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Amy: Welcome, welcome to you all. my name’s Amy McDonald for those of you that haven’t met me before,
I’m Angus Robinson
and of course we have our amazing guest, Jackie Vaz, who I will introduce more fully, shortly.
For those of you that haven’t been to Wellbeing Hour before, this is being recorded so that it’s available afterwards for you to. Go back to if you want to or share with others and also as a podcast and as a webinar. we are Headtorch for those of you that don’t know us.
And what we do is work with organizations to enable them to develop a mentally healthy culture. So we work with every level of an organization with senior. People, leaders and frontline people, and we work anywhere and everywhere, locally, nationally, globally. Even if you’re interested to find out a bit more, then do contact us afterwards.
We’re always happy to have a chat .This session then let me tell you a little bit about the shape of it if you like. So I will introduce our guest shortly and then she will introduce herself using a mystery object of her choice, and then she and I will move into conversation. And then after some time, Jackie’s gonna pose a question to you and we will open up the floor for chat if you like.
So you can respond to Jackie’s question, or perhaps you have another question that you would like to pose to her. Then Jackie and I will have another conversation. She’s gonna share some of her top tips for us all, and then we’ll finish off with a few rapid fire questions before Angus takes up the helm to share with us who is coming up next in the wellbeing hour.
So then let me introduce you to Jackie Vaz.
Amy: Jackie is a financial wellbeing specialist and independent financial advisor with Prosperity Wealth. We first met Jackie quite a few years ago now at a wellbeing conference in Birmingham. And over the years we met her there a few times and we not only were inspired by her knowledge, but also, very much enjoyed her Fantastic sense of humour.
So hopefully we’ll get a bit of that today as well. so Jackie is an employee.
benefits
Amy: Consultant for Prosperity Wealth, who are part of the Fairstone Group. She began in the financial services in the 1990s with her father’s business, and in 2002, she qualified as an I F A and then took over the reigns from her father’s business.
Jackie specializes in workplace benefits and financial education in the workplace where pensions, she says are typically the most poorly understood product in the financial services. So for Jackie, financial education has evolved into helping employers embed financial wellbeing and financial resilience amongst their workforce through benefits support and education.
Jackie really delighted that you can be with us today. I’m gonna, Hand the reigns over to you. If you would like to share with us now your mystery object and a little bit more about who is Jackie Vaz. .
Jackie: Thank you, Amy. That was a brilliant introduction. Hello everyone. Really delighted to be here today. so my object is, and I think a lot of you will relate to this to help me with my own personal wellbeing.
but I’m just gonna go and get it. It’s quite heavy, so I’m just gonna take my earbud out so I won’t be able to hear anybody for a moment. Here we go. Okay
darling,
Amy: this is an incredible mystery object.
Jackie: This is Lena
So I don’t know who rescued who. I don’t know if I rescued her or if she rescued me, but I have always had a dog in my life and for me I couldn’t be without a dog. and I think she probably feels the same, oh no, she’s going . Okay, I’ll just pop myself back together again.
Amy: so Jackie, tell us then a little bit more about how you would define financial wellbeing.
Jackie: Yes. money is one of those things that a lot of us aren’t very good at talking about, even within our own family network, never mind in the workplace.
And for me, financial wellbeing is about an individual understanding where they are with their money and if they’re not where they want to be, knowing where to get help or get information, and then being able to plan. for the future. Yeah. And when all of those things come together, an individual will feel more capable, more confident, and less anxiety and stress over money.
So that’s my feeling on the wellbeing of financial aspects.
Amy: So it’s really a confidence in that knowledge and awareness, of where to go for support and what they’re doing with their money.
Jackie: Yeah. So we don’t, we, we are never taught at school about how to look after money.
It’s such a basic thing. It’s just, understanding about finances and how to access information and how to deal with things is a skill that we all need. , but it’s a lifelong skill. Absolutely. and we have those skills. We’ll, we can, we’ll use them all the way through our working life and into retirement if we’ve got the right skills.
So yeah, it’s about having that confidence and capability. Yeah.
Amy: So the majority of the people that you meet, how would you rate their financial wellbeing? with that definition, if you like?
Jackie: Yeah, so I would say most people that I meet have got some niggle. there is something that, that worries them.
but that is a lot of the reason why they will come and sit with me in a one-to-one as well. Of course, I would say over a, over the duration of a year is maybe 1% of people that I meet that I would say they’ve got it. They’re bang on. They know where they’re at. They know where they’re going.
They don’t need somebody like me.
Amy: Oh, just 1%.
Jackie: very rare..
Amy: Gosh. that’s quite something, isn’t it? can you give us an example of how you’ve helped someone?
