Australian HR leaders are already obsessed with new 'tech-driven' leasing app
Greg Parkes, Auto-UX CEO, is pioneering the tech revolution in novated leasing benefits
Novated leasing is an employee benefit that has been around for a long time, and Auto-UX is a pioneer driving a technology revolution in the sector. The old archaic system of call centres, hard copy paperwork and clunky processes has been thrown to the curbside in favor of an employee experience focused, digitized solution. But as of yet, Auto-UX is the only Australian company providing this tech-driven approach.
Speaking to HRD, Greg Parkes, Auto-UX CEO, explained HR leaders and their employees are loving the new high-tech approach to leasing. And once they’ve experienced this new approach, they never look back.
“For almost 40 years, the novated industry has helped employees navigate the complexities of vehicles, finance and tax through good old-fashioned, telephone-based phone consultations with sales reps,” added Parkes. “Auto-UX is flipping this old school way of operating on its head.”
This is why Parkes and his team built Auto-Pilot, the first digital end-to-end novated leasing platform in Australia, enabling employees to build their own quotes and enjoy a self-directed user experience that eliminates the pitfalls of the ‘during business hours’, old sales consultant or call centre service model. And HR teams are already obsessed.
“With novated leasing, it’s complex, and employees can get frustrated with traditional industry processes. Sometimes this results in sub-optimal outcomes” Parkes added. “What HR are telling us they love about Auto-Pilot is that we've pioneered an intuitive employee journey that has low touch and high care programmed into the platform.”
The latest feature in Auto-Pilot, called Predict Assist, demonstrates this case in point. Predict Assist is a feature that analyses an employee’s data inputs to predict what roadblocks an employee may encounter, and then proactively helps them overcome them.
For example, an employee opens the app and enters their salary, they then enter a vehicle they like the look of that might be above their affordability level. Instantly Predict Assist identifies that this model is too expensive based on their wages. From there, the app intuitively, and most importantly non-offensively, suggests models that would better suit their budget leveraging AI.
“When we first started demonstrating this feature to HR leaders, the first words out of their months were ‘we love that’,” added Parkes. “Because HR want to ensure their teams are empowered and assisted with a tool that supports financial literacy and sound decision making.”
Conversely, on the flip side of the equation, Predict Assist is helping employees maximise the financial benefits of novated leasing.
“Again, novated leasing is a complicated benefit,” added Parkes. “If employees are paying income tax, they can get a tax benefit on a novated lease, but often they're leaving money on the table. Most employees don't know all the different levers to pull to really optimize the financial outcome. In Auto-Pilot, the Predict Assist feature analyses an employee’s entries and identifies opportunities where the employee can maximise the financial outcome. It then steers them towards enabling those financial levers for an enhanced benefit which is important when most people are impacted by the rising cost of living.”
The inbuilt financial safeguards that Predict Assist affords both protects against overcommitment whilst simultaneously optimising financial benefits, all through a seamless user experience – something HR leaders and their people are raving about.
“The whole reason HR are offering this benefit in the first instance is that they want their employees to get a significant financial benefit,” added Parkes. “The objective of Auto-Pilot is to innovate and simplify through tech, the repeatable delivery of this benefit through a consistently exceptional user experience. If you think about the way novated leasing has been done in the past, it’s highly variable, requires talking to a salesperson during business hours, followed by clunky paperwork. When employees hit roadblocks, this is quite uncomfortable because a salesperson is telling them the issues and usually the phone call is occurring in an office environment during business hours.”
With Auto-UX, these challenges are non-existent. Auto-UX is 100% self-guided – meaning employees don't have to suffer any awkwardness but instead gain autonomy and flexibility; it’s also reflective of where employee expectations are going in 2025. People expect automation now – they expect efficient, streamlined, accessible technology that makes their lives easier. And this is just as much true for their working lives as it is their private ones.
“When we speak to people about the app, their first response is often ‘thank goodness someone has finally done this!’” laughed Parkes. “People can’t believe that Auto-UX is the only company to have digitised the UX to date. And you know what? I want our competitors to follow suit – I want them to up their game with the way this benefit is delivered because it’s such an important employee benefit but delivered so lazily. We want to shake up the industry – because if we can lift the bar across the whole sector, it’s a good thing for everyone. And we’re just getting started with the innovations. It’s all part of our mission to reshape the novated landscape for good.”
To find out more about Auto-UX and its novated leasing platform, click here.
