Huddersfield-based children’s Hospice charity Forget Me Not has launched a salary sacrifice pension arrangement in order to look after the financial wellbeing of its 140 employees.
Through a partnership with financial wellbeing platform Maji, the charity will pay the total pension contribution on behalf of each member of its workforce, and in return staff exchange a portion of their gross salary equivalent to their usual contribution. This is then paid into their pension account before national insurance and tax is taken from their salary.
This will result in both the employee and employer making a national insurance saving on the employees’ pension contribution portion of their salary, saving 13.8% of the amount for employers, and between 2% and 12% for the employee, depending on their tax bracket.
Maji’s platform also gives users the ability to track their financial goals and progress, as well as access expert coaching and advice.
Forget Me Not introduced the scheme in order to support its staff more, as it recognised how the cost-of-living crisis might affect them financially.
Nici O’Dowd, finance and corporate services director at Forget Me Not, said: “We are a people organisation but, as a charity, we simply cannot afford to award pay rises in line with rising inflation. So we wanted to be proactive in finding a way to enable everyone to get more in their pay packet each month.
“At the heart of this decision was the need to help our employees with their long-term financial goals and Maji is helping us to achieve this. We have many long-standing employees and so we want to work with them to maximise their income over their time working together with us.”