Jackie: yeah. as you said on the introduction, a lot of people just, are very unsure about pensions. . and there was one case and the chap doesn’t have very much money.
his whole life. he’s earned good money, but he spent it, he’s been a spender and some people are, they just spend they don’t plan they live for today and he is one of those types of people. He’s got a very good job. and, but he has never joined any of his company pension schemes. He’d been offered them and didn’t join them.
Now, I know that if you go back to the sort of 1980s, 1990s, there were a lot of doorstep salespeople selling pensions, and you didn’t necessarily put any money in, but you can build up a benefit of contracted out benefits. So I did some research and I found a plan for him that he didn’t know he had and there was 18 grand in it, which, oh, 18 grand is not gonna give you a retirement income, but 18 grand is 18 grand.
And he would never have found it if he hadn’t have engaged with me, he would never, ever have known about it.
Amy: Goodness me.
Jackie: That’s quite a, that’s one that I repeat over and over again, finding. yeah.
Amy: can you tell us a bit more about how you get involved when you’re working with an organization?
Jackie: Yeah, so the way I like it to go is to start with the employer, first of all. So find out what they’ve got, find out what they have as benefits for the staff. Find out what they’re doing. and we can, reinforce that by asking the staff what’s important to them. So doing a survey, and then I can then put forward some ideas.
Some of them are things they can implement themselves, like just having like booklets and brochures and tidying up their induction process when they have new employees so that they are actually explaining what the benefits are and, then. For those employers that are really engaged with it, I can do presentations that might be on specific topics or just general.
and where we really add value is doing one-to-ones in the workplace. So that’s where an individual can have a confidential meeting. It doesn’t have to be very long. 15 or 20 minutes I can cover an incredible amount of things in the 20 minute one-to-one.
and that’s where I see the results.
Really see the results. I see that, people that were coming to see me 10 years ago were Right. we’re doing the basics. And now when they come to see me, they’re already understand and now they’re making their own plans and then they’re asking me what I think. So I’ve educated them to look after themselves and they’re only really coming to see me for a sense Check.
Amy: So can you tell us a bit more about what that education is? what typically are the kind of things that you’re giving that guidance on?
Jackie: Yeah, so quite often an employee will come in for one-to-one, and they know that I’m the pension lady. So they’ll say, should I be paying more into my pension ? Now
for example, there was a chap this week actually. And he’s in his early thirties. He’s married, he’s got a mortgage and he’s got a two year old. And he wanted to put, he wants to put more money into his pension, but what I want to know is, have you got any money set aside for emergencies?
Because a two year old’s gonna turn into a 12 year old that wants trainers to a 17 year old that wants driving lessons and then wants a car and a university education. So he’s got a lot of other financial commitments before. He gets to draw his pension. So it’s about, making sure people have got the basics with their financial planning, getting there, having an emergency fund being protected for those financial shocks, like having the right sort of life cover in place.
He hasn’t got a will. all these things, which we go Oh. and I bet if we ask your audience how many of your audience have got a will? I bet only half of them. Yeah, .
You gotta will Amy.
Amy: That’s true. Do you know I have only, but only just,
but that sense of confidence also, it gives you, when you’ve got that in place, . It’s huge, isn’t it?
Jackie: yes. and I’m very much trying to empower people to do it themselves. I’m not gonna do it for them. I want them to do it. I want them to understand the importance. and be empowered to actually do it.
So I will say to people, We’ve gone through this this and this what are you going to do? How are you going to get to that point? and then if they are in an organization where I’m there regularly, then I’m basically saying to them, it’s your homework. I want you to have done that by the time I see you again
Excellent. So unfortunately the whole world cannot have access to Jackie Vaz. So what does somebody in say the same situation as that chap you were just talking about in another organization that doesn’t have access to you. what can he or she do to understand, where the priorities could lie or, Yeah, absolutely. There is lots of really good information out there. . So my favourite is, money and Pension Service. Now, for those of you that haven’t heard of it, it used to be called Money Advice Service, and I am still surprised at how many people haven’t heard of Money Advice Service. Now, this is, government.
Site. It’s got, fact sheets. There’s budget planners on there. There’s help, how to get on the housing ladder. It has got everything on there from debt to what do I need to do to sort out my retirement options. they do have web chats and as well and then employers can access.
a lot of the publications on there. So employers can download publications, they can order booklets. There’s booklets on all sorts of topics. like things like understanding a mortgage, what is equity release, the kind of booklets that you can just scatter about in canteens and things. So that would be my go-to place for individuals to access free.
Financial guidance.
Amy: Fantastic. Yeah, that’s absolutely brilliant, isn’t it? and what more can the employer do then to push this kind of information out, if you like?
