Incentives to workers

[chris ashdown]

I have a staff made up with a few ladies who are working single mum's working part time 16 hours week and claiming any entitled benifits themselves

My problem is how do I make an small say under £50 per month incentive to them in either money or other if they reach certain levels of work, This bonus should not be taken up by reduction of benifits negating the purpose.

We will only operate within the law so all earnings will be shown on monthly pay sheets and P60's

[leehack]

Run competitions where they win prizes such as asda vouchers, argos vouchers or give them a day off for free instead. You won't be able to give direct cash without accounting for it as direct cash. Gotta go indirect IMO.

[chris ashdown]

Thats great lateral thinking Lee

[Sean Williams]

Speaking from a completely uninformed viewpoint - I was under the impression that competition prizes etc, if supplied on a more than one-off basis can be constituted by HMRC as payment in kind and therefore eligible to be considered as paid income - bit like a company car etc.
Pls correct me if I'm wrong as Lee's idea is a good one.

[chris ashdown]

O Dear

Checked it out, looks like a Turkey for chrimbo is fine, or a cup of coffee but anything else is vorbidden

Just seems unfair that full time staff get the lot if we went ahead but those on benifits get taken to the cleaners

[fergusw]

Chris,
Instead of monetary reward how about paid time off, equivalent to £50 for hitting a target?

[Jan]

This page has a list of benefits that you can provide for your employees that do not attract tax.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/helpsheets/hs207.pdf

Things that popped out at me were childcare allowance (up to £55 per month), reimbursement for travel to work, and provision of a mobile phone.

Also if any of your workers are not single mums then working 15.5 hours not 16 will mean that they are then entitled to income support.

You can also pay £150 per member of staff for a christmas party, that is included in that document but it doesn't point out that you can split this over several events which makes it more useful.

You could always spend some time looking at the support that they are entitled to and make sure that they all claim it - for example, they could claim a £10 christmas bonus from the government in December.

Regards,

[chris ashdown]

Thanks Fergus but the aim is to get them working harder not give them time off as that would negate itself

Jan
They already get a Christmas party so that is used up. these ladies will already make sure they get everything thats going in allowances etc

Travel costs and phone would come under tax rules

It would not be so bad if all the staff were full time, then the tax would not matter I would just give them the money plus an allowance for the tax they would pay

I guess most would fiddle the books with expences or purchases but don't want to go down that route