AGS Airports: providing forward-thinking sustainable employee benefits

See how we worked with AGS Airports to provide a range of sustainable and wellbeing employee benefit choices, aligned with the company's objectives and values.

Focusing on the future

AGS operates Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports and is the UK’s second largest airport group, carrying up to 15 million passengers each year. Following the collapse of Flybe and the reduction in passenger numbers during the Covid-19 pandemic, AGS Airports is now focused on the future and on sustainable regrowth. Its purpose is “to make national and international connections that benefit our regions, helping people to prosper."

Employee benefits makeover

Following a full market tender exercise, AGS partnered with Barnett Waddingham to carry out a strategic benefits and wellbeing review to revitalise and relaunch their employee benefits. It was an exciting opportunity to make a real difference to AGS and its people, helping align their benefits to the group’s wider strategy. This included strong sustainability objectives aligned with AGS Airport’s push towards reducing carbon emissions.

As part of our strategic review, we engaged with key stakeholders across the group who identified flexibility and sustainability as the most important project objectives. We used our award-winning wellbeing analytics tool, BWell, to assess the workforce against our six pillars of wellbeing, helping to identify key wellbeing focus areas.

Sustainability and wellbeing

We introduced a range of new benefits which fitted well with AGS’s sustainability and wellbeing goals, including the reduction in the carbon impact of employee commutes.

"​I just want to thank you for all your hard work and sage advice that has led to successful delivery of the AGS Benefits Project. From scheme audits, selection of providers, design of benefit offerings, implementation, and ultimately configuration and delivery of the platform, you have all played a significant part in the project success and have been absolutely fantastic to work with. A truly heartfelt huge thank you for everything."

AGS went further by using part of their employer NI savings to reward employees for making sustainable choices, so helping bring their employees with them on their sustainability journey. Employees have up to 250 trees planted for every benefit chosen that has a positive impact on the environment. For example, they can select a bike through the Cycle2Work scheme and get 100 trees planted on their behalf. Or they can select an electric car through the Green Car Leasing Scheme and get 250 trees planted.

Importantly, employees can track their tree planting impact over time with regular updates from our charity and NGO partners via a personalised dashboard. AGS can then see the total impact of these pledges across the entire workforce through its own dashboard.

We can help

Our approach to understanding the happiness and wellbeing of a workforce involves unlocking an organisation’s DNA – getting under its skin, uncovering what makes it unique. We use people analytics to help inform decision-making and strategy, in order to create value while investing sustainably for the future.  

If you think your team could benefit from our expertise please contact your Barnett Waddingham consultant or the author below. Alternatively, you can learn more about the employee benefits services we offer by clicking here.