Institute for Employment Studies final evaluation report - What Works Fund

1. Description of the programme
2. The study
3. Key findings
4. Points to consider

• Description of the programme
• The study
• Key findings
• Points to consider
• Full report

Description of the programme

[This is an extract from the Executive Summary of the evaluation report. Further amendments may be made to this Summary, pending review by the Evidence Hub partner]

In January 2017, the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) launched the IES/CIPD financial wellbeing practical guide for employers1. The guide is designed to help promote and guide effective employer actions in supporting their employees’ financial wellbeing and is aimed primarily at the HR community.

The IES What Works Fund (WWF) project worked with two large public sector organisations2, based in England and Wales to test the key stages of the guidance, with financial wellbeing support being delivered to employees [working age life stage] and capturing the struggling, squeezed, and cushioned segments found within large diverse employers.

The project aimed to build a business case within each organisation for supporting employee financial wellbeing; assess the level of support needed by employees through the launch of a baseline employee survey; and assess the effectiveness of actions taken by looking at before and after observations through a follow-up employee survey and interviews conducted in early 2018.

The study

The key research questions for the evaluation were to measure whether the stages of the IES/CIPD practical tool were effective in helping to promote and guide effective employer actions in supporting their employees’ financial wellbeing – in terms of:

• Helping organisations to build the business case for supporting their employees’ financial well-being;.
• Helping employers to assess their employees’ needs for support and key variations in those needs across their employee population; and
• Taking the most appropriate and effective action to improve their employees’ financial well-being.

The evaluation included:

• Quantitative baseline surveys with employees (333 and 748 online responses achieved across the two organisations respectively) conducted in Summer 2017;

In-depth interviews (during September 2017 and April 2018) with five senior stakeholders from across the two organisations;

• A quantitative follow-up survey with employees from one organisation (200 online responses achieved) conducted in January 2018; and
• Follow-up in-depth interviews conducted by telephone with eight employees participating in actions across both organisations.

Organisation 1 ran a series of employee roadshows in September 2017 to improve awareness of existing employee benefits which support financial wellbeing. Organisation 2 ran pensions sessions between March and April 2018 aimed at employees thinking about retirement.

Key findings

Building a business case has to be the very first stage in the journey for organisations to help their employees make better financial decisions. Even in working with large reputable employers where HR staff are supportive of wellbeing initiatives, the research highlights the difficulties in ‘selling’ the business case at senior levels and the need to have to regularly reassert it.

• Making the well-evidenced links between improved financial wellbeing and improvements in productivity, employee engagement and improved corporate social responsibility reputation can help to capture senior interest and buy-in.
• The employee surveys were an effective tool to assess employee needs for support. The results highlighted needs within both organisations for support of their employees’ financial wellbeing by identifying areas where employees may benefit from support, information and guidance. The results were also useful in helping them to get initiatives off the ground initially, and subsequently to build a more strategic and impactful approach.
• Over half of the employees at both organisations agreed that there was a role for their employer to provide financial support and guidance in the workplace. One quarter of employees in the baseline surveys felt that employers did not have a role in this area, however, this had reduced to one-fifth in the follow-up survey at organisation 2.
• At organisation 1, there was a significant increase in employees’ awareness of three particular employee benefits (cycle to work scheme; voluntary employee benefits discount scheme; and interest free loan to purchase a season ticket) showcased at the roadshows, suggesting that the roadshows had a positive impact of increasing awareness.
• At organisation 2, qualitative interviews with employees concluded that the pension sessions were useful for confirming understanding of pensions in general and helped those employees considering early retirement ‘weigh up’ their options. However, scope to build on these sessions through the facilitation of more personalised and tailored information sessions on a one-to-one basis was identified, which highlighted a need for better reconciliation between meeting the needs of employees and the delivery or nature of the support. While HR departments saw the value of a more comprehensive and strategic approach to employee wellbeing in which the financial aspects were incorporated, the research highlighted that specific and focused initiatives seemed to better supported and valued.

Points to consider

• Methodological limitations:
  • Low response rate to follow-up survey at organisation 1 attributed to short time frame between surveys and low level of engagement of the roadshow delegates in the follow-up survey at organisation 1.
  • Lack of follow-up survey in organisation 2 as there had been insufficient time to implement changes which would have made a measurable difference to the financial wellbeing of employees.
  • Challenges experienced with the project timetable and, in particular, the lack of sufficient time to roll-out actions prevented the study from collecting any data about the longer-term outcomes of the actions implemented.
  • Risk that those employees who participated in the survey are more engaged in their financial wellbeing than those who do not participate and therefore do not represent the majority of the workforce.

Full report

Institute for Employment Studies final evaluation report - full report