Video tutorial: Deborah Astles on encouraging employee saving at Unipart Group

“What we wanted to do with our financial wellbeing strategy was to have a holistic approach," said Deborah Astles, HR director – policy and corporate responsibility at Unipart Group, in association with Salary Finance. "We wanted to really focus on the education piece because if people are better informed about money and finances and sensible things they can do it helps them make better decisions." 

Astles presented a case study to delegates at the REBA FinWell Forum, in which she said the company wanted to help encourage employees to save as well as continue with debt support through its EAP provider. As a result the company introduced Salary Finance to the business just before Christmas.

She said around 5% of staff use the EAP but 16% of employees have already accessed the Salary Finance website to look at the different modules and education available to them and 5% of colleagues had already applied for loans. “That’s really revealing in terms of the need that was out there that was not being met,” she said.

Future strategy will focus on building savings plans, she said but initial uptake had suggested that the primary impact had been on helping get people out of debt and save money on interest payments. “The average saving per colleague is about £600, which is a lot of money in anyone’s book but if you at the lower end of the earning spectrum that’s a really significant amount of money to be saving,” she said.

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