

Chapters

• 0:03 Climate Crisis Impact on Employee Benefits
• 9:45 Green Benefits in Employee Benefits
• 18:43 Building Partnerships in the EV Industry

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom. And visit hrgazettecom.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannam, and in this episode we're going to focus on the impact of the climate crisis on employee benefits, employee expectations and the rise of the green benefits. My awesome guest today is former Doctor who actor, tom baker. No, no, wait, hang on a minute. Uh, he's partnership managers. Partnership manager over at octopus electric vehicles, the electric car specialists. Tom is a dedicated professional in the sustainability sector with over four years of experience at octopus, specializing in the electrical vehicle industry and charging infrastructure, with a strong background in employee benefits and salary sacrifice schemes, tom is passionate about sustainability and is committed to helping employees access the green benefits that they want and that drive meaningful environmental change. And I guess he's never been in Doctor who.

Speaker 3: 1:24

Tom, welcome to the show today hello, thank you so much for having me. I actually think I am named after the doctor who I think my parents loved, uh, that specific actor so much, tom baker, um, is actually a reason for my name, so there is some linkage. There is some linkage. There we go and you've got kind of similar hair, I know, and I do wear a scarf in the in the winter months it all starts to fit together.

Speaker 2: 1:49

Tom, beyond my wee introduction there, why don't you take a minute or two and tell the listeners a bit more about yourself and your career background?

Speaker 3: 1:53

Yeah, of course. So hello everyone. I'm Tom Bacon. I've been working at Octopus electric vehicles for, yeah, just over four years now, but not always in the remit of salary sacrifice and employee benefits, which is where I'm sort of focused at the moment.

Speaker 3: 2:08

I first sort of started within a vehicle to grid project at Octopus Electric Vehicles, looking at how we can actually make electric vehicles be a source of battery storage for the home so you can charge up your electric vehicle on renewable power when demand is low and then discharge it and actually power up your home.

Speaker 3: 2:28

And we had a project on this called Powerloop, which was really really cool. But as we sort of developed over time, that project came to a close and I sort of fell into the world of partnerships and specifically partnerships in terms of how we can find new businesses to introduce other businesses onto our electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme. And then it slowly made me realize actually employees, employers, have such a task of trying to find their sustainable route and really what my sort of aim is to help them understand that it's really easy to make the switch and they can look at their transport systems, they can look at how people are commuting. You know, are people driving to work. Do people want to switch out of a petrol or diesel car? And if the answer is yes, then there's a really obvious route to do that, and that's through sort of electric vehicles and salary sacrifice schemes to make it cheaper. So it kind of got me really interested in it. And now here I am, four years later. I'm still in the job and still loving it.

Speaker 2: 3:17

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at hrgazettecom. And now back to the show. And also, out of normal work hours you get to party at cool events like Disrupt HR Birmingham. So we were both there last week. We were both saying this before we hit record. They were both in the same room, but I was on the stage for a lot of it. Tom was busy being crowded by people who just want to use all of octopus's services, so we didn't actually get a chance to catch up. Um, but it was a great event and octopus, uh, were kind enough to be a sponsor there. So thank you to you and your team. No problem, no problem, it was a great event interesting time for me.

Speaker 2: 4:03

Um, I've, we've got a couple of cars at the house, you know, like standard family units. Uh, one of them is like triggers, broom. I've just had an mot replaced. A gazillion different parts, I feel like it's a 40 new car now. Uh, the other car we're like you know what? We're gonna get rid of it? Uh, we just have an additional member of the team. We need something bigger. What are our options? And we're actually right now looking at leasing as an option. As it happens, um and uh, an electric vehicle is an aspirational thing. I mean, it's perhaps less aspirational now than it was a few years ago. I think there's still, um, some concepts around barriers to entry because of the cost of an electric vehicle compared to other vehicles, perhaps. But certainly it's where a lot of folks want to go right and and part of what you guys do is to make that a reality. But maybe you can break it down for us a bit, let's, let's get a bit more basic. Well, what is the impact of transport on the?

