Financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown will be rolling out a mid-life MOT to all its workers in 2019.
Tom McPhail, head of policy at the firm, told FTAdviser the company will develop a programme of financial education sessions through the course of next year, open to all its 1,500 employees regardless of their age.
In early December, Hargreaves Lansdown is hosting a Money Week event in its Bristol office, where various external speakers will be talking to staff and giving presentations.
"On the back of that we are running a staff survey to identify all the different financial topics that people would be interested in getting a training session on," Mr McPhail said.
From this research, the firm will identify which particular modules are most interesting for employees and then roll out a programme of financial education sessions through the course of next year, he said.
He added: "From there, we will monitor outcomes, so it is hard to predict where we will go after that, but the idea is to keep this on an ongoing basis, tailoring it as we go, to meet the needs of our employees."
Mr McPhail explained the idea to develop this programme was spurred by Guy Opperman, minister for pensions and financial inclusion, who "has made a real point of highlighting this issue of financial firms looking out for the financial literacy of their employees".
FTAdviser reported this week that the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) has been working with Local Enterprise Partnerships and the National Careers Service to deliver mid-life reviews to help older workers plan their finances for retirement.
Other firms have also been developing these programmes, such as Aviva, which will be rolling out its mid-life MOT to its employees aged 45 and over in 2019, after a pilot earlier this year.
Mr McPhail said: "Mr. Opperman's starting point was a MOT for the over 50s. We have a few employees over 50 in the business, but not many.
"A lot of the people working here are in their 20s, so rather than just focusing on the over 50s we made the decision to offer a spectrum of financial training module subjects, also covering topics like getting a mortgage, or paying student debt."
Mr McPhail explained that Hargreaves Lansdown already has the capability to deliver these seminars.
He said: "On the workplace pension side of our business, we quite often do financial education seminars and training sessions for employees of clients we do business with.
"So it was really quite an easy fit to bring together our talent department that looks out for our employees’ welfare and our corporate pensions team that has these capabilities."
Hargreaves Lansdown mid-life MOT won’t include financial advice sessions, since this is already offered by the company.
Mr McPhail said: "We have around 100 qualified and regulated financial advisers in the business, so if any employee then wants to go on and take a personalised financial advice we already have in place already a mechanism for that to happen."
maria.espadinha@ft.com
