In 2017, UK-based builders' merchant Travis Perkins implemented a financial education campaign, in recognition of the impact money worries can have on both the physical and mental wellbeing of employees.
Paul Nelson, reward and HR analytics director at Travis Perkins, says: “We have a three-pronged approach to wellbeing: physical, mental and financial. We’ve found that they are strongly interlinked; financial wellbeing is a huge lever of mental and physical wellbeing.”
Travis Perkins frames financial education around two journeys: the employee lifecycle and the journey from being financially imbalanced to self-supporting.
Alongside provider Neyber, the organisation has, since 2017, implemented a proactive financial education programme that focuses on the varying financial concerns that arise along the employee lifecycle. This is offered via an online platform linking financial wellbeing to life events such as buying a first house, saving to get married, or preparing for retirement.
To address the second journey, the organisation introduced a financial health score product, which signposts an employee to the articles that are most pertinent to their own level of stability.
“That could be a range of information, whether it’s about improving an employee’s resilience to debt, improving their understanding of savings, or considering how to improve their credit score, and so on,” explains Nelson.
The organisation also provides a payday loan facility and access to payroll deduction savings plans. “The main thing for us is the education, and guiding people to the right type of support and information,” says Nelson.
Travis Perkins houses a widely dispersed workforce of 28,000 employees over 2000 sites. Practically, offering face-to-face financial education is almost impossible, but an online offering, promoted via its online benefits hub, My Perks, is an agile way of reaching all employees.
Read more...
Is online education an effective means of supporting financial wellbeing?
Martin Upton: The benefits of using online financial education to reach staff
