This article is originally published on Efma’s website. Efma is a global not-for-profit organisation, created by banks & insurance companies to facilitate BDM connections. It provides quality insights to help banks and insurance companies make the right decisions to foster innovation and drive their transformation. Over 3,300 brands in 130 countries are Efma members.
Sandy Hutchison, Founder of Career Money Life, explains how retail financial services firms can help keep staff engaged and happy.
Tell us about Career Money Life and what it aims to achieve
The basic concept of the business is that it’s an online marketplace for employee benefits. It helps employers to curate HR programs through which staff can pick and choose relevant services from a variety of curated providers. For example, there may be services to promote health and wellbeing such as gym membership, yoga classes or mindfulness retreats. There may be financial planning advice, parental leave support, psychological counselling or career transition services. The overarching goal is to provide meaningful, personal services that help organizations attract and retain their talent.
What makes your organization unique?
I believe that Career Money Life is the first organization of its kind – not just in Australia, but in the world. It was built from a lightbulb moment when I was made redundant in 2013 and had a truly personal experience of how life-changing career transition services can be. Both the concept and the scope of services we offer are unique.
Who are your clients to date?
We’re working with a number of large companies operating across Australia and New Zealand including Virgin Airlines, Morningstar, MLC, and Amcor.
What are the biggest challenges facing banks when it comes to keeping employees engaged at work?
The financial services sector as a whole is known to be well paying, but there’s been a lot of negative press that has meant that many employees working in the space have lost the pride in their jobs – they are often ashamed to say who they work for. For similar reasons, attracting and retaining talent is tricky.
How are you helping them to meet these challenges?
We can help improve a company’s reputation, helping them to differentiate their brand and retain talent.
Our model offers a differentiated way to provide solutions to employees, giving them the instant, customized and online approach that they expect. By avoiding the traditional cookie-cutter approach and offering real choice it means that employees get a much more positive experience. The net promoter score feedback we’ve had from Virgin’s employees has been very strong so far – we expect the same across all of our clients.
How do you expect the employee experience to evolve in the years to come?
Customization will be key as employees increasingly will expect an individualized customer experience. To be successful, employers will view their employees as an audience of one, recognizing that all expectations need to be met.
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