Global professional accountancy body the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) offers its employees financial benefits via an online platform that places behavioural economics at the heart of its philosophy.
The organisation, which employs 900 people in London and Glasgow, sends out personalised emails or text 'nudges' through its programme based on employees' goals, interests and lifestyle choices that have been selected by employees via its online platform.
Steven Doyle, benefits specialist at ACCA, says: “We made the decision to promote financial wellbeing to our employees as part of a wider focus on improving wellness within the workplace, so going beyond improving only physical wellness, but also to help promote the wider benefits package too. We introduced [our online platform, provided by] Nudge in November 2017 because we found this to be the best fit for ACCA as it appeals to all employee demographics. It’s not a topic that an employee may wish to discuss in the workplace so we made the decision to provide an online platform to support this.”
ACCA can keep track of how employees are influenced in their decision making via quarterly reports, provided by Nudge, which can provide key information such as the number of employees who have logged in, how many nudges have been sent out and how actively engaged employees have been. The organisation can also drill down further and analyse staff by their salary, age, and what they are engaging with on the platform, giving it the tools to cater to all of its employees' needs.
“It’s still very early to gauge [if it will influence employees’ decisions] but feedback received from employees has been very positive and we are keen to continue to promote this throughout the year,” says Doyle.
“We hope that regardless of where an employee is in their stage of life, the system will be able to help them in some way [..] As an employer, we would not know if an employee was in financial distress unless they inform us of this. The first signs of this may be displayed by differences in their physical and mental health so to be able to offer support on financial wellbeing may help to alleviate wellbeing issues elsewhere.”
