Powerforce Field Marketing have been championing financial wellbeing for their employees, and boosting their workplace culture as a result.
Financial wellbeing and fair share of profits are key aspects of a great workplace culture and supporting your people to thrive. Yet only 45% of UK advertising, media and marketing employees feel that they receive a fair share of the profits made by their organisation1, and according to a survey by CIPD, 31% of all UK employees say that money worries have negatively affected their work performance.
Poor financial wellbeing has a direct correlation with increased absenteeism, and contributes to stress, mental and physical health challenges that can prevent employees from performing at their best.
In fact, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, 4.2 million working days are lost annually due to absences caused by financial wellbeing issues, costing the UK economy around £626 million in lost output. Particularly in fast-paced, client facing sectors such as advertising, media & marketing, financial wellbeing is not an issue employers can afford to ignore.
For employers, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. By actively supporting financial wellbeing, employers can reduce stress-related absences, foster loyalty, and create a healthier, more resilient workforce. That means better employee experience, better customer experience, and ultimately better financial performance.
It's a challenge that Powerforce Field Marketing have risen to: since 2021, their Trust Index™ survey results around financial wellbeing have seen an impressive improvement. In fact, scores for the statements "I receive support from my organisation to plan and manage my personal financial situation" and "I feel I receive a fair share of the profits made by this organisation" have increased by 36 percentage points (pp) and 30pp respectively.
We spoke to Nelli Rowsell (UK People Lead) and Bronwyn Andrew (Managing Director) to discover how Powerforce have championed financial wellbeing.
Established in 2007, Powerforce Field Marketing are award-winning sales solution agency with over 200 UK-based employees. Since 2017, they have partnered with Great Place To Work to measure their employee experience, and have been recognised as a UK's Best Workplace™ since 2018.
"Previously, we relied on in-house surveys run by team leaders or HR. They gave us some insight, but they weren’t designed by engagement specialists and often changed year to year. People also didn’t always feel they were truly anonymous, which meant the feedback wasn’t as open or consistent as we needed," says Bronwyn.
As Nelli explains, working with Great Place To Work has been instrumental in shaping the organisation's people strategy:
"We wanted external, trusted feedback on how engaged our people really were — not just our own view. We also wanted recognition for the great culture we were building, and the chance to learn from other companies’ best practices.
"Without an external benchmark, it was hard to know if we were doing well compared to others, or exactly where to focus to improve. Partnering with Great Place To Work gave us the credibility, data, robust confidentiality and independent perspective we needed to both celebrate what was working and make real improvements where it mattered most."
In 2021, it was clear from Powerforce's Trust Index results that, as is the case for many organisations, financial wellbeing was an area with room for improvement.
"In previous Trust Index surveys, financial wellbeing consistently came out as one of the lowest scoring areas and wasn’t showing much improvement year on year," explains Bronwyn. "That was a clear signal that we needed to do more."
"We don’t just see financial wellbeing as “salary” though – it’s about creating a package that helps people feel secure day to day, and confident about the future."
As the saying goes, knowledge is power – and financial wellbeing is no exception. Accessible financial education is a foundational pillar for supporting employees in this area. To ensure their people feel informed and in control, Powerforce introduced practical webinars on mortgages, debt and pensions.
And whilst talking about money remains largely taboo in the workplace, opening up the conversation is a vital part of financial wellbeing: one that Powerforce were determined to tackle head-on.
"Over the past year, we’ve made a big effort to bring financial wellbeing to life for our teams," says Nelli. Ensuring that employees not only know what support is available to them, but also opening the door for them to feel comfortable speaking up about potential financial issues, means work is a place of support, not stress. In fact, employees frequently praise Powerforce's supportive culture, and the space they are given to raise issues that may be affecting them: "nothing is too much trouble and I feel my voice is heard," said one employee in their Trust Index Survey.
Powerforce also upped their financial wellbeing offering to include things that would make a real difference to employees everyday, including:
● Fair pension contributions to build long-term stability. Colleagues have an opportunity to increase their own contribution where the business also makes an additional % increase.
● Medicash support to take the pressure off everyday medical and wellbeing bills.
● Electric car scheme providing colleagues with opportunity to maximise tax savings while driving an electric vehicle.
But even with this impressive financial wellbeing strategy in place, "it became obvious that people didn’t always see or fully understand the value of the support available to them," says Nelli. "So, we focused on making everything clearer and easier to access.
"One of the first things we did was launch a new booklet designed with clear graphics, contact details, and simple “how-to” guides. We pulled everything together into one place so people could easily see what support was available and exactly how to access it.
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"We also made sure we talked about financial wellbeing at every opportunity — in company briefings, team meetings, and around the office. Team members shared their own experiences of using the support available, which made things feel more real and encouraged others to take advantage."
And whilst financial wellbeing is about far more than just salary, it remains an important piece of the puzzle: "We also tackled the salary conversation head-on," says Brownyn. "We carried out a European-wide benchmarking exercise to map most roles in the company against market averages, and we’ve been working to align employee packages with this. Each role now has clear competencies and KPIs attached, which has made salary discussions far more transparent and fair.
"We also realised that some teams didn’t fully understand how the business makes profit, or how their efforts connect to company performance. So, we started to open up our numbers in company updates, explaining how we were performing and linking everyone’s contribution to the bigger picture. This has helped build a stronger “one team” mindset and connected financial wellbeing with shared success."
With the power of their Trust Index data to steer their strategy, Powerforce's efforts have been a huge success, with statements around financial wellbeing seeing incredible improvements, and employees frequently mentioning their financial wellbeing and benefits offering as part of what makes Powerforce "a great place to work".
"Partnering with Great Place to Work has been an important part of this journey," says Nelli. "Their insights helped us see where we needed to improve and pushed us to raise the bar. Having their data and feedback behind us gave extra weight to the changes, and it’s been a huge motivator for us to keep financial wellbeing high on the agenda."
Bronwyn adds: "As a team of salespeople, we’re naturally competitive — and that means we like having measures we can trust. Great Place To Work gives us exactly that: a way to compete with ourselves to make sure our people love what they do here. We know we’ll never be perfect, but continuous improvement is part of who we are. Great Place To Work gives us the metrics and insights to see where we’re strong, where we can grow, and how we can keep building a workplace our teams are proud of."
Sources:
1. Great Place To Work® (2023) UK Population Study.