Video tutorial: Alan Becken on how financial wellbeing supports Shell's health and safety strategy

Speaking at the REBA FinWell Forum, Becken explained that the health and safety of its employees was Shell's number one priority. “Mental wellbeing is a huge aspect to the health of our employees and financial wellbeing can form a large part of an employee’s mental wellbeing,” he said.

Becken said the company was trying to ensure it could get the right information to the right employees at the right time. “We want to give the power and the choice to the employees on when and how they access it,” he said.

Financial education wasn’t new to Shell, he explained, but it typically focused on the benefits the company offered with content delivered in traditional ways.

As part of its regular five year review of policies however in 2016/17 Shell examined how it could make financial wellbeing more accessible. The research of employee attitudes and what employees were doing led to the company simplifying its offer to make it easier for employees to both access and understand.

Following the review Shell introduced a financial educational hub in partnership with Close Brothers in 2018 to provide a one-stop shop to all the company’s financial wellbeing content. “Employees could go there and then find, and be easily directed to, the content that was relevant to them at that time,” he said. Telephone and email helplines were also introduced to allow for a more personally engaging level of communication.

“Something that’s worked really well for us is moving our financial education benefit away from being a standalone benefit to something that is more interwoven with our other benefits,” said Becken. This includes pointing employees to financial education relevant to an employee going on, or returning from, maternity leave, for example.

In 2019 he said Shell will continue to challenge itself and find out what its employees actually want to know and need. It will launch a diagnostic app, with support from Close Brothers, to give employees their financial wellbeing score, as well as introducing other content on the hub, and ways of accessing – such as through podcasts and a mix of length content.

Becken said detailed results and feedback showed that the hub was working.  “This is a benefit and strategy I’m particularly proud of,” he said.

This video was recorded at the REBA FinWell Forum, held in London on 7 March 2019.