With financial wellbeing programs being added to the wellbeing offering at the workplace, global financial wellbeing companies are being considered by organisations, given that they may be working with the parent company overseas. While this provides a seamless integration for companies, it begets the question of whether employees truly gain from these programs.

The way of living, challenges and financial markets in every country are different. The experience from Asia pacific programs has shown that Indian employees are much ahead in terms of how they want to handle their finances. Questions from APAC are more on budgeting, APR etc as compared to questions from India which are more about investing and attaining financial freedom. 

Thus, localised expertise and content is extremely important for any financial wellbeing program in India. Local financial wellbeing companies are familiar with the local economic factors, social structure as well as employee financial behaviour. Personal finance management is 80% about behaviour and 20% on the product. Local partners have much better insights on investor behaviour and are able to design more relevant and helpful programs. For example, a global partner may tend to assume a 4% withdrawal rate in retirement as is done overseas and would plan retirement programs based on this assumption. However, this would be grossly inadequate in India. A common investing rule which is propagated is to invest 100-age in equities. In reality, Indian investors, even youngsters seldom have high allocation to equities as can be seen from household savings data. 

Employees may be more likely to trust and engage with financial wellness programshttps://www.peoplematters.in/category/organizational-culture/life-at-work offered by local partners who have a proven track record. This is because local partners can ensure that programs are delivered in a language and manner that resonates with associates,  fostering better engagement and participation. For example, most financial wellbeing companies provide financial planning tools. But if these tools only provide basic calculations and are not linked to Indian tax rules, they would not provide a comprehensive plan for the employee.  

While a global company may hire local partners to provide contextual content, it is yet to be seen if these partners have programs across topics or a network of counsellors.  The financial wellbeing model overseas is to provide a platform with counselling. In India, employees put a higher emphasis on webinars as they want depth of learning and to have their queries resolved by speaking to an expert. 

Organisations comparing a global and local financial wellness partner need to evaluate the following: 

Range of offering, expertise and knowledge of the partner. 

Partner’s ability to synergise on custom requirements like ESOP taxation or on ground initiatives like wellness week or sessions at plants. 

Quality of content on the platform and if it is based in the Indian context. 

Who is actually delivering the programs – are they educators or advisors? Do the counsellors have experience across different market cycles? 

Costs-  Local partnerships tend to be more cost effective than outsourcing programs to international vendors, simply because pricing patterns are different in India and overseas. 

In conclusion, a local company's approach to workplace financial wellness programs offers significant benefits by fostering understanding and providing the right resources to help employees manage finances better.