At my company, many employees are my internal customers--and job one is to make sure my customers are satisfied (balanced with the needs and requirements of the company, of course).

In addition to business goods and services, many of my vendors also sell goods and services to end consumers.  Consequently, that puts my procurement department in the perfect position of negotiating employee discounts.  Sure, these aren't the huge mega deals with tons of glory, but my internal customers get a great benefit, I get a lot of great press for my department, and, in many cases, I get a royalty back from the discount providers based on volume spend.  So, it's worth the investment in time.

I almost always focus on suppliers with a national presence and where obtaining the discount is easy (like using a promotional code online).  Currently, I have over 70 vendors participating in my company's employee discount program, and the discounts range from the usual (like flowers, computers, hotels, and rental cars) to the unusual (like fitness equipment, truck rentals, paint, and carpet cleaning).

I have a page on our company intranet where I describe the programs and how employees can get the discounts.  For the larger programs, I even include a testimonial and a picture of someone who has used the program--it's a great way to generate excitement around a particular discount program.  Additionally, the vendors usually have great ideas around generating excitement.  For example, this week, Ford Motor Company (one or our most popular employee discount programs) will be bringing nine or so of their latest vehicles to our headquarters campus, along with door prizes, for our employees to check out.

So, if your company doesn't have a employee discount program, get started.   If your company does have one (and HR runs it), get involved.  To make things easier for you, I'm attaching the contract template that I use for documenting discount deals: National Discount Relationship Agreement

Happy discounting!