Case Studies: LeasePlan

Client Details

LeasePlan is a global leader in car-as-a-service. It manages around 1.6 million vehicles in 28 countries. They’ve been in business for 60 years and employ more than 6,500 people.

Background

Grace has worked with LeasePlan in a variety of ways since 2003 – 20 years! Over the last ten years, we’ve taken on the onboarding and payroll for LeasePlan’s summer work experience placement scheme.

For three to four months during the summer period, LeasePlan takes on several paid work experience candidates, who are mostly young people who have just left school, college, or university. The candidates are recruited by LeasePlan directly, however, once they’ve secured the candidate, they hand the onboarding and payroll over to us and we take it from there.

Justine has been LeasePlan’s point of contact for the summer work experience programme for the whole ten years we’ve been working with them.

What we did

For each summer over the past decade, we have been tasked with onboarding and setting up payroll for work experience candidates. Since 2013, we have onboarded over 100 placement candidates, with 15 in 2022 alone.

The work experience candidates are employed by Grace as agency workers. LeasePlan gives us the names and contact details of the candidates, and we do everything else. It makes it so straightforward for LeasePlan, and because it’s something we do every day with our bank of temporary workers, it’s straightforward for us too.

We do all the onboarding, which covers the right to work checks, signing of contracts, and setting the candidates up on our payroll system and the timesheet portal so they can get paid.

Grace also manages the day-to-day queries, which can be frequent due to the inexperienced nature of most of the candidates. They tend to need a lot of support but it’s our pleasure to help them navigate the world of work, often for the first time. We check in with each candidate weekly to see how they’re getting on and to answer any questions that they may have.

Our experience in running weekly payroll for our agency temps means that we’re equipped to take on the additional summer work experience candidates with very few bumps in the road. This offers them a smooth experience from start to finish, and a positive initiation into working life.

LeasePlan can run its work experience programme, giving much needed experience and skill-building opportunities to the young people taking part, without having to worry about the additional admin they would need to undertake to set them up on their system for a short period of time. Having done this for the last ten years with LeasePlan, we know all the ‘ins and outs’ of employing younger agency workers, such as the tax code and minimum wage differences.

Hear from the team

“Our Summer Work Experience programme mutually benefits those that participate in the programme and LeasePlan.  

The benefit for the person on the programme is the exposure to a commercial organisation and the challenges that come with it. They also gain real-world experience and training as we provide them all with Lean Six-sigma training and certificate, which provides an introduction into our problem-solving framework, something that will be applicable wherever their careers take them.    

For LeasePlan, the benefits are equally rewarding. We get to work with some great young people who can bring youth and vitality into our teams. They see the world through a different lens and they contribute actively through their curiosity and lack of experience. They have a lot of value to add whilst they are with us. If we do something well, we believe we should share it, and this is one way we can give something back to our community.    

Grace provides us with the support we need to be managers in this process. The administrative burden of handling HR-related activities, including onboarding, timesheets, pay, and other queries allows us as managers to concentrate on developing our temporary charges, without the hassle of having to think about and manage the various individual and cyclical activities. Without Grace, we would probably not be able to operate this programme, and so the value created by having an outstanding organisation behind us is amazing."

“Grace did all of the pre work before the placement started and then liaised directly with them for any pay queries. 

The whole thing was a very easy process.”

“Offering work experience placements not only helps to inspire and develop young people but can also bring a number of benefits to an employer and helps to address the skills shortage currently dominating the UK labour market. Offering these opportunities is a great way to grow your workforce in an increasingly competitive market by identifying new talent and building pipelines for the future.

It’s also a great way to boost your employer brand; being known as a business that demonstrates its commitment to developing the skills of young professionals will raise both your profile and appeal.

By outsourcing the onboarding and payroll function to us, you reap all the rewards without the headache and ensure a positive experience all round.”

The Grace approach

⚪️ When working with LeasePlan we are always on hand to help and support the candidates whenever necessary so all the candidates have an easy and positive experience.

⚪️ This results in an employer who is extremely satisfied with our service, and candidates who gain valuable experience while earning.

⚪️ We have a systemic skill shortage in the UK and work experience placements, such as this one operated by LeasePlan, give people the opportunities to learn and gain much needed experience.

⚪️ It’s not just school leavers who can benefit from work experience, but also people returning to the workplace from an extended time out and those seeking a change in career.

⚪️ Offering paid placements opens up the opportunity to those who wouldn’t be able to afford an unpaid placement, such as parents who would have to pay for childcare.

⚪️ Work experience placements can also give candidates a positive insight into your company. It could be your future employees’ first touch point with your company – make it a good one.

⚪️ Using our payroll service helps to breakdown potential barriers to running the work experience programme as we take away a huge amount of admin.

Get in touch

If you would like to learn more about how Grace can help you with your onboarding and payroll for temporary employees, such as work experience placement candidates, get in touch.