Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions’ salary sacrifice fleet has reached 6,200 vehicles in just 18 months thanks to ensuring the fleet, HR and finance departments all work together to deliver a successful scheme for their employees.

The numbers have been achieved through just six clients, but Hitachi Capital warns companies against adopting a scheme if they cannot achieve this joined up departmental approach.

Mike Belcher (pictured), head of sales at Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions, said: “We know from experience that the fleet department will want to treat the scheme as an extension to their fleet responsibilities, HR will want to treat salary sacrifice as a benefit scheme, while finance will be risk averse and want to reduce costs.

“Our role is to identify companies where we are confident all three can work together to deliver a salary sacrifice scheme that benefits both employer and employee.”

As well as these three key points, prospective customers need to have both the scale of employees and the scale of existing fleet to ensure that vehicle purchase discounts are maximised.

One last piece in the jigsaw is to offer employees a highly competitive interest rate which, when combined with pre-qualified discounts, ensure the scheme is highly competitive.

“Companies should avoid being sold salary sacrifice schemes that don’t stand a chance of working as they waste time, effort and money,” Belcher added.