Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts (SFCT) has restructured its internal communications platform to help support the financial wellbeing of its employees during the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic.
The online platform, which was initially introduced in January 2020, was originally created to give employees about business updates, as well as the opportunity to learn more about the organisation through webinars and videos.
In response to the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic, the business has repurposed this platform to offer effective financial wellbeing support to its 90 employees during the crisis.
The link between financial difficulties and mental health issues has been widely acknowledged during the outbreak, and since the pandemic began, financial wellbeing has been recognised as being more important to the organisation and its employees.
Lucy Wade, HR assistant at SFCT, says: “The platform that we originally created to update employees on general business news was repositioned to offer financial support through webinars and Microsoft Teams [communications platform]. The workforce was able to use the internal platform to access useful information to improve their financial health.”
In February 2020, SFCT began working with employee benefits advisers Secondsight on how it can offer financial support to its employees. This resulted in a new monthly financial guide being created with the first edition circulated to all of its staff in March 2020. So far, the guide has included advice on how employees can better manage their money, what to do if they are facing financial issues and how to deal with credit.
“It was something on the list that has been part of the organisation’s agenda since January 2020. After looking at the impact that mental health training had on the business in November 2019, we knew that financial wellbeing was the next target,” says Wade.
SFCT has also restructured its wellbeing advice strategy to offer the same level of support, providing employees with information on how to improve their mental health and manage their work-life balance. This has become more of an initiative throughout the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic, supporting employees who have been furloughed, or directly impacted financially by the outbreak.
Wade explains: “Since starting this journey, employees have become more open with their financial situations, which makes it easier for us to provide the right support for them.
“It’s been great to alter our online channels to offer new financial education benefits. Employees so far have said that the financial support available to them has been really helpful and easy to consume.”