CreateFuture is an award-winning digital development partner, with clients including PayPal, the NHS, and Tesco Bank.

The company prides themself on their long-standing client relationships and ability to stay ahead of the curve in an ever-changing technological landscape. To do this, they’ve built a close-knit team that knows how to get the best out of each other.

Karrell Simms, People Partner at CreateFuture, explains: “The leadership team is extremely passionate about nurturing our people. Our Managing Director, Euan, works closely with the people team to create the right culture and support within the company through consistent refinement of processes and policies.”

“In order to ensure that these reflect the needs and goals of our people, we lean on honest conversation to gain meaningful insight into exactly which initiatives will support everyone in a way that suits them best.”

The importance of employee wellbeing

The People Team were keen to address the financial wellness of the CreateFuture team and, after some research, the agency saw that poor financial wellbeing is the number one cause of stress in the UK.

“We looked at other providers, but nothing was as intuitive or comprehensive as Bippit."

In order to support their people through the major life changes which influence personal finances (such as house purchases and childcare), the People Team saw an opportunity to further enhance CreateFuture's wellness programme by offering financial support.

“In terms of overall employee wellbeing, we are working to put more in place,” People Partner Melissa Richardson says. “Not only tools which support our employees’ health and wellbeing, but also resources that are fun and engaging for our employees to use.”

“By supporting the financial wellbeing of our team, we hope to provide them with the ability to obtain, protect, and utilise financial resources more effectively. This will hopefully help decrease any money-related stress.”

Adopting a comprehensive financial support platform

It can be difficult to know where to go for reliable, impartial, and affordable financial support. In fact very often it’s simply unaccessible.

It’s one of the reasons we started Bippit: to ensure every employee has access to a 1-1 financial coach. This comprehensive and tailored support is what attracted CreateFuture to Bippit.

“We looked at other providers, but nothing was as intuitive or comprehensive as Bippit,” says Karrell.

“Having a dedicated financial coach that every employee could speak to was the major draw. The platform gives every employee almost immediate financial support, and the chat function is really interesting.”

“Bippit seems very easy to use and will hopefully help our people feel more confident and secure in doing things like saving, investing, managing debt, saving for retirement, and dealing with tax issues.”

Why financial wellbeing makes sense (both culturally and operationally)

While providing employees with financial support may seem like a ‘nice-to-have’, when you look at the figures it’s now an essential part of any forward-thinking wellbeing strategy. Especially as companies deal with the effects of the pandemic.

The CIPD reports that nearly 1 in 4 say poor financial wellbeing leads to stress in their organisation. And that stress can increase staff turnover, absences, and presenteeism. Like many companies, this is something CreateFuture wants to avoid, as the People Team explains…

“Promoting good mental health and wellbeing is hugely important to us. We want to make sure our team members are looked after, and that they feel valued and supported. Adopting Bippit as a tool for them to use is one way we aim to do this in 2022.”

“By tackling a critical source of stress, Bippit will hopefully help to ease financial concerns and thus increase wellbeing throughout the company.”