nudge is empowering people through cost of living crisis

5 min read

It continues to be a turbulent time for our personal finances, with rising interest rates, soaring energy prices and volatile stock markets. Our 2022 global research report ‘Can we connect?’ found 70% of people feel anxious about their financial situation and 88% of people are worried about inflation and the rising cost of living.

The journey to Finpowerment

The numbers speak for themselves. It’s more important than ever for employers to provide critical support to help their employees foster better money habits, build resilience and take control of their money. This is what we refer to as “Finpowerment”. So, in April 2022 we launched a global campaign to encourage people to take control of their finances by using nudge, offering enhanced support in five key areas.

1. Financial health check-up

Our brand-new financial health check-up enables people to understand in which areas of their personal finances they’re thriving and where there’s room for improvement - from saving and spending, to learning and planning.

After completing a short questionnaire, users get an instant score and a list of suggested financial education stories and articles to help them improve their financial health.

Since launching, over 5,500+ users have completed the financial health checkup - of which 43% went on to action further next steps to improve their financial skills and knowledge, based on the recommendations they were given by nudge.

“Thanks for the health checkup, it’s allowed me to identify areas where I lack knowledge and how to tackle them.” - nudge user, April 2022

The financial health checkup also gives employers access to unparalleled data, measuring the impact nudge is having on employees’ financial health over time. Based on this data, we are also working with our client community to promote financial education content that will help their employees in areas where a significant part of the population need support on key areas of personal finance.

2. Personalised nudges to drive action

When there’s something a person needs to know, or financial action they ought to take that will impact their cost of living, we’ll send them a personalised, timely notification - what we call a “nudge”.

Our clients are also utilising ‘reward nudges’ more than ever. They use our highly targeted, personalised notifications to promote their wider employee benefits and wellbeing initiatives, alongside relevant financial education content to help people act.

For example, John Lewis & Partners recently sent a personalised nudge to showcase how their benefits could support their people through the cost-of-living crisis; the timely nudge received a staggering 49% engagement rate, meaning that almost half of the users reacted to the nudge by looking into the information.

3. New ‘cost of living’ financial education stories

We have added new financial education stories designed to help people understand topics like inflation and the cost of living. The better their understanding is of these complex topics, the better they become at managing their own personal finances. We have also enhanced the personalised financial feed on nudge with regular updates covering 30+ personal finance topics, based on changes to the cost of living.

“Starting my journey has already made me feel more positive regarding my financial situation” - nudge user, BNP Paribas

4. Open masterclasses and stakeholder training

Complementing the nudge tech, we’ve introduced more opportunities for employees to access live financial education masterclasses and training:

Open for all employees to attend, the finpowerment masterclass covered:

• How to optimise your budget
• Simple steps to make savings on your everyday finances
• Finding your personal saving strategy
• Why it’s never too early to start talking about life after work

Stakeholder training - For mental health first aiders, line managers, c-suite sponsors and wellbeing champions, this training helps them to understand:

• The value of impartial financial education on our wellbeing
• The impact financial stress has on our wellbeing, productivity and ability to achieve goals
• Top tips to open conversations about personal finance and how to make talking about money more comfortable

Clients can tailor the content and message of these sessions to fit their internal communication style, current wellbeing initiatives and promote their wider reward and benefit offering.

“Gabrielle was BRILLIANT. making a typically boring topic very engaging and easy to understand. Will definitely be using nudge more.” - Masterclass attendee

“Really informative course, took a lot of nuggets away from this and will be re-briefing nudge to my team at our next meeting, thanks really enjoyed it" - Stakeholder training attendee

5. Let’s not bury our heads in the sand

The global rising cost of living creates an immediate risk that people will bury their heads in the sand – which we know is the worst thing to do. We continue to work closely with our community of forward-thinking, clients to ensure they are running programs that improve employee financial wellbeing and drive uptake of total reward through impartial financial education and personalised, timely communication.

"Supporting the financial wellbeing of our people is more important than ever. The combination of timely personalised nudges, educational content and money management tools provided by nudge is helping our people to take more control of their personal financial situations. I would recommend a focus on finances right now for any employer that is looking at how they can support their people at this time.” - Aileen Newall, Head of Reward, Heineken

If you’d like to maximise the impact of nudge with your people or understand how you can get your people started on their journey to finpowerment, get in touch.