Tribeca Financial has developed a unique workplace Financial Wellbeing Program for employers. Ryan Watson talks to Jayson Forrest about this workplace program, as well as Tribeca’s approach to improving the wellbeing of its clients and staff.

Name: Ryan Watson

Position: Chief Executive Officer

Practice: Tribeca Financial

Established: 2010

Licensee: My Dedicated Advisory

FPA Professional Practice: October 2018

You might be forgiven for thinking that Tribeca Financial is like any other high street advice business, providing a full service suite offering to clients. But what makes this Melbourne-based FPA Professional Practice stand out from the others is its approach to health and wellness, both for its team and clients.

“We’re a financial advice firm that is not just about improving a client’s finances. We help our clients build the life they want, by prioritising what’s most important to them at each stage of their life and then putting together a financial roadmap to help them achieve their goals,” says Tribeca Financial CEO, Ryan Watson.

Sitting at the heart of the business is its philosophy – ‘My Good Life’ – which incorporates health and wellness into the lives of individuals. For clients, it’s about financial wellness, allowing them to live their lives free from financial stress, while for staff, it’s about supporting them to live balanced lives, both personally and professionally.

According to Ryan, the ‘My Good Life’ approach to financial planning helps the practice understand the life goals and expectations of clients. From there, it’s about designing a financial plan that will get clients from point A to point B, enabling them to “live their good life”.

But isn’t this approach just a catchphrase for goals-based advice? “Not so,” says Ryan, who adds that the ‘My Good Life’ approach to business is part of the practice’s DNA, applying not only to clients but also the Tribeca team.

Living the Good Life

As part of enhancing the health and wellness of its team, the practice utilises the Wheel of Life tool to bring clarity to the Tribeca team’s wellbeing, allowing individuals to visualise the important areas of their life and to better understand which of their life areas are flourishing and which ones need work on.

“This tool gives a bird’s-eye view of our life. It is a visual representation of all areas in our life at one time,” says Ryan. “There are about eight key ‘spokes’ in the Wheel of Life, which represents a facet of our life, such as health and wellbeing, finances, relationships, and fun and recreation. These ‘spokes’ help us to maintain our personal and professional balance.

“As a business, each team member uses this tool on a weekly basis to check-in on whether they’re in balance or out of balance, and if the latter, we then work on what needs to be addressed to rectify that imbalance.”

As part of this weekly check-in, individuals also conduct a ‘cause and effect’ rating, where they rate themselves out of 10 points – with 10 indicating an individual is firing on all cylinders, dropping  down the scale to one, where the person is feeling highly stressed and is struggling.

“Each member submits this ‘cause and effect’ rating, and we share that as a team. We aim for seven out of 10 per person. For staff sitting on the lower end of the scale, we provide support to help them improve their rating. And for individuals at the higher end of the scale, we look to learn from them with respect to what they are doing, what their successes look like, and how we can replicate this across the business.”

Ryan says the Wheel of Life tool and the ‘cause and effect’ self-analysation rating have become essential elements in the business, providing greater clarity to the overall health and wellbeing of the practice’s employees.

Financial Wellbeing Program

As Ryan steers the business into its tenth year, he draws on his external leadership coaching, which he has undertaken for the past five years, to not only help others maintain their personal and workplace balance, but to also help him stay mentally and physically fit. Why? Because he believes that when it comes to health and wellbeing in business, it’s vitally important that you practise what you preach – both for employees and clients.

“We take health and wellbeing very seriously. We know that we need to be leading examples of this for our clients. If we don’t seek balance in our own lives, then we’re not a great example for our clients. Therefore, why would they take our advice?

“Our purpose at Tribeca is unique. It’s to be brave, to forget the status quo and to live your ‘good life’. It’s unique both from an employee perspective and for clients,” he says.

So serious is Ryan’s approach to health and wellbeing that it has also become a bespoke client value proposition for the business. Called the Financial Wellbeing Program, this service is available for workplace employers. The program encompasses everything a workplace team needs to know about how to improve their financial wellness, ranging from cashflow and mindset techniques to insurance and investing.

Ryan concedes the catalyst for developing the Financial Wellbeing Program hinged on the low rate of financial literacy within the workplace.

“When it comes to helping clients, we want to inspire them, educate them and support them,” he says. “We knew there was a low rate of financial literacy in Australia. Studies show that 46 per cent of workers spend at least three work hours each week thinking about their finances, while 53 per cent of workers say they feel stressed about their finances.

