How to implement EV charging salary sacrifice: an HR guide

Implementing EV charging salary sacrifice is a smaller project than most HR teams expect, largely because it does not touch your existing car leasing arrangement and does not require new payroll software. Here is what the process actually looks like, step by step.

Step 1: Confirm who is eligible

Eligibility is usually anyone driving an electric car, whether that is a company car, a car under an existing EV salary sacrifice scheme, or a personal EV. Decide upfront whether you are including all three groups or starting with a subset, for example just employees on your existing car scheme, and expanding later.

Step 2: Check the National Minimum Wage floor

As with any salary sacrifice arrangement, gross pay after the deduction must not fall below the National Minimum Wage. This mainly affects lower earners with high charging costs, and payroll needs a floor check in place before deductions start. It is a standard control, the same one already applied to pension or car scheme sacrifices.

Step 3: Document the arrangement

Salary sacrifice requires a variation to the employment contract, since the employee is formally giving up a right to part of their salary. This is usually a short opt-in agreement signed as part of onboarding to the scheme, rather than a full contract rewrite.

Step 4: Set up the payroll deduction

This is the part finance teams worry about most, and it is simpler than it looks. Each month, actual charging costs are calculated from the employee's home, workplace and public charging activity, and a payroll-ready deduction figure is sent across. It is added as one line alongside existing deductions such as pension or the car scheme. No new payroll software or integration is required.

Step 5: Roll out the employee-facing side

Employees need the app and charge card, powered by Plugsurfing, which covers home charging, workplace charging if you offer it, and 76,000+ public chargepoints. Onboarding, activation and day-to-day support are handled for employees directly, so HR is not the first port of call for charging queries.

Step 6: Communicate the saving clearly

The strongest driver of uptake is a clear, honest explanation of the saving. Employees respond to concrete numbers rather than a general statement that "you'll save money." Point people to the savings calculator so they can see their own likely saving based on their mileage and charging mix, rather than a generic average.

A simple way to frame it in comms:

• Basic rate taxpayers save around 28% combined (20% income tax plus 8% employee NI)
• Higher rate taxpayers save around 42%
• Additional rate taxpayers save around 47%

Step 7: Launch and monitor

A phased launch, starting with existing EV scheme members before opening to all EV drivers, tends to work well because it gives payroll a chance to bed in the process on a smaller group first. After launch, the main things worth tracking are uptake among eligible employees and whether deduction amounts are landing correctly in payroll each month.

Timeline overview

Stage	Typical duration
Eligibility and agreement sign-off	1 to 2 weeks
Payroll setup and floor checks	1 to 2 weeks
Employee onboarding	Ongoing, self-service
First payroll deduction	Following month's payroll cycle

What you do not need to do

• You do not need to switch or renegotiate your EV leasing provider
• You do not need new payroll software
• You do not need to build employee-facing charging infrastructure or apps

The scheme is designed to bolt on to what already exists. Full detail on setup is on our HR teams page, and the payroll-specific mechanics are set out on finance and payroll.

Next steps

If you are ready to scope implementation for your organisation, book a demo and we will walk through the setup steps against your payroll cycle.