Jackie: Yeah, so it does depend on the size of the organization. So I’m seeing now even smaller organizations having these, portals where you can have all your documents in one place , which is great, but how often do people actually go on and look at it? So it’s about the communication between the employer and the employees is key. so I like to encourage employers to use as many different communication. Strategies as they can. So from the poster on the back of the toilet door to their virtual platform to sending out messages or dropping leaflets.
what we’ve found with employers is they don’t know where to start, So when we’re talking about money, they don’t want to cross that line into financial advice. so that, it just means they do nothing. so going to places like Money advice service, there you could be confident that you are providing the right information, but also just go in to the things you’ve already got.
Like the pension scheme, the pension providers are really good for providing posters, booklets, video. All these kind of things, which then all you’re doing as an employer is signposting your employees to it. Yeah. You’re not saying you have to put more money in the pension.
Amy: Yeah, so it’s actually, it’s the same as having a supportive conversation.
There’s someone’s struggling with their mental health or with stress. the majority of us aren’t medics. , we’re not there to solve the issue. and likewise, the majority of us aren’t financial wellbeing experts either. and so it’s about having that sort of conversation, isn’t it?
And then, but having that knowledge about where to signpost someone,
I
Jackie: think. Yeah. And it’s making sure that employees know where they can get this information, so a lot of employees are not gonna go to their line manager and say, I’ve got loads of debt. Yeah, not, they’re not gonna do that.
So then, or they may not even talk to their colleagues about it, but if they’ve seen a poster or got a booklet or there’s been something about, they might, they, it, they may, then, make the effort to do something on their own. It doesn’t have to be the employer doing it just has to be that they know where employees trust the information that the employer is putting out.
Amy: Yeah. Yeah. and all of that. all of that’s really helpful for small and large organizations, isn’t it? But large organizations also have employee assistance programs, don’t they? So what benefits in terms of financial wellbeing, . Can people get through that?
Jackie: Yeah. So these have really evolved the employee assistance programmes.
So it’s not just, so it is all areas of wellbeing, not just financial. And a lot of them now have a financial wellbeing support in built into those employee assistance programs. And, but again, it’s down to, they have them do all the staff, know that they’ve got. so it’s even if an employer might have it all on their platform or goes through it on the induction, people forget what they’ve got.
So it is just doing those communication or those awareness campaigns out to the workforce to remind them of the benefits that they’ve got. Yeah. To remind them that there’s, you can, it’s easy to do an awareness campaign. Just pick one thing out off the e a p per month that you’re going to promote. So even if it only touches 1% and makes a difference, that’s better than nothing.
Amy: Yeah, absolutely.
Jackie: I think it’s important thing as well to note on these employee, cuz you said the big companies have got them, these are very accessible to small employers. they’re not like a perk for big organizations anymore. They’re very accessible. And I did come across, it was actually at one of those exhibitions that we did Yeah.
At the NEC A lady came up to me, they’ve got around 50 staff and she said, we want to put in an e a p. , do you sell them? so of course we’re commercial, so we want to sell products or course. But I said to her, what benefits do you already have? And she, oh, we’ve got the pension, of course.
And then we’ve got death in service. I Says, who is your death in service with? And she knew the insurance company. And I know the insurance company I said but you’ve got an employee assistance program free of charge with your death in service. Wow. And her face looked a bit like. What?? I don’t think she believed me, but these are now very mainstream products included in with a lot of the, protection policies.
So she didn’t need to buy one, she’s already got one. She just didn’t know . So it is really important the employers just familiarise themselves with what they’ve already got. And then when they know what they’ve got, get the messages out.
Amy: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. let’s just go back to the chap who didn’t realize he had 18 grand in the pot, what was that about then? how come he didn’t realize it was there?
Jackie: some people will remember contracting out pensions. I don’t want to go too complicated on it, but it used to be it’s not available anymore with the state pension, that you had the basic state pension and then there was an additional state pension and you built up the additional state pension if you had certain earnings.
but what you could do is you could say, oh, I don’t want to pay. I don’t want to contribute to the additional state pension, so we’re not foregoing the basic. I would rather have what you are gonna give me, as additional state pension. I’d rather have that in my own pension. So it’s called contracting out.
so basically contracting out of the additional state pension and the national assurance that you paid, some of it went towards the basic state pension and the bit that would’ve gone to the additional state pension is rebated straight into your pension scheme. So you don’t see it happening. Okay? And this is the problem, and people forget what they’ve got.
But what you can do is you can contact the national Insurance Contributions office, the contracting out department, and they will tell you who your pension contracting out pension is with. Because they were paying into it, because they were paying the national insurance into it, so they’ve got a record of it so everybody can find out where their national insurance contributions pension is, where their search pension is, basically.
Amy: And again, that’s a message presumably that Workplace Place can also be promoting out to suggest to people.
Jackie: Yeah. And it is, but it is a it’s a snapshot in time. Okay, good. So it’s, the young, the, our younger generations, it doesn’t affect. So we just need to be careful about the age group that it will affect.
