The European Furniture Group is providing its new trainee sales reps with company cars.

After completing a workplace-based training programme devised by the company, the trainees who started working at the UK headquarters of EFG in Warrington, were each handed the keys to a Seat Ibiza SC 1.4 SE.

EFG business improvement and HR manager Phil Brown believes the latest additions to the company’s fleet will play a key role in building brand awareness.

"All our sales staff operate in the field and need a vehicle in order to do their jobs, but we felt putting our new recruits into their own vehicles from the outset would act as a great incentive for them to do well and a real reward for all their hard work in making it through our training and selection process and into a job," said Brown.

"In addition, although we’re a large multinational company, we felt we needed to do more to raise our profile in the area around our Warrington headquarters and, after considering our options, having a fleet of eye-catching liveried vehicles operating up and down the M62 corridor seemed a very cost-effective way of helping to build brand awareness.

"Now we’re a few weeks in, it’s clear we made the right choices and the fleet of Ibizas have ticked all the boxes. Our new employees are happy because the Ibiza’s a great car to drive and is packed with extras and we’re delighted because they look great and are turning heads wherever they go."

The new recruits range in age from 20 to 44. There was no upper age limit, but the lower age limit was set at 19 after discussions with insurers.

In terms of restrictions, although each of the employees have been allocated their own Ibiza, the cars are currently only for business use. This is partly to limit the cost of insurance but, more importantly, to prevent the new recruits having to bear the full company car tax burden.

Currently, each of the new recruits is on a six-month contract. At the end of that six-month period, the successful candidates will be given full-time, permanent contracts and will qualify for the firm’s full company car scheme where they have a degree of freedom in choosing their own vehicle. The liveried Ibizas will then pass to the next batch of new recruits as the scheme rolls out.

Matthew Ginger, managing director of IMG SEAT, said: "EFG shopped around when looking for the perfect vehicles to add to their fleet and soon realised what we knew all along – the Seat Ibiza is a great all-round company car."