Speaker 3: 4:59

environment tom, the impact of transport. In terms of, when we're looking, environmental impact, it actually accounts for what? For the biggest emitting sector in the UK. So around 24% of all UK emissions are from the transport sector. And then, if we look at sort of domestic transport, so that's what's actually in the UK right now. Sort of back in 2022, it was reported around 99 million tons of carbon dioxide came from domestic transport alone. Now that includes things like domestic flights, lorries, trucks.

Speaker 3: 5:32

So again, when we're talking, then, about electric vehicles and cars specifically, over half of that 99 million tons came from cars alone, which that might not mean much to many people who are listening, so it's always useful to visualize it. So that equates to 29 million return flights from London to New York. So the impact is massive in terms of actually what cars are putting out into the atmosphere, and so that's why it's such a key thing to change, and that's why it's such an important sector to actually address, and it's quite a key thing to change, and that's why it's such an important sector to actually address, and it's quite an easy one to address as well, because you just have to think well, what else can I drive other than a petrol or diesel car and then the natural sort of other option, unless you're a hydrogen fanatic.

Speaker 2: 6:17

But the natural other option starts to become an electric vehicle in that space, or cycling, or public transport, they're all great too so part of my homework ahead of this interview today is I'm looking at some stats for for the uk and also for the us, because we have a big audience in the us and canada. Um, so is, here are some good numbers for your listeners. In 2024, the projected revenue in the ev market in the uk is expected to reach 34 billion dollars. The this market segment is foreseen to display a compound annual growth rate of eight and a half percent, resulting in projected market value of around 51 billion dollars by 2029. It is growing and growing and growing. Um, what is the state of the ev market in the uk at the moment? Just give us a bit more, a bit more around that yeah, it's.

Speaker 3: 7:09

It's positive as as much it just disregard us sort of what sometimes we read in the news. Um, in this space, I think we can be wholly positive about kind of the pace at which um ev adoption, um is coming about and we actually hit our 1 millionth electric vehicle on the road um in 2024. We're now at sort of around 1.16 million um electric vehicles on the road and I we're now at sort of around 1.16 million electric vehicles on the roads and I always laugh when we sort of talk about it still in an early adoption route. I'd say if we've got that menu on the road, we're probably past the early adoption route and probably now in full swing of adoption, especially and it's a bit of a social kind of transition rather than a technical one in that space, um, and that's because we have, you know, nearly 100 different models now um in terms of evs, and I know you mentioned earlier on about that price factor, um being a bit of a blocker, but we're getting really affordable evs now. Um coming into the market, um, you know, from build your dreams, byd or dash your spring coming out, which I think is now the most affordable 2024 there's. There's loads of options out there.

Speaker 3: 8:08

And then another kind of blocker which you spoke about or were referring to was kind of the charging for structure, which sort of poses a question whether people want to adopt EVs. We've now got 83,000 charger points in the UK, which is way more than the service stations which you find for petrol or diesel equivalents. So it goes to that question around. You know what's the status of EV uptake. There's thousands of chargers out there. There's actually over a million electric vehicles on the road. We saw 26,000 fully electric vehicles sold in July 2024 alone. So it's really really growing. It takes up 19% of the total market share in new car registrations. You know there's so many stats out there which can highlight actually EV uptake is happening and it's important that we sort of keep up with it. So yeah, we can be really positive. I think about it and I think we should look to the future to actually see how we can make it better.

Speaker 4: 8:59

This episode of the HR Chat podcast is supported by MyStaffShop, the UK's only employee-owned employee benefit provider. We provide a range of competitive and flexible employee benefit solutions to help you improve your employee value proposition, from exclusive deals and discounts to help your people stretch their salaries to effective reward and recognition programs and a comprehensive health and well-being offering. We pride ourselves on our friendly and collaborative way of working, putting the interest of our clients at the heart of everything we do. Learn more at mystaffshopcom. Thanks, and now back to the HR chat show.

Speaker 2: 9:45

So what impact does the climate crisis have on employee benefits? Then, and I guess as part of your answer there what are you seeing in terms of how companies are switching their focus on the benefits that are offered to make sure that they are more environmentally friendly?

