Financial education delivering a healthy dose of savings

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Financial education delivering a healthy dose of savings

Established: 1999
Industry: Pharmaceuticals
No. of employees: 83,000 globally

The situation 

With a mission to empower every employee with financial confidence, AstraZeneca embedded financial education as a core pillar of its wellbeing strategy. Since partnering with nudge in 2019 to deliver their financial wellbeing program, AstraZeneca has taken a proactive, future-first approach to wellbeing, ensuring its initiatives evolve in line with business growth and employee needs. 

Following several acquisitions, AstraZeneca also faced the challenge of uniting multiple reward and benefit programs under one cohesive strategy. With employees joining from different businesses, a one-size-fits-all approach was no longer viable. With this in mind, the team had the following goals for their program: 

  1. Be a great place to work
  2. Empower their people through education
  3. Provide consistent, accessible communication
  4. Put financial wellbeing into their employee journey 

The solution 

AstraZeneca put nudge’s impartial, personalized financial education at the heart of its benefits strategy. Combining behavioral psychology, data, and personalized education, nudge helps AstraZeneca’s people to develop their financial skills and knowledge, wherever and whenever they need it. Within the context of the employees’ interests and goals, nudge also drive awareness, appreciation, and utilization of wider benefits.

Employees are reached through a combination of targeted communications (nudges), awareness campaigns, and integration across internal channels, including email, social media, webinars, and employee champions.

Recent initiatives have included:

  • Retirement-focused education: Through awareness campaigns in nudge’s financial wellbeing calendar, tailored webinars, and timely communications, employees were encouraged to think about long-term planning and act.
  • Communication at every touchpoint: New joiners and key life events, such as retirement planning or starting a graduate role, were used as opportunities to promote relevant education, increasing visibility of benefits and financial tools.
  • Something for everyone: Program messaging to employees reflected the personalized, accessible experiences available across broad demographics, from family planning to cultural preferences.
  • Life-stage targeting: Partnering with Legal & General, AstraZeneca used education specific to different age groups to promote their bonus waivers.

With nudge, AstraZeneca can provide a consistent experience that helps employees take impactful steps toward improving their financial wellbeing and benefiting their future.

The results

The emphasis on retirement planning in the program communications saw real financial behavior change: 

  • Retirement became the top-selected topic of interest on the platform 
  • 24% increase in bonus waiver scheme participation, equating to approximately £8.4 million in additional retirement contributions 
  • 76% of eligible employees engaged with the ShareSave scheme, with 62% contributing to SAYE, saving an average of £333 per employee 

93%

of employees engaging with impartial, personalized financial education  

70%

of employees have used nudge 3+ times

82%

engaged quarterly throughout the year

With nudge as a key partner, AstraZeneca has successfully built a financial wellbeing program that is personalized, consistent, and aligned to business goals. Together, we are driving long-term success for both employees and the business as we move the needle of financial health outcomes and benefits uptake, and we couldn’t be more pleased with these results.

Jonathan Bellamy

Reward Partner

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