Amy: Sure. Got you. Absolutely.
But yeah, there’s so many things like that. yeah. so in terms of, Encouraging. Why should an organization encourage financial wellbeing amongst its employees?
Jackie: I think we talk about wellbeing a lot, don’t we? And mental wellbeing. And what we forget is that financial distress and financial stress is the main cause of People’s anxiety and stress.
Yeah. So that’s directly linked to it. and we can prevent that. But the other side of it as well is if people are struggling mentally, how is that affecting their work? But also, is it then causing them financial stress as well? Because I be worried about work, be worried about losing their job or not getting their bonus, or they might be doing things like
overspending not addressing things. so poor mental health can cause financial distress. Yeah. So they’re both, it’s two-way street. The boat goes both ways. . Yeah. So for employers, it’s difficult to measure isn’t it?. It’s so difficult to measure, but there’s so many things that employers can do to improve employee’s financial wellbeing without it being a huge burden on the employer or a huge financial cost on the employer.
Amy: And even if you touch one person in a positive way. Yeah, then. yeah, absolutely. It’s directly linked, isn’t it, to productivity, absenteeism, presenteeism, yeah. All of these things. Yeah, and I think. and it’s about, as you said, a lot of people, it’s head in the sand stuff, isn’t it?
don’t, they don’t want to talk about it, they don’t want to face it. And, but at the same time, it can be, that massive worry. Yeah. The cause of a lot of anxiety. Its, so the more, I guess the more an organization can inform Yeah. the better.
Jackie: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen, had one lady come in, I’d not seen her before.
And she was clearly in under a lot of stress and she brought a big pile of pension paperwork and she threw it all on the desk in front of me. And she was really angry with me cuz she was in the pension and she couldn’t afford it and she didn’t think it was fair that she’d been enrolled into the pension.
But then as I broke things down a little bit with her and then I said to her, well, I’m here to help you. I am here to help you. And then the anger just went and she just ended up in floods of tears and she was just so worried about money. So all the horrible emotions for people. Yeah, absolutely.
that was quite upsetting. To see her in that much distress. but that’s it. it’s just, knowing, she came to me, but I don’t know whether she would’ve known where to go if I hadn’t been there. . Yeah. Yeah. And she did need, and she did need to blow off as well. . .
Amy: Yeah.
Sometimes that can be quite helpful. how did you help her? obviously just that I’m here to help, that can be a huge relief people. Yeah. So what were the steps that you took her through then?
Jackie: Yeah, so for her, first of all, it was about understanding why it had happened and what she can do to undo it, so to speak, and her knowing what’s gonna happen if she goes onto another employer, that she understands that this is gonna happen automatically. And then the next thing was I explained to her how much it was actually costing her. you get this horrible bit of paper that spits out of payroll that says, this is your workplace pension, and it’s all jargon and horrible percentages and things.
It doesn’t actually say it’s gonna cost you 25 pounds a month and you’re gonna get this. It doesn’t actually say that, right? So I could say to her, because you’re in the pension. This is what your salary is, this is what the percentage is. This is how much worse off you are every month because you are in the pension but this is how much is going into your pension, so turn it into pounds and pence. Yeah. So then she was like, oh I , I might as well stay in then because she thought it was costing, And then we can say, okay, we can stay in the pension. Let’s look at your budget. . So then it is just the basics that I go back to basic planning.
What do you spend on this? What do you spend on that? What do you spend on the other? and then it’s, it is just giving people those tools to say, you’ve got to keep track of your budget every month until you get yourself into this position and things will improve.
Amy: Yeah. Yeah. And, the various help lines, which we’ll talk about, again, a little later on with your top tips.
the help, links if you like. Are there any there that people can actually talk to someone?
Jackie: Yeah, so the one that I mentioned, money, advice, service. it’s got telephone and it’s got web chat. there is, and part of money, sorry, it’s called Money and Pension service now
And part of that is, and a lot of people don’t know about this. I’m always handing out leaflets on, The retirement options, consultation service, pension wise, it’s called. So that’s for people who are 50 and over. So we’re not talking about people in debt and things, but people planning. And it’s a free, consultation, one-to-one, and it’s about 45 minutes long.
It’s set up by the government and then they send you a report which explains all the options, right? so that’s available to the over fifties. Trying to think of what I mean part, I’ll, I think if anybody looks at the money and pension service, everything is on there, right? Yeah. Everything that you could ever think of enough.
you dream about money, .
Amy: Yeah. It grows on trees. great. Thank you so much Jackie. Let us now have a look at the question that you are, Posing us all here today. Do you want to talk us through it?
