Michelle Elsworth of SIG on why it is prioritising financial literacy
SIG plc is a multinational construction products manufacturer with 7,000 employees. Our financial wellbeing strategy can be broken down into three areas. First is our financial wellbeing benefits, such as workplace savings and loans, and most recently a direct financial support in the form of a £500 cost-of-living payment. Second is a focus on financial education, and, finally, we provide support for those who are struggling.
Financial education is the key element. A lot of financial wellbeing is being able to make savvy choices with your pay and income. But, without financial education that is more difficult.
Making informed choices
As such, our financial education focuses on helping colleagues make better informed choices. So, for example, they understand the impact of credit card interest and what it means in terms of paying it off, how to manage debt and education around pensions. We do a lot of webinars in terms of our pensions to help employees understand the benefits of contributing and the cost of doing that through salary sacrifice.
We also have an online learning platform that offers bite-sized learning around different elements of financial education. So people can tap into that at work or at home. And we know that not necessarily everyone will want to do something like that while they’re in the workplace. We have some people who are out on the road all the time, so couldn’t and it gives them that flexibility.
All of this is about enabling employees to make informed choices.
Raising awareness
The key struggle is engaging people with financial education and getting them to take notice of it, especially given that it is a taboo for some people. And so we need to keep trying to increase the drumbeat.
During Mental Health Awareness week earlier this year, we did a lot on financial wellbeing, such as emails from our financial wellbeing providers, pushing the message that we know that financial and mental wellbeing are connected and it’s okay to get help and support.
