Employee benefit consultants (EBCs), specialists in enabling employers to design robust and comprehensive workplace benefits packages, are often appointed by employers to run a Request for Proposal (RFP) process when looking to select financial wellbeing services.
I believe that many of these RFP documents do not ask the right questions when dealing with financial wellbeing, doing the employer, its workforce and even the EBC a potential disservice.
Given the increasingly critical role that financial wellbeing programmes play in organisations’ overall wellbeing strategies, it is vital that the right questions are asked during the procurement process in order to get the best possible outcome. Here are some examples of important, yet often overlooked, questions:
Does the programme have a comprehensive due diligence process? It is vital to have a thorough understanding of any financial wellbeing providers’ qualifications, regulatory record, compliance processes and pricing structures. Employers should seek out former or current references from other clients as part of the due diligence process.
So, questions to consider may include whether they are providing non-regulated financial seminars and webinars. If so, what are the qualifications of the people delivering this service? Are they employed by the supplier or sub-contracted? How is quality managed – for example if multiple individuals are delivering webinars for an employer, how is the level of consistency ensured?
A host of other factors apply. Does the financial wellbeing provider offer one-to-one guidance services? Again, the earlier questions above equally apply.
If they are developing engagement materials, are they specialists in this field – from design and branding through to building apps and creating podcasts and videos?
Who is producing the content, whether for a seminar, video, podcast or app? These are specialist skills as an understanding is required not only of financial matters but also how they are best communicated to a diverse workforce.
If using a regulated adviser what are their qualifications? How is business quality checked from a compliance perspective – the gold standard is that all should be compliance checked before processing but very few firms do this.
If one thinks about someone coming up to retirement and looking to generate their retirement income it is easy to see how all the above are crucially important, if the employer is to be re-assured by the provider selected.
A key area is whether the firm provides both guidance and regulated advice, and how it makes a clear distinction between the two.
The distinction between guidance and regulated advice is becoming increasingly important to understand, with an ongoing government consultation taking place that could directly impact UK legislation. Very few employers or employees understand this.
In order to provide the best possible service to employees, employers need to understand whether their provider offers a comprehensive range of services. These can include, for example, providing a Self-Invested Personal Pension (Sipp) alongside the traditional occupational pension scheme, to allow the transfer of company stock into a pension wrapper, which is not usually part of an occupational scheme.
The RFP should also ask whether the provider offers a workplace Isa, which allows for the in-specie transfer of shares, such as through SAYE schemes, and enables regular payments via payroll, with the option of specific preferences geared towards areas such as Sharia or ESG investing.
It is also key that there is a fundamental understanding of how a potential provider will execute its service offering. Can they provide national coverage? Do they outsource to any third-party service providers? Is its service offering embedded with quality control in mind? Does it produce frequent MI reports for its
clients to feature user feedback from the services it provides?
In conclusion, the questions included here are all too often omitted as part of the RFP process yet are critical to ensuring any financial wellbeing programme is successful.