Jackie: Yes. Now this is very topical, at the moment. So I am having a lot of employers come to me saying, can you help us work out whether our benefits package is right, and I’m seeing it across all sectors that they are losing staff or they’re advertising jobs where they used to just be inundated with applications. Now they’re not getting the applications in. And it is. A lot of it is around, unemployment is really low at the moment so we just don’t have the workforce that we did have. . So I would like to ask the room please, if you think that on top of salary, because obviously salary is important. Do you think wider benefits like the pension. Sick pay schemes or sick pay, death in service and the, all of the sort of wellbeing support services.
do you think that the employers see that they are valuable benefits to have in the workplace?
Amy: Great. And that question is just going into the chat there. so now we’d like to open up the floor, please. And. If you have a question that is fantastic, if you could maybe use one of the reaction, the hands up reaction things or whatever, then I’ll know that you’ve got question and invite you in or a response rather, a question or a response, to this question that Jackie’s posing us.
Anybody got a question or a thought on this question?
Karen: Hi there. Shall I come in? It’s Karen Alage here.
Hi Karen. Yeah, that’d be lovely. Where do you work, Karen, first before you? I work for leads teaching hospitals trust. and we do an awful lot of, wellbeing activities for our staff, Quite a large workforce, 23,000 of them approximately. and wellbeing is a massive priority, especially after the pandemic and the working conditions that staff have been in.
and I was just thinking about the particular question. I think that they’re all. Fabulous benefits, but I think perhaps they’re just taken as read that an employer will provide those and perhaps taken for granted, maybe. so that’s, it’s first world problems really, isn’t it, that, we’ve got these benefits and we perhaps don’t value them as much as we should because they are.
Fabulous benefits, to get paid while you’re off sick. That’s quite amazing really, isn’t it? as well as everything else. but we’re constantly trying to think about ways to recruit and retain our staff, because yes, it is a national problem. any ideas that anyone else has along those lines, would be gratefully appreciated.
and I think some trusts are going down the road of, if a member of staff, could recommend people, that might want to come and work and apply for jobs, in the trust and that they might get some form of reward for that. they might get some high street shopping vouchers, for putting people’s names forward.
Amy: And then, there can be approached to see if they’d like to apply for the job and that kind of thing. thanks Karen it’d be great for Jackie just to give some kind of response to your thoughts.
Jackie: yes. I think, for the size of your organization, it’s, it is a given that you have those benefits, but there are so many employers that don’t have anything except for the pension. e especially in, the smaller organizations. or it might be that they only have death in service.
but I think yes, for the size of your organization, it is about just. Banging that drum and getting the messages out there. and of course people will always be motivated by money . so the rewards, the voucher rewards or whatever it might be. but I think people are also, when people are appreciated, not even necessarily in monetary terms, I think that is really valuable too, that they feel valued in the workplace, that they feel that their role is important.
Amy: Absolutely. and also shouting about what you’re doing proactively for people’s mental health and wellbeing. financial and otherwise is a great way to attract people as well, of course, as we know. And it’s become much more front and center since the pandemic as well. thanks very much.
Karen. Tarara Ferguson. Do come in, tell us where everybody else, where you work. I know, of course, but do.
Tara: Yeah. Hi everyone. I work for a pharma tech company called Exscientia, kind of SME size. I. Would say the question’s a really interesting one and one that before I joined this company I worked in fmcg, big multinational, kind of corporate and I would’ve looked at the question and thought it’s just a given.
And benefits like that are a given and very much the expectation in that industry. A good pension matched or more contributions? high death and service, long periods of sick pay when I moved sector. I was really surprised, to see that the offerings, although competitive, were very different.
and where I work now and we are not, I wouldn’t say we’re different to the industry that we work within, much lower pension contributions, much lower sick pay, but conversely much higher in terms of some of the kind of immediate benefits. so really good healthcare provision, really good kind of, spend on like cash plan and dental and I can get homeopathy and I can get sports massage and I can get all sorts of stuff like today, tomorrow.
But I’ve seen a real difference in industry, in terms of expectation of employees. From between those kind of benefits and those kind of longer term financial stability, security benefits, which I was really surprised joining that people weren’t complaining and they really aren’t complaining. And it is industry standard but it’s very different. I’ve seen between industries. what do you think, Jackie, do you think provision should be more homogenized across all industries, all sizes of industry? What’s your thought?
Jackie: it puts more pressure on employers, doesn’t it? If you force it. and I do think that benefits needs to be bespoke to the individual organization as well.
So if you have a call centre and most of the employees are very young, then they’ve got very different needs to say an engineering company. with people are much older, end of the workforce. The youngsters aren’t interested in, life cover. they’re not as interested as say, somebody who’s got a family.
So I think it does have to be. once you get into the size of organizations with the First Lady, then yes, it’s, you’ve got all the demographics, but it’s, it tends to be the smaller employers that haven’t really embraced these benefits and I think they can do a lot more, but to make it compulsory, I don’t think would be the way to go.