“And with nearly one-in-three employees admitting to being distracted in the workplace because of their finances, it was clearly evident that unfortunately, a lot of people struggle with their finances. This means they are not empowered to make the right decisions, which leads to high levels of stress.”

As a business, Tribeca recognised the impact financial illiteracy was having in the workplace with employers and decreased productivity.

“So, we thought about how we could educate people en masse, while adding value to the employer. From this, the Financial Wellbeing Program was developed,” Ryan says.

The program consists of four specialised financial wellbeing education components. They are:

1. Understanding financial wellbeing

An introduction to the concept of financial wellbeing and the impact poor financial wellness can have on a person’s life.

2. Mind over money

Breaking down the stigma around talking about money and understanding mindset techniques that can help a person stick to and achieve their financial goals.

3. Mastering cashflow

Cashflow is a key determinant to financial wellbeing. This session shows employees how to quickly save money, as well as what a good cashflow plan looks like.

4. Growing and protecting wealth

This session dives into the importance of insurance, as well as examining how to choose investment options based on an individual’s lifestyle.

“We start with a goals-based session that we call ‘10-3-now’. Prior to the session, each participant privately completes a goals-setting document, which includes where they want to be in 10 years, where they want to be in three years, and what effective change is required now to reach those goals,” Ryan says.

“We conduct an introduction to financial wellbeing. This includes introducing participants to a financial matrix and the key elements of security and freedom of choice. Then we run a goals-based session.

“We provide people with structures around cashflow and investment, as well as structures around contingency, which includes estate planning and insurance.”

However, before an employer commits to the Financial Wellbeing Program, Ryan says the business is happy to walk employers through various strategies that provide more customised education for their requirements – one session at a time.

Employer focus

To date, Tribeca has successfully rolled out the Financial Wellbeing Program to businesses including: TAL, Computershare, Retail Prodigy Group, Carsales and the Melbourne Football Club.

“We’re seeing a lot of employee-centric businesses focusing on holistic wellbeing programs for their teams. Typically, they choose a health or spiritual component from a specialised wellbeing provider, while Tribeca provides the financial wellness part for their program.”

Employers engage with Tribeca on a business-to-business basis, where they share their employee surveys and staff feedback in terms of the financial education their people require. From there, they engage with the Tribeca Financial Wellbeing Program on a 12-month basis.

“Generally, as part of this program, we will run four to six sessions a year with our employer clients, which gives us time to create trust with the employees, while running the program.

“By providing financial education in the workplace, we get to improve people’s sense of financial wellbeing, and for employers, they are getting a more engaged and productive workforce, which is a healthy by-product of the program.”

Ryan is pleased with the uptake of the Financial Wellbeing Program by employers, saying the program usually engages up to 25 per cent of an employer’s workforce. He also adds that another component of the program is one-on-one consultation with individuals.

“We do this because when it comes to financial matters, some people prefer to meet privately. We consult with these individuals in a 45-minute session where we discuss their problem, diagnose it and then provide the client with general advice,” Ryan says.

And while Ryan is having success in converting some of these one-on-one consultations to clients, he adds that he is very conscious that the Financial Wellbeing Program is specifically about business-to-business education.

“There is a clear delineation between our services,” Ryan says. “General advice is offered onsite at the employer’s workplace with the staff, while individual personal-based advice is provided within the Tribeca office. So, if a person wants to engage with us on an individual basis, they would need to come into our office.”

A program of wellness

For advice businesses considering rolling out a similar financial wellness education program, Ryan offers the following advice.

Firstly, he says, a business needs to clearly understand why they are wanting to introduce a wellness program as part of its service offering. And secondly, a business needs to consider what value it can add by implementing such a program.

“Consider what’s in it for the workplace employer to allow their employees to give up their time to participate in your program. Advice practices should be talking to companies that are employee-centric, because they are more focused on the needs of their staff,” he says.

“Secondly, understand where the value is for the employee. Why would an employee want to take time out of their day to participate in the program?

“You need passion and commitment to do workplace financial wellness education. It’s not the type of business-to-business offering that is suited to every practice or financial planner. However, with the challenges come the rewards and for us, that’s all about improving financial literacy in the workplace.”

Tribeca Financial is an FPA Professional Practice. An FPA Professional Practice is dedicated to the highest professional and ethical standards, through commitment to the FPA Code of Professional Practice and CFP^® Certification.