Financial education at work: embrace ‘rules of thumb’ thinking

Financial education is often the first step in a financial wellbeing strategy – it’s important, but it is not sufficient to achieve genuine behaviour change and improved financial wellbeing.

‘Rules of thumb’ gives people broad conceptual guidelines rather than specific advice – it’s designed to help them take action in a way that’s positive but also works for them.

It’s been used, for example, to help micro-entrepreneurs in poorer parts of India to get to grips with basic financial good practice – such as paying themselves a fixed salary or putting aside x% of income for retirement.

What kind of rules-of-thumb messaging can be used in the workplace for financial education?

The Money Advice Service highlighted that simple one-liner rules of thumb – such as ‘leave your credit card at home’ – are powerful ways of cutting through complexity that can lead to action paralysis.

This article explores one slice of our full, free report, ‘The truth about financial education at work‘. Download it below.