Amy: Yeah, it’s it interesting though. It has to be, it has to be the right fit, doesn’t it? Yeah. It has to be the right fit.
Jackie: . What is interesting on the pension though is that there is policy push from all political parties to, get people to save more to pensions. So I think we all probably see the minimum pension contributions go up.
probably not immediately, but certainly I think we’re gonna see that quite soon.
Amy: Thanks, Tara. Thanks for, that’s a great point to make. Paul Whitehead from the Royal College of, physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow
You’d say staff don’t fully understand what benefits are available and how to optimize. Yes. That was really echoing what you’re saying, isn’t it Jackie? Yes. I know people are cutting pension contributions but don’t fully grasp. That means the employer cuts two and sometimes by twice as much as is the case where I work.
Paul, are you able to open up .
Paul: Yeah, I’m here. I think that’s a conversation that I’ve had with some colleagues here, just given the cost of living crisis and not just not realizing just how generous the employer contribution to the pension is because in our case up to we can pay an up to 5%% and the employer will match that up to 10%. if you cut that down to 3%, that’s a 6% reduction in your pension, contribution. So it’s something to, for people to be wary of. And I’d say as well, I’m not fully aware of all the benefits that we get here, and I know we’re currently discussing adding new ones, so I think it is a really topical issue and something that if it’s promoted more and made more available, people do value it, but I think it’s often complicated.
Amy: Absolutely. What are your thoughts, Jackie?
Jackie: so it’s interesting on the discussion around the pension contributions, cause I haven’t seen it filtering through yet, but I am expecting people to start saying, to me, can I come out in the pension scheme? and to save money basically. Now the danger with that is, and it’s sometimes it’s valid because it might be, you got to put food on the table now. so it might be valid to come out of the pension scheme, but it’s about encouraging those individuals to say, make it short term. We want to make sure you don’t stay out for any longer than you need to. make yourself a diary note to review your financial situation in three months and then fill in that form to get back in.
but it is interesting on the matching thing because that’s really generous pension scheme. and people probably don’t always understand that they’ve got that and that the employer don’t always put them, default them into the top end. They’ll default them into the bottom end and expect them to make a decision.
to opt into, to a higher regime. and then regarding the other benefits saying of reviewing that and that it is valued, but people don’t really understand what they’ve got. That comes back to what we were saying. Did we say before about having. Clear jargon-free information for the employee.
So not saying, oh, you get this income protection scheme if you’re off sick, and here’s the terms and conditions, and giving them the 35 page booklet from the insurance company. That’s like in tiniest grey font on a white background that nobody can read unless they’re on. 21 years old.
So just about making the information easy to understand. If somebody then wants to go off and get all the detail they can. But as long, I guess we’ve got the top, bits of information so that they go, ah, Yes. I need to remember I’ve got that.
Amy: Yeah, it’s a really good point, Jackie isn’t, it’s about making it palatable, isn’t it?
Yeah. cuz otherwise it’s as you so rightly describe,
it’s quite a turnoff, isn’t it?
Jackie: , it’s a bit grey, isn’t it? It is. Great. Thank you.
Amy: Yes, it is very grey. Thank you folks for your contributions. I know there’s a few more comments in the chat. I’m keen now just for Jackie to share her top tips with us.
So Jackie. Tell us a little bit more about back to basics.
Jackie: Yes. So this is for employers to, before they start, enhancing benefits, check what you’ve already got. Like the example I said about the lady who didn’t realize she already had an EAP. So it’s going through every benefit that you have and making sure that you as an employer understand what there is and that you are communicating that to your staff effectively.
And again, it’s back to that, just nice easy information. So one thing that you can do is when you do an induction with a new member of staff, give them a physical, Pack, I’ll give them the option to have a physical pack with the information in, even though it is all maybe online.
Some people like bits of paper, so just right back to the basics.
Amy: Fabulous. Salary benchmarking. Tell us about that.
Jackie: Yes, this is, this is from Croner, think a lot of you will have heard of Croner and, it’s a huge database of, employers packages that they provide to employees. So it includes things like, salary, pension contributions, death in service, private medical bonuses, lunches, petrol, expenses, all this kind of thing.
So you put in the rank of the person that you want to benchmark, like middle management, you say whereabouts in the country you are. put all these sorts of information in and it will give you a report which tells you what your peers are doing. And it’s real data now. It is. something you have to subscribe to, but if you like the idea of aro, I’m more than happy for you to have a free trial so you can run a few.
I just help him with that sort of benchmarking.
Amy: Yeah, educate yourself. So get ready folks. There’s lots of information that we can all help ourselves with. Yeah. Go. Yes, go Jackie.
Jackie: financial capability and the financial wellbeing in the workplace, are publications. and they do link into each other.
