The value of timely and effective employee financial guidance

It is estimated that around 5.9 million UK employees are on the incorrect tax code and could be owed money.

Most employees would assume the responsibility lies with their employer to ensure that their tax code information is correct. However, unbeknownst to most people, it’s actually the employee’s responsibility.

Employees across the UK need help in accessing this data in order to take charge of their own finances. What can employers do to provide this guidance?

The challenge with this is to provide employee financial information in such a way that it’s easy to access and relevant at the time. Canteen posters, intranet pages and newsletters are useful in raising general awareness, but less effective in engaging the employee with the finer details and helping them to take appropriate action.

How PayDashboard are tackling this for our clients

At PayDashboard, we provide relevant and timely financial education alongside employee payslips, which we find is a very effective approach to improving financial awareness and understanding among employees. Our high engagement statistics have demonstrated just how valuable employees are finding this information, for example our Emergency Tax Code guide was read over 42,000 times by users in the PayDashboard portal in 2019.

Other topics that are popular with employees include:

• New Year Tax Guides
• Checking your tax code
• Marriage Allowance
• National Insurance Contributions

Conclusion

It’s clear that employees are finding value in financial guidance articles, when these are provided in a suitable, relevant and timely way - such as alongside their payslips in the case of our PayDashboard users. Employers should feel encouraged that providing financial education to their employees is a worthwhile exercise that is appreciated and valued by employees, and that there are tools available out there to help employers to approach this task.

If you would like to find out more about how PayDashboard can help your employees to understand their pay and their payslips and improve financial awareness in your business – book a demo with one of our team.