How tailored communication can help boost employee financial wellbeing

Originally published on HR Grapevine, 17/02/2026

In recent years, experts have increasingly warned of a rising financial wellbeing crisis facing the UK workforce.

According to the latest figures from the Building Societies Association, over a quarter of UK adults (27%) have less than £1,000 in savings, while a staggering 12% have nothing saved at all.

With 30% just one payday away from serious financial problems, the precarious position faced by many workers is proving to be a core driver of stress, absenteeism, and reduced performance.

For employers, this presents both human and business imperatives to act. Sarah Herd, Head of Workplace at Wren Sterling, speaks to HR Grapevine to reveal how and why companies can boost the financial wellbeing of their staff.

What pressures are leaving employees feeling financially precarious?

It’s mostly uncertainty. We work with businesses of all different sizes and sectors, and I’ve noticed a lot of shifts that lead to this feeling. One example is workers being asked to come into the office, which can cause a financial strain.

Other pressures include trying to get up the housing ladder – trying to save for a deposit has always been difficult over the years, but it’s a more prevalent challenge now.

These issues are compounded by people feeling stuck in their jobs and reluctant to move. We’ve seen that employers are struggling financially too, so people are perhaps concerned about stability – and we are definitely noticing a rise in redundancies, alongside concerns about AI (artificial intelligence).

People are worried their jobs are going to disappear, so they are inclined to stay where they are, even if they are already uncertain – better the devil you know, as the saying goes – which makes things feel even more precarious.

How does low financial literacy add to the problem?

Unfortunately, the industry we’re in is massively covered in jargon. There’s a fine line between legal information that we have to share, because of disclosure requirements, to make people aware and able to make informed decisions. That said, it needs to be put across in a language that people can understand.

Demographic differences matter here. For example, people who are starting in their careers quite often have no idea what a mortgage is, how a credit card works, or what they need to know about pensions.

Meanwhile, those who are approaching retirement may have different difficulties with all the jargon they encounter as they navigate one of the biggest decisions of their life.

We can do a lot of work around financial education by tailoring the communication method for the particular audience, depending on their levels of financial literacy.

Can you share some hallmarks of effective financial wellbeing programmes?

The best financial wellbeing programmes avoid putting everybody into the same box. For example, someone who sits behind a desk and is a white-collar worker is going to require a very different strategy from someone who is an engineer, out on the road.

You have to tailor your communications approach to suit your workforce. For those employers with a large workforce, there may well be a lot of variation in age, in the type of work they do, and so on – but you have to vary your delivery style accordingly.

It’s also very much about repetition. Don’t just pay lip service and send a message once a year – for example, ‘We’ve reviewed your pension, it’s all doing fine!’ – you need to keep messages frequent because it’s such an overwhelmingly complex area. That’s why I say it’s a duty of care.

We keep coming back to communications – are there common barriers or best practices you observe frequently here?

Resist the tendency to communicate in the way you’re used to being communicated with. And that’s not just the language, but the method as well. I might be used to reading messages on my laptop screen, but for a lot of workers, that might be alien.

So, deliver the same message, but in a variety of formats. You might send it as an email, you might send it as a Word document, you might use posters and QR codes in the canteen, you might use podcasts, you might deliver it as a webinar and record it so it’s available to everybody. It’s never a case of one size fits all. You cannot exclude anybody.

We’ve found that delivering education in person results in more interaction. I have heard many times from people who said they were so grateful that their employer asked us to come and deliver a session for them, and wished they’d been given the insights sooner.

In an ideal world, you would include a live, in-person interaction with everybody, but that’s just not going to be practical for all businesses, so get creative.

What are some good ways to measure whether education efforts are working?

For education sessions themselves, you can obviously gather attendance information. But it’s also useful to include feedback forms. What did you think? What did you like? Was it long enough? Do you want more?

It’s very easy for employers to make assumptions that they think people won’t want to attend a lengthy session, for example – but we’ve had feedback before that people wanted more!

Or, you might not know whether your employees would welcome a lunch and learn, or if they’d resent having to listen to something during their lunch break. You have to be listening and making these sessions as inclusive as possible and available to everybody.

When it comes to wider financial wellbeing, surveys are a good place to start. But it’s best to start, encourage feedback, and then make changes as you go.

How can improving employee financial wellbeing offer benefits to businesses?

Many businesses are currently looking at ways to enhance their benefit strategy, without wanting to spend lots of money. They don’t want to have to go and buy a new benefit. But they don’t have to – providing financial wellbeing is a great benefit itself.

But if you’re investing time and money into a financial wellbeing programme, you want to get a return on that, which means you want your employees to value it. It can be as simple as monitoring staff retention. When done right, it really enhances loyalty.