The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is piloting a new financial education platform across its 23,800 civil service employees.
The new platform, called the Hub and provided by Neyber, will undergo a 12-month pilot period across Defra’s group employees; this started on 20 May 2019.
The Hub offers employees access to personalised financial guidance based on their specific interests and financial goals; this includes content on basic money knowledge, credit, budgeting and life events.
The Hub further provides online tools, such as calculators, to help staff with budgeting, debt consolidation, savings and credit, as well as webinars, podcasts and articles to help staff plan and begin their individual financial wellbeing journeys.
The financial education provision has been implemented in response to a survey Defra undertook in 2015 in partnership with the Money Advice Service; this found that 75% of Defra’s employee respondents believed the organisation should be providing access to financial education and guidance for all staff.
The survey specifically focused on questions around how to help working age adults improve their financial capability, develop budgeting and tracking habits, build a savings buffer and set financial goals for key life events within the workplace.
The Hub has been communicated to employees using emails, the staff intranet, social media, road shows, posters, briefing packs and cascaded to teams through managers.
The new platform forms part of the organisation’s wider wellbeing and employee benefits strategy.
Natalie Jutla (pictured), employee offer and benefits lead at Defra, said: “Defra is always looking to expand how we support our staff, not only on the job as they develop their careers, but also more widely in areas such as combating mental health problems or help with financial education and how to manage finances.
“Our work with the Money Advice Service showed there was strong demand for financial education and the new Hub will be an essential tool for Defra staff and a key part of our offer to our teams.”