Speaker 3: 10:01

Yeah, I think we can all experience the climate crisis in various ways and we all want to do our bit to make a change. Crisis in various ways, and we all want to do our bit to make a change, whether that's just at home recycling and being more conscientious about what you're throwing away, whether that's now the sort of clothing trends of upcycling clothes or upholstering furniture all that kind of stuff is is a personal way which we're making a difference, and I think, as an individual, you start to think, well, what else can I do? And actually sometimes you look to your employer for support in that regards, and so what we're starting to see is employees want to be part of a company that is climate conscious and that could either be having little signs on the light switches or turn the light off, or, you know, making sure that everything's recycled paper in their office and all that kind of good stuff in terms of you know what you're getting out of it. Or you know, uh, I guess, nature friendly soaps in the bathrooms, all that kind of stuff. But also they want us to go a step further. Um, you know, on this side and we well, not we, but kite research is a really, really great company, um, they found that 83 percent of people, um, who they surveyed actually wanted to take action on climate change in their jobs.

Speaker 3: 11:09

And this doesn't necessarily mean the actual product or the end goal is, you know, addressing the climate crisis. This is more that their company is giving them climate literacy, or understanding what they're doing, or actually they feel active in their role. And so this is where the point around employee benefits really come into play, because providing employees a benefit which allows them to make a sustainably conscious choice naturally opens up that avenue. And we all know retention is hard in this day and age. We all know that, uh, you know we want to attract and keep the best talent and actually more and more employees only wanted to stay at a company. Should they actually have climate sort of conscious benefits included in their package?

Speaker 3: 11:49

And we've done a bunch of work internally through a sustainable workforce report on this, where we kind of asked 500 UK HR managers about kind of what the role of employee benefits does at their organizations and we looked at then 2000 UK employees to say you know, what do you think in this side?

Speaker 3: 12:05

And actually 70% of the employees expected their employer or potential employer to be proactively working towards clear environmental social governance goals and this would be a deciding factor to their employment or retention. So, in terms of the impact it's making on green benefits, it's kind of becoming that, you know, when you talk about core benefits or or, or pmi, private medical insurance or pensions or anything around that, it's green benefits is sliding in as a bit of an expectation and I wouldn't be surprised in the next sort of one, two, three years that it green benefits become a core benefit as well. We're already seeing with pensions right, pensions are looking to be green pensions instead and that's a really, really sort of big choice and a big option which which employers can do. So it's making a big impact largely because employees are demanding it, which I think is one of the core factors.

Speaker 2: 12:53

So how does that feed into the conversations that you have with? You mentioned HR managers earlier on. Are you finding that a lot of the conversations that you guys are having are through inbound inquiries because HR leaders are like, well, we've got to get on this, this is expected of us. It's not. It's not a good reflection of our employer brand if we're not offering these green options 100.

Speaker 3: 13:15

Yeah, and I think also it's about the it's. It's a really tricky job, um, in the hr space because you have to balance so many requests because you might also have some who don't you know, are looking much more. We want financial support and we want health care, we want well-being support, we want environmental supporting and it's actually right. Well, this is all a massive breadth of how do I balance all these requests, um, in one space. And but I, you're exactly right, it's, they will come and reach out to us and they will ask us the question around, kind of you know, what do you do, or what can you do to make our benefits package green? What can, what is the offering which you have to make that impact? And being at Octopus Electric Vehicles, being a leasing company at its heart and offering salary sacrifice for fully electric vehicles, it's a really easy navigatable conversation because not only are we hitting that environmental focus of offering a sustainable transport solution, salary sacrifice at its heart is also a financially attractive sort of a benefit to add into that remit as well. So we kind of get it in twofold, while HR managers or chiefs of staff or finance directors as well might be coming towards us to ask us the question of you know, what can Octopus electric vehicles do to support and you know we're here to help them find, uh, the right ev salary sacrifice scheme for their business. Um, on that side of things too.

Speaker 3: 14:31

So, yeah, but then also we do outreach. We go to, we go, we actually sort of go to events and people then see us and they'll come have a chat with us. Um, even at disrupt hr, for example, that kind of aspect as well. People will then come and have a chat with us and we'll talk about what we do and they might go. Didn't even realize you did this. That's really cool.

