Video tutorial: Unilever’s Nicola Wells and Sophie Haynes on personalised financial wellbeing

“We are very clear that we want our people to be unique. We don’t just see them as a number, we recognise their value so wanted to set up a pilot in our financial wellbeing programme that recognised that and empowered them,” she said.

Talking to delegates at the REBA FinWell Forum she said the company had developed a pilot programme in partnership with Wealth Wizards after feedback suggested that the biggest worry for its people was around finances.

However Wells said that personalisation was key. “We wanted a platform that would allow us to help to tailor to circumstances,” she said.

Sophie Haynes, HR and reward transformation manager at Unilever, explained the project in more detail – outlining the communications strategy to engage staff. She said the digital element of the tool had also helped engagement.

The four week pilot involved more than 800 employees. “It gave us great insight in terms of where we might need to focus,” said Haynes. The financial wellbeing analysis measured across five buckets - from spending habits to the ability to cope with a crisis to employees' stance on pensions. “What we get as an employer is an aggregated view of that." 

She said the results also surprised. Where the company had assumed that managing debt might be its biggest challenge the data showed that it was actually spending habits and coping with a crisis where employees most wanted help. “For us, looking at initiatives whilst we will still promote things like our share schemes it was do we need to look at how we support employees on a more short-term basis.”

She said the results had been overwhelming positive and the company was now looking on how to take the pilot forward further.

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