Now, the financial wellbeing in the workplace, one is from 2017, but it is still totally valid. And financial capability is where an employer can go to put together a framework, all around financial wellbeing in the workplace. So this is something that you can do yourselves to learn how to evaluate, measure, and implement a financial capability program yourselves in the workplace.
And you, it is, there’s a lot of information there, but even if you just pick out the bits that you know, one thing that you can do, I think that’s relevant. And then of course, c I P D, I’m sure you’re aware of that. There’s an incredible amount of information on there. And conferences, we exhibit and so it is such a great way to get out of the office, get talking to real support services, speakers and all that kind of thing.
So we’ve just listed our favourites there.
Amy: Build a plan and review annually.
Jackie: Yes. So this is aimed at employers, but employees can do it too. Of course, it is an individual. it might be that this year it is assess everything that we’ve got and have a financial awareness, campaign that we’re gonna push out to all the employees this year and then next year what are we gonna do for the next 12 months?
So it is just having that. Discipline to, if you like, have a meeting with the people that makes the decisions all together around the room, push all the ideas through, build a plan, but implement it and then keep reviewing it each year.
Amy: Yeah, lovely. Bring in third party professionals.
Jackie: Oh yes. oh, we mentioned wills earlier, didn’t we?
Amy: We did. I’m all willed up.
Jackie: All willed up. Now, this is probably more so for people that have got physical locations, but, solicitors and will writers will come into the workplace free of charge and do a presentation for you so that people can understand the importance of why they need a will, et cetera.
So there’s lots of things you can do like that. Will writers, mortgage advisors will help with talk about debt. people like cause of course. and they don’t all charge because they want your staff to go to them first if they need something.
Amy: it works for everyone, right? It’s promotion to them. but equally it’s about, mainly it’s about empowering, the employees,
Jackie: empowering them to do it. Yeah. So it’s about organizing it for them. The employee trusts the people that you bring in.
Amy: Yeah. And oh yeah, finally easy one.
Jackie: Just doing surveys.
And it, for those organizations, they’ve got huge, workforce. It might be that you do a bit of a pilot scheme, just on a small amount of the workforce. and then of course with the software these days, it’s so easy to do surveys, isn’t it? And get really good analytics.
Amy: Yeah, absolutely. Great. Fantastic. Top tips and links there. Thanks so much Jackie. So let me now just ask you a few quick fire questions. Are you ready?
No. .
Jackie, what does vulnerability mean to you?
Jackie: Oh vulnerability’s when you’ve got that horrible feeling that you are not in control or you don’t know where to go or you don’t know what to do.
That yes. Scary place.
Amy: Be a scary place. Okay, thank you. What do you think is gonna revolutionize workplace mental health?
Jackie: Oh, Amy that’s such a big question, .
Amy: We can come back to it.
Jackie: Revolutionize. I think we’re, I think I might not be able to answer it exactly, but I don’t know about everybody else. But I do feel that people are talking about things a lot more than they have ever done.
Ever done. So I think more of the same really. I don’t know about revolutionize. I would have to think about that one.
Amy: What message Jackie Vaz would you give your younger self?
Jackie: Okay, I’m gonna, I’m going to be very honest here, that it would be, when I was in my early twenties, I bought a car, a three-year-old car on tick, and then I bought a house and I borrowed the money for the deposit of my mom, and then I did my budget. And I couldn’t afford to eat. I had no money left over for food.
So my lesson to my younger self would be, don’t buy a car on tick. Just repeat running around in old bangers. You don’t need such a fancy car.
Amy: yeah. Do you think fancy cars are, do you think that’s a problem for younger generation?
Jackie: Can I tell you the story about. Have we got two minutes for me to tell you a story about a chap?
Amy: Yeah. Tell us a story.
Jackie: So I did a one-to-one in the workplace, and this was, it’s a manufacturing company. The shop floor staff are unskilled workers, just moving bits of metal around basically. And one of the team leaders booked a one-to-one with me and, he’s proper petrolhead. he loves cars and he had got one, a car on one of these like finance things.
and they’d said, oh, you can have the, the new thing, the new car. So he’s then committed himself to this car, which is costing him more money, which he doesn’t need. He had a perfectly okay car, but he liked it. He lives a long way away from work and it does 12 miles to the gallon. Ooh. Now this is before, the oil crisis, our, before petrol prices went up and he’s, I think he’s got A D H D because when he comes in for a one-to-one, he is all over the place.
and he was panicking. And so we went through, we did the basics, we went through the budget. He can afford it. He can’t afford it. It was no problem. He could afford it and the petrol cost, but I said how do you feel about it now? Do you feel like it was a impulse purchase and you wish you hadn’t done it because you don’t need it, do you?
