Delivering Sound Money Guidance

Delivering Sound Money Guidance article is by our incredible Includability Committed Employers, PayCaptain, as part of the Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward publication for May 2024, Issue 100.

The original article is by Anna Buckle, Head of Employee Experience and Financial Well-Being at PayCaptain.

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Payroll professionals get asked for guidance on money but must always ensure they’re delivering this in the correct way and aren’t entering into the realm of advice. Anna Buckle, head of employee experience and financial well-being, PayCaptain, provides her tips for steering conversations around financial guidance.

There’s a massive gap when it comes to money advice – the wealthy can afford to pay for personalised advice to make their money grow, whereas the not so wealthy are left trying to navigate their stretched money with very little on offer to reliably support them and their particular circumstances.

With this in mind it’s no surprise payroll professionals get asked for advice related to money. After all, we’re the facilitators of most people’s main income, so it would make sense that we know our way confidently around a tax calculation.

But when anyone asks us for advice related to money, we must be really careful in how we respond to ensure we’re actually helping and not potentially putting someone in a more difficult position.

Here are some points to help you guide the conversation and make sure your good intentions translate into a positive, helpful influence.

“When anyone asks us for advice related to money, we must be really careful in how we respond to ensure we’re actually helping and not potentially putting someone in a more difficult position”

Draw on your empathy

If someone reaches out to you with a question related to their income, start off by making space for the person. As much as we may feel plagued sometimes by the volume of queries we receive, it’s important to call on your empathy and understand that the question may have come from a place of anxiety or even crisis. It’s not a huge surprise that there’s a strong correlation between those on lower incomes or with less disposable cash and the level of scrutiny they give to their pay.

Someone asking lots of questions about where money has gone may be coming from a backdrop of not being able to make ends meet. Taking an empathetic, non-judgemental approach will make all the difference in how an employee feels coming to you for help and enable them to be as open and honest as possible.

Rip up your frame of reference

It’s common in conversation to draw on your own experiences to help you but be careful of doing this in a financial conversation. You need to understand the employee’s entire position – what has worked for one person could be bad advice for another. Use of credit is a good example here. For some people credit can be a really useful tool, as they can pay their bills off each month in full and build their credit rating. For others, it can present a damaging option, buying groceries to get by on Klarna one month could land them in a deficit budget once the repayments kick in, starting a cycle of debt which may be difficult for them to get back out of.

Listen to understand

With high anxiety potentially being a backdrop to the conversation, always ensure you’re in a position to offer the person your full attention and listen thoughtfully. Make sure you understand their concern or query in detail, repeating it back to them is a useful approach here. You can use phrases like, “What I’m understanding is… does that sound accurate?” If you’re face-to-face, put your phone away so you aren’t distracted, if you’re having the conversation remotely then close your email – it’s actually really easy to tell when someone is reading something rather than giving you their full attention. No good conversation is had while one party is distracted.

Recognise vulnerability

Is the person you’re speaking to displaying any signs of vulnerability? Financial vulnerability is so closely connected with other forms of vulnerability, such as long-term sickness, abuse and old age.

The Vulnerability Registration Service is a great organisation to help you understand what the many vulnerabilities are and the way they can impact an individual. Helen Lord, their chief executive officer, says,

“All of us face challenges in life which can make us vulnerable. These often mean that we need to call on others to give us support. Administration of any kind is often the hardest thing to manage when we’re struggling with life events, money or health and it is therefore very important to smooth the path for people to identify assistance where it is available. From the perspective of The Vulnerability Registration Service, we believe identifying vulnerability is key. Understanding someone’s circumstances at the earliest opportunity reduces stress for everyone.”

Advice or guidance?

Be clear about what you can do to help. it’s unlikely that you’re also a qualified financial advisor (but if you are, you can skip this bit). This means you should be very mindful of how you offer guidance to people. Financial advisors are specifically trained to offer advice on the best products and services someone should use. If you’re not a qualified financial advisor and you’re having a conversation regarding money with an employee, you need to ensure you’re focussing on supporting them by signposting to sources of information which can guide them in making the best decisions with their money.

Guiding centres around helping people identify things they could do with their money and letting them make an informed choice.

“It’s common in conversation to draw on your own experiences to help you but be careful of doing this in a financial conversation”

Have a bible of trusted information sources

The number one place to start will always be MoneyHelper. It’s a website supported by the government’s Money and Pensions Service with an encyclopaedic amount of information delivered in a really easily digestible way. Your list should also have places / organisations to signpost to, that cover all types of more specialist financial situations, for example:

● gambling help

● debt advice

● food bank referrals

● financial abuse.

If somebody needs a little more person-to-person advice over reading, then Citizens Advice is another excellent option to signpost to. They can make referrals to other resources which might not be accessible without their support. For example, invoking ‘breathing space’ to help with debt repayment management.

Make advice accessible to all

Even if you’re the most approachable, knowledgeable person, there will be employees who have questions but aren’t able to approach you with them. In this instance, use technology to support your efforts. Payroll solutions like PayCaptain, which are very employee-focussed, are designed to give as much information as possible to support queries about pay and help employees build their financial resilience. Interactive payslips, help icons which break down tax calculations and tools that deliver helpful, personalised suggestions of things employees could do with their hard-earned cash to make the most of it at key points in their employment all help to bridge that advice gap, and ensure you have covered all bases in accessibility.

Build a like-minded network

"Payroll people have such a strong network."

Seek out the like-minded people who want to offer the best support to their employees.

Groups like the Money Guiders Network offer lots of great support and information to help people who aren’t qualified financial advisors but find themselves in positions where people are asking money-related questions.

Consider ‘money first aid’ course

This could help to build your confidence, particularly around having these types of conversations with employees in financial crisis. After all, we don’t expect a traditional first aider to administer care without a little training, so why would supporting someone with a financial emergency be any different?

Use these additional resources

● StepChange (debt charity): https://ow.ly/vzsv50R6qQe

● GamCare (gambling support): https://ow.ly/XcYU50R6qSt

● Surviving Economic Abuse: https://ow.ly/eU7J50R6qTK

● MoneyHelper: https://ow.ly/oUyY50R6qVM

● Vulnerability Registration Service: https://ow.ly/Ur9F50R6qZ3.

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Following these pointers will ensure you’re always using your knowledge to have a positive impact.

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