Is your approach to your people's financial wellbeing poo?

Financial Wellbeing is a hot topic for individuals and organisations alike.

The cost-of-living crisis shone a light on the day-to-day difficulties us ordinary folk experience, with sky-rocketing food prices, energy price surges that even the Norse God Thor would think about before wielding his hammer to draw electricity from the heavens.

Life became difficult for Brits, pulling millions into poverty or close to it.

Employers have started to recognise and feel the impact of poor financial wellbeing on their people and organisation.

In 2023, the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development reported: 

On average; 4.9 worker days (per worker) are lost per year because people are dealing with their finances 

3.5 days (per worker) are lost because of worrying about money whilst at work, impacting on productivity, safety and performance management time. 

The cost to the economy because of poor financial wellbeing is £120 billion, which is staggering compared to £34 billion lost because of mental ill health. 

It’s encouraging to see employers recognising the need to support the Financial Wellbeing of their people, it’s good for their people, business and reputation.

Yet when it comes to implementing financial wellbeing initiatives the situation is far from clear, coherent and cohesive.

There seems to be two types of approach organisations use.

The Scatterer

These are the types of comments line managers, wellbeing leads, and HR professionals consistently share with me

“We got occupational health to lead on this” 

“Our wellbeing lead can take this on” 

“We’ll raise this with HR to look at” 

These are typical actions employers take 

• get someone in to do an (often) ad hoc talk on money; budgeting, pensions and debt 

• offer a budgeting course  

• add to our Benefits package, for example; offer low-cost insurance and fringe benefits like gym membership deals

• leave financial wellbeing with our mental health first aiders (they are not trained to support with poor financial wellbeing)   

• give a list of contacts for help and support 

• put some information on the company’s intranet 

  
  

• have a wellbeing week or even month 

• talk about this in team meetings 

Yes, these are all excellent and are essential components that should form part of the wellbeing mix, yet I cannot help thinking this feels bity, convoluted and rather chaotic.

The result, often patchy take-up and engagement by the people the organisation is aiming to help.

Something is missing.

Where’s the cohesion, planning, glue that binds this together into something tangible and inspiring which people can safely psychologically engage with in a way that is uplifting. 

Where’s the measurements, how do we know it’s working, how do we know it’s making a difference, where are our greatest gains, what’s not working well, how can we improve what when we don’t really know what’s working and isn’t. 

Scatterers dive straight in, are generally reactive and do little if any research 

The Cultivator

What if Senior Leadership created a wellbeing blueprint from the get-go, built from the bottom-up and driven from the top down.

One which seeks to identify the scale of wellbeing issues within the organisation, getting real data to inform, direct strategy, prioritise activities and can be measured over time, correlated to organisational KPI’s such as absenteeism rates, presenteeism, productivity, retention and workplace satisfaction scores? 

Consider what a farmer does, when preparing crops, they will plan their campaign, get the fields ready, plough the land to create the best space for seeds to grow, sow them, fertilise, cover, water and attend to them during the course of their growth. This is what I call taking the Cultivator approach. 

How could you use the cultivator approach when it comes to supporting the Financial Wellbeing of your people. 

1. Make financial wellbeing a business metric. Put it on the Board’s agenda

   
   
   
   

Have a financial wellbeing policy agreed by the very top in the organisation. This sends a clear message to your people about its importance (the CIPD report of organisations that have a policy, their employees report they feel protected from falling into poverty and are less likely to leave) 

2. Have a Financial Wellbeing strategy, where the Senior Leadership Team lead on Financial Wellbeing

   
   

 Who will drive the culture of it’s okay to talk about money to help people engage. The strategy could link in to you wider wellbeing strategy.

3. Know your numbers and feel their impact as if it were happening to you

   
   

Could it be that unknowingly employers have people going hungry, cannot heat their homes properly, not sleeping, while others struggle.

Spoiler alert even higher income earners have poor financial wellbeing scores.

39% of the UK population are at financial breaking point or close to it unless they get the right support.

A good starting point is to get the Financial Wellbeing Scores of your people. This will tell you quickly and confidentially where the hot spots of need are, what support is needed and direct your focus. 

4. Have an action plan which includes key activities and who is accountable and responsible

Share it with your people, let them see what is happening and when. Transparency works.

Review it regularly and update the Board just as performance and productivity metrics would be. 

5. Get people on the ground talking about financial wellbeing, include your people

   
   

One of the quickest and easiest ways to do this is by upskilling your line managers, supervisors, team leaders, HR team, wellbeing champions and mental health first aiders with Financial Wellbeing First Aider Training. 

6. Keep cultivating from the Top-down, using a bottom-up informed approach 

   
   

Communication, reviews and story -telling about difficulties and breakthroughs from you and your people encourages a feeling and culture that it’s safe to talk about money, the subject is not taboo and that no one will be judged.

One of the biggest issues I have seen in my decade of helping people who were struggling is the lost sleep, the time it took to get help and the worsening of their situation because of Fear of talking to someone for help.

The result; lost homes, lost families, lost lives. You have the power that could very well stop that.

Money Beam has created tools and resources to support employers to assess, measure and tangibly improve the Financial Wellbeing of their people. 

Find out more about how to use the Financial Wellbeing Score to measure the Financial Wellbeing of your people. Click on here. 

Find out more about Training your line managers, wellbeing leads, mental health first aiders and HR teams to be Financial Wellbeing First Aiders. Click on here. 

Saleem Shafi, founder of Money Beam is the former Deputy CEO of award- winning financial wellbeing charity-Money Buddies. He is passionate about wellbeing, equity of opportunity and people recognising they have much to offer themselves and the world. He has guest spoken on national media including BBC, GMBTV and Sky on Financial wellbeing, debt and money guidance.