Cycle Solutions: pedal to work, get those creative juices flowing and boost your own productivity!

In line with our ‘Healthy Lifestyle, Healthy Business’ week, we interviewed Steve Edgell, director of a Cycle To Work scheme. He explains how the scheme works and what employers can do to increase the fitness and ultimately productivity of their workforce.

What does the Cycle to Work scheme encourage? Employee fitness and wellbeing is at the heart of the principles promoted here at the Cycle to Work scheme. In London, transport costs are extremely high and every single emission contributes to global climate change, which is destroying the planet. Cycling is a carbon-neutral, environmentally-friendly mode of transport. And what’s more, it’s free!

However, it isn’t just the trees and our wallets that benefit from cycling to work… Riding a bike for half an hour per day, 5 days a week can give you:

• Up to a 35% lower risk of coronary heart disease and stroke
• Up to a 50% lower risk of type 2 diabetes
• Up to a 50% lower risk of colon cancer
• Up to a 20% lower risk of breast cancer
• A 30% lower risk of early death
• Up to an 83% lower risk of osteoarthritis
• Up to a 68% lower risk of hip fracture
• A 30% lower risk of falls (among older adults)
• Up to a 30% lower risk of depression
• Up to a 30% lower risk of dementia

And that list isn’t even exhaustive! These physical bonuses benefit the employee directly, but also the employer — improving the health of employees also boosts the two P’s: productivity and profit!

So what can the employer do?

The Cycle To Work scheme is based on the government salary sacrifice system. This is when the employee agrees to give up part of their monetary salary in return for benefits and is a tax-efficient way in which the employer can reward the employee for their hard work. It is quick and easy for the employer to sign up, it’s free to run and stands to improve your organisation’s competitive advantage as an employer.

Check out this video to see exactly how it works:

And the results?

We’ve been working in the industry for more than 15 years now and have seen a fantastic increase in the number of companies taking interest and activating a cycle to work scheme to support employee health and wellbeing. Not only that, but many companies that we have worked with have also registered a clear and measurable impact on their employee health, happiness and engagement.

It’s addictive! In fact, in some cases, employees have taken their forays into cycling to the next level and have gone on to form bicycle user groups and take part in some impressive charity rides. For example, colleagues at Pepsico took on a Pepsi Challenge with a difference when a team of 30 (wearing kit sponsored by Cycle Solutions) pedalled from their HQ in Reading to Paris! Here they are, below:

Do you use the Cycle To Work scheme yourselves?

Yes! The reason we are continuing to drive the Cycle To Work scheme is because we have seen the benefits ourselves. We have a local and dedicated workshop with over 80 employees who have taken up the scheme. We have seen an increase in employee positive attitudes and the number of sick days have decreased on average by 25%. As we have seen the benefit, we can encourage other companies to leverage this too.

Cycle To Work schemes, like the one offered by Perkbox, are just one form of salary sacrifice. Please click here for more ways you can encourage your employees to give up some of their monetary salary in return for tax-free benefits. Our platform offers all kinds of employee benefits so you can reward your workforce for their hardwork. Check us out!

Written by Steve Edgell for Perkbox and edited by Hannah Sims.
Sources
Healthy Lifestyle, https://www.cyclesolutions.co.uk/healthy-lifestyle, date unknown

Originally published at blog.perkbox.co.uk on November 24, 2015.