Speaker 3: 14:48

We've been looking at a way to green our benefits or provide another option, um, but I think the other side to look at it is, while employees might be requesting it from their business, a business might have certain certifications they're going after or might be going after a certain tender or might be going off that b corp status they've been wanting. You know there's a lot of pressure now to sort of have these certifications attached to. So choosing green benefits or offering green benefits can actually play a big role in that space as well. So you know the regulations, the certifications and things like that also drive people to look at sort of green benefits and what they can offer to hit those net zero targets which they might be aiming for.

Speaker 2: 15:30

Actually, before I ask you my next question, just a shout out to the Disrupt HR Birmingham team, verity and Jamie and David and all of the awesome speakers. What an amazing event anyway. Okay, continuing through. You mentioned um salary sacrifice at the moment. Um, so obviously an employee can lower their income tax liability by reducing their gross salary. What are? Some of those tax benefits. Can you sort of spell that out for us?

Speaker 3: 15:53

yeah. So I guess it's kind of twofold in this regard. I mean, so you've got for an employee. They essentially make tax savings on a product which they're getting from their business. So it's always a business will sign up with a company in this case Octopus Electric Vehicles and then they'll offer it out to their employees as an employee benefit and essentially it's always for a non-cash good and in this case it would be an electric vehicle. And when we're looking at this the non-cash good basically goes off their gross salary and as the cost of it's coming off their gross salary, it lowers their gross salary and means they can start to make tax savings depending on which bracket they're in.

Speaker 3: 16:35

So you, you know, you can make 20, 30, 40, even 50, 60 percent, depending if you're in that sort of sweet sort of 100, 135k percent off the cost of driving electric.

Speaker 3: 16:45

So that affordability piece we spoke about earlier, salary sacrifice, opens the doors up for a lot of individuals because it does reduce that cost of driving electric or the cost of the lease in that side through the tax savings they make. And I think the other really important thing to note here is salary sacrifice isn't only for EVs, but the reason why it is so preferential or preferred or such a booming industry for electric vehicles is largely because the benefits in kind rate which is what's called the company car tax and you might be more familiar with that is so low for electric vehicles at the moment in comparison to your hybrids, to your petrols, to your diesels, which means you're not outweighing this tax savings you're making by a high company car tax, a high benefit in kind. It's currently just at two percent right now and just incrementally growing by one% up to 2028. So you know it's so low right now and that's why EV salary sacrifice is so popular at the moment.

Speaker 2: 17:43

Tom, you're not going to believe this. We are running out of time, unless you do have a TARDIS kicking about there somewhere. We've got to work with what we've got, and so I'm going to challenge you to answer the next question in 60 seconds or less. When we're putting this script together today, uh, this lovely term jumped out at me climate job.

Speaker 3: 18:04

so here's the question, and I want you to answer in 60 seconds or less why do we need to make every job a climate job in the uk I have to admit, stole Kite Research's approach, and I thought it was brilliant, and it's largely because I think now everyone wants to do their bit for the environment, but people don't know necessarily how, and so what we need to do is give them the tools to make sure that they're making a change in the environment and that actually we're making a greener, fairer future moving forward.

Speaker 2: 18:37

So that's why we need to make every job a climate job, and green benefits is a way to do that. Oh yeah, I'd like 30 seconds to spare. I should have been harsher. Uh, okay, and just finally for today. How can we connect with you? So is that linkedin? Do you want to share your email, etc? And also, of course, how can folks learn more about octopus ev?

Speaker 3: 18:51

you can hop on our website, octopus um, evcom, octopus electric vehiclescom and you'll see all the different cool things that we do in terms of the electric vehicle space. You can add me on LinkedIn, tom Baker partnerships manager at octopus electric vehicles, and I'm happy to have a conversation around how we can support your businesses or, if you want a partner of us to help your clients. Um, any of the above um is great, um, but yeah, it's, it's. It's really just sort of check out what octopus energy doing, check out what electric vehicles are doing, um, and we'll be able to help you find sort of a sustainable future for you excellent, and there will, of course, listeners, as always, be links in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 19:25

That just leaves me to say for today tom baker, thank you very much for being my guest thank you for having me on and listeners as always. Until next time, happy working.