×
First-time login tip: If you're a REBA Member, you'll need to reset your password the first time you login.
23 Nov 2022
by Emma Govus

Emma Govus on building employees’ financial awareness at AVEVA

Money management can daunt many employees – helping them to understand their attitudes to money is just one way to support their financial resilience

Emma Govus.jpg

 

A little over a year ago, we introduced a financial wellbeing tool in AVEVA UK to help employees better understand their relationship with money and improve financial awareness and resilience. 

Historically, we have focused on providing information and details on the pension scheme, but as our workforce has evolved we wanted to do more to support employees’ broader financial wellbeing. We have received feedback from employees that we need to offer more day-to-day budgeting and financial support, given the backdrop of the challenges many people are facing in this economic climate. 

Improving financial awareness 

Beginning in the UK, through the MoneyFit tool, we provide support to our employees to think about their attitudes to money. Our financial wellbeing questionnaire tool focuses on lifestyle questions and helps individuals understand their approach to money. For instance, it challenges them to consider how they would cope with an unexpected expense or windfall. 

At the end of the questionnaire, the employee is assigned one of three categories to help them understand what type of person they are when it comes to managing their money. 

These answers are then used to provide guidance and insight into how the employee could further improve their financial position by signposting them to relevant UK websites, offering them hints and tips, and a plan of action. 

The questionnaire is anonymous, so we do not receive feedback about individual employees. However, we can review collective UK responses to see if there are any areas that may be cause for concern across the country. 

We have aspirations to implement a similar tool across other countries. However, this is not straightforward, as we need to consider different cultural nuances and the tailored advice needed in each country. We plan to explore different in-country options to help support to our global workforce. 

Getting engagement 

We had more than 50% take-up of the tool when we launched, which was very encouraging. 

We feel this success comes from the confidentiality of the support provided. We emphasised that we don’t receive the results and that the questionnaire is totally anonymous – providing complete confidentiality for the individual. 

In addition, we launched a set of day-to-day budgeting tools, such as a simple Excel budget sheet, which can be downloaded, with some hints and tips on money management. 

We took a ‘soft launch’ approach to the questionnaires, with some follow-up reminders that the tool is available. 

Our next steps are to follow up and ask people to take the questionnaire again to see if they feel they have made improvements based on their previous results and whether this has supported them in how their attitudes have changed to their overall financial wellbeing. We will continue to promote and encourage others to use the tool.

Related topics