A financial recruiter in the City of London is introducing a novel staff benefit as an incentive to retain and motivate employees.

Goodman Masson has just launched a mortgage fund to help its staff, most of whom are 25-28-year-olds, get a first step on the property ladder or to save up a lump sum to use as a repayment against an existing mortgage.

The fund is the brainchild of chief executive Guy Hayward. “As a company, we have two strategic aims: one is to become the largest financial recruiter in London and the second is to be the No 1 company to work for in London,” he told Recruiter.

The way to do this, he explained, was through strong employee engagement and Goodman Masson already has a framework in place to achieve this. “If we continue to evolve the employee experience, people won’t need to leave us. Our attrition of less than 8% over the past two years tells us that. Retention results in increased productivity and subsequent increase in profitability,” he said.

From January, employees will get the chance to ’trade’ 20% of their basic salary for a three-year period to put into Goodman Masson’s mortgage fund. At the end of the three years, the company will add 20-50% on top of the amount saved by the employee.

The mortgage fund is part of a wider benefits package that includes car leasing, buying and selling holiday and more obscure perks such as wine club membership and subsidised babysitting.

“We’re trying to help shape the industry,” he said. “In London, the cost of buying [a property] now is prohibitive. The deposit required for young buyers is out of reach even for a one-bedroom flat. We can change that.”

He said he believed this initiative was unique not only in the recruitment sector, but in the UK generally. “We have set aside £500k over the next three years,” he said. But he added if his theory that there was a direct link between retention, sales and profit was correct, then that sum for his staff would be more than worth it.