And he said a bit. I said, okay, you can afford it so you can relax. You know if you want it. there’s no issue. I said, have you got one of those 30 day things where you can change your mind? He said, yes. How long have you had it? And I only had it like 10 days. I said, you can drop it back.
it’s anyway, I did see him six months later and he gave it back. Wow. He gave it back. Wow. So I was really pleased with that because it wasn’t that it was important to him, but not that. But yeah, he gave the car back and he also moved closer to work, so he didn’t have the same. But thank goodness he did, because I haven’t seen him since the, all the oil prices went up.
But I bet he’s glad he did.
Amy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So when you think about that client, what was it that you gave him that you didn’t have before?
Jackie: I think I just told him to do what he knew he should.
Okay. Yeah, it was just that he knew, didn’t it? He knows that’s what we just needed me to tell him to do it. Oh, I just gave him the permission to swallow his pride and go and give the car back.
Amy: Nice one. I also heard though, you did the calculations for him. yeah.
Jackie: We did his budget.
Yeah. Yeah. So you gave him always, you gave him the knowledge back to doing the budget. Always back, but first thing, budget. First budget. budget. Then protect, then plan, budget, protect plan. Okay.
Amy: One final quick fire question for you. If you could wave a magic wand at every workplace,
what would you make happen?
Jackie: You could have asked me to prepare for these
Amy: Gut reaction. Jackie
Jackie: Gut reaction is, make every workplace dog friendly. I love that. And free ice creams. Free ice
Amy: creams, . Yeah. Free ice creams and dog friendly. I’ll go with that. Nice one. Jackie. It’s been an absolute joy and a pleasure. I’m gonna hand over to Angus now. Thank you so much.
Jackie: Thank you everyone.
Dog friendly. workplaces and free ice cream,
That’s great Jackie. It’s always, it’s a wonderful pleasure always to see you. we’ve known you for quite a long time now and it’s always humorous, interesting, insightful, practical. There’s always great stuff that you come out with. I think. Staggering that only 1% of people have got their finances nailed.
That is just unbelievable. When you think about how important this is to everybody’s lives, we see the impact. go into workplaces, we often see and we hear about the impact of debt and especially gambling. Yeah. It is absolutely enormous. I find it personally, and I’m, this is a personal opinion, it may not be opinion of anybody else here, but the richest, most highly paid woman in Britain runs an online gambling firm.
Yeah. And I really have a problem with that actually, when I see the impact of what happens, but what you do, the impact of what you do is so positive. you do what you do is life changing. Yeah. That’s what comes across. You give practical advice. It’s straightforward, right? Let’s look at the basics. Let’s look at the budget you can afford.
This car does 12 miles to the gallon. Whether you want to afford it or not is what you’ve got to decide. and having people feeling confident, your words, confident and having the capability so you’re educating people and this is what’s not happening. That’s really obvious. If only 1% of people are actually confident in their finances, then there’s a big job to do.
So it’s obviously gonna keep you busy for a while, . Yeah. So thank you Jackie. It’s been wonderful having you on. it is always great to see you and on behalf of everybody here, thank you very much. So I think, for next time, We have Lutfur for Ali and Lutfur for is, senior policy advisor at the C I P D.
he’s a specialist in diversity and inclusion and, I think Lutfur for will be fascinating on this. He’s gonna talk about various things, some of the languages used and how that can affect, businesses and the performance within the business and so on. We’ve got some dates for your diary there. So there’s Lutfur for on the 23rd of February, 2023.
On the 23rd of March, we have Tim Duggan. Tim is from Australia, and he is an author of some award-winning books there on business, leadership and entrepreneurship. Tim is a really good character. I met him having dinner one day and by Pure chance and so looking forward to that. We also have Rob Williams from Vet Partners,
head of Talent at Vet Partners. Vet partners have about 8,000 people. On their payroll. they are right across the UK and also in Europe now. Rob, we’ve known also for quite a while and, I think that’ll be also a highly entertaining wellbeing hour please follow us on, LinkedIn.
we do run events like this and other ones, on a regular basis. if you’d like to find more about what we do, we have tailored solutions for our senior leaders, people managers, and frontline people. So get in touch and we’d love to hear from you. We’d love to have a chat with you. So I think, unless there’s anything else, it’s, That’s us for the wellbeing hour for this month.
And thank you again, Jackie. Thank you very much. Thank you so much,
Jackie is an employee benefits consultant for Prosperity Wealth Ltd, who are part of the Fairstone Group.
Jackie began in financial services in the 1990’s in her Dads business and in 2002 qualified as an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) and took the reigns.
Her speciality is in workplace benefits and financial education in the workplace, where pensions are typically the most poorly understood product in financial services. Financial education has evolved into helping employers embed financial well-being and financial resilience amongst their workforce, through benefits, support and education.
Guests on this episode
Jackie Vaz
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