We’re proud that our efforts to getting our own employees on the road has been awarded by the panel at Cycling UK.

What is the CFE accreditation?

The Cycle Friendly Employer accreditation uses five categories covering communication, organisation, services, facilities and parking management to benchmark your workplace based on how much encouragement you are given to cycle.

To earn a CFE bronze, silver or gold, your workplace must have dedicated resource to organise activities, prompt HR and respond to any support requests.

To achieve accreditation, your workplace must reach the minimum score for each category. The higher the overall score, the higher accreditation level you’d be awarded.

How Cyclescheme scored gold:

At Cyclescheme, and in our wider Blackhawk Network business, we strive to practise what we preach. That’s why we provide our employees with all the tools they need, to take up cycling to work.

Information, communication and incentives for employees

We create activity around multiple national events each year, including Bike Week, Cycle to Work Day, Cycle September and Winter Wheelers.

We hold our own events too. The biggest of these is the ‘Hundred Mile Commute’; our intercompany bike ride. In 2019 we used the event to fundraise for our charity of the year and raised over £1,500 in sponsorship.

We have loads of resources available on our intranet and via our Love to Ride community. Information includes advice on route planning and loan bikes. Riders who engage with our Love to Ride community are regularly rewarded - 4 riders win prizes every quarter based on their engagement and activity results.

Coordination and organisation

As a cycle to work provider, we go out of our way to make the scheme accessible. It’s easy for colleagues to join and we pass on our employers National Insurance Contribution savings to make the scheme as attractive as possible.

Services for employees 

One of the key services our employees can enjoy is the facility to borrow a bike for almost any purpose. We have Bromptons to hire at lunchtimes, and we can secure test bikes for colleagues looking to start commuting, or even do their first sportive.

We also offer all the same benefits we provide our cycle to work clients to our employees. These include Bike Register (the national cycle database), Bikmo (14 days free cover + exclusive saving on cycle insurance), discounted British Cycling membership and access to Love to ride (our chosen behaviour change platform).

Facilities

Facilities are fantastic at our UK Blackhawk Network offices; we’ve invested in our working environment and given specific thought to how we can support and prioritise active colleagues. For example, we’ve ensured our bike lockers are closer to the office than our allocated carpark spaces.

Our outdoor bike lockers are substantial and well-lit, plus we’ve got easy-access ground floor bike parking indoors. We also have great showering facilities with spacious changing rooms and lockers for storage.

Parking management

We have limited car parking spaces, so we’ve added more bike lockers and a picnic bench for employees to use.

Cyclescheme has also relinquished its fleet vehicles and is now agile in only renting vehicles when it’s unavoidable.

Let your employers know how to achieve your own CFE accreditation:

Cyclescheme can help your employer on the road to becoming a cycle friendly employer in 3 distinct ways.

1. If we don’t already, we can run your cycle to work scheme for free. You as the employee can choose the bike/accessories you want at a 23-39% discount and then spread the cost over 12 monthly payments – plus as of 2019, there is no cap on the scheme limit, so it really is any bike, any brand, any price.

2. We can provide you with added-value extras when we run your scheme.

3. We can save your company money on the cost of the CFE accreditation itself, thanks to our long-standing and proactive relationship with Cycling UK.

Why does the Cycle Friendly Employer accreditation matter?

All businesses care about outcomes and results, but it is impossible to know how effective something is if you’ve not got measurable data. This what the CFE provides.

The CFE team analyse your cycling offering. They get under the skin of what your workplace does now, recommend easy things your employer could do better and provide a steer on how to spend budget in a way that will get the most impact.

When it comes to improving workplace cycling provisions, employers need to know what they’re aiming for to make it the best experience for you. After all, it’s hard to plan a journey if you’ve not got a definitive destination.

Cycling UK’s video (featuring our offices!) gives you a few examples of a great place to start.