HSBC is increasing the financial education available to its 45,000 UK employees ahead of changes to its pensions schemes due to come into effect in July.
The banking firm’s programme, KnowYou, which launched in 2013, aims to educate employees about its operational changes.
Its strategy is to focus on education and motivation rather than straightforward communication, using different learning styles, such as watch, play, listen and read, to increase levels of financial knowledge.
Speaking at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Reward Conference on 15 April, Grant Hopkins, pension and risk benefits lead at HSBC, said: “Some employees do not know about pensions and other benefits, [so] it gave us an opportunity to leverage increased awareness.
“We want to use KnowYou to ensure it is engaging to learn. When [staff] go in, there is a range of topics but the real driver has been increased pension communications with changes happening in July.
“The different learning styles will be key in increasing staff levels of knowledge about what is going.”
Since its launch in 2013, the site has received more than 20,000 unique visits and 95% of visitors have engaged with content contained in modules.
Employees also engage with the financial education site at weekends, when the number of page views are twice as high.
Some 10% have visited the section on ‘I want to reduce my debt’ and 15% of users under the age of 30 have accessed information about their retirement savings.
Hopkins said: “The journey for us started two years ago with an open consultation in January 2013 with 45,000 employees.
“We listened to what employees were saying and [[the site] is attuned to different learning preferences and relevant to the range of confidence levels.
“It ensures clarity in our communications efforts but we still use other forms such as face-to-face [communications]. We still need a combination of things.
“We are still on a journey, especially with the changes and will work to raise understanding among employees. It will only continue to evolve.”