Changing Lives at Loft Food Co.
For food manufacturer Loft Food Co, Project Ikuna has provided the secret sauce for unlocking learning in their team.
Loft provides delicious sauces, dressings and dips to some of NZ’s most-loved brands, both in the food service and retail sectors.
Senior Ops Manager Brett Havea says the team has always felt like a family and they have many long serving and loyal Pasifika staff. he also knows firsthand the challenges around financial literacy in Pacific communities.
I’ve seen it so many times, even with my own family, getting loans or being over committed and not getting anywhere.
So when the opportunity came to offer Project Ikuna’s Money Confidence course to the Loft team, it was an easy decision. A holistic approach to the staff wellbeing is how Brett describes it. “If you can do something that makes your team happier, why not?”
What we did
For Brett and the Loft Food Co team, it was important for an external provider like Upskills to deliver the learning. “Having someone independent like Upskills deliver that message was much better because sometimes people don’t open up fully if we we’re trying to give that advice.”
Brett says it was great to be able to offer learning that was practical and immediately transferrable to participants’ everyday lives.
Project Ikuna Money Confidence, a micro credential delivered in partnership with Auckland Council and MBIE, drives specific learning when it comes to financial literacy. The learning, delivered in small groups, has a focus on applied tools so that employees are empowered to make decisions based on their values, armed with knowledge and information. Whether it’s knowing about the power of compound interest and applying that to decisions around debt and savings or tracking spending to get honest about where the money is going, awareness is the very first step.
Understanding the Pacific cultural context of financial literacy is key. As a recent evaluation report on the wider project notes, Pacific peoples often prioritise community and family wellbeing over individual financial goals. That’s something that we talk about on the Money Confidence course, and it shines through in learning activities like values and vision board creation.
“Financial success is viewed as contributing to the collective wellbeing of family and community, including intergenerational support and cultural practices like giving and tithing,” notes the report, commissioned by MBIE to Malatest, a research consultancy.
The results
For Brett, the most important thing was that the team had some tools to take away and use in their own lives such as, “what they might be able to do financially outside of work for the betterment of themselves and their family.”
Awareness of KiwiSaver was an important outcome. Before Money Confidence, Brett realised some staff hadn’t opted in to KiwiSaver. It wasn’t because they didn’t want to but weren’t aware of or felt intimidated by the retirement savings scheme.
Upskills Facilitator Julz Tagaloa used vision boards as an activity to identify values and set money related goals, and this was very powerful learning tool. For one participant, this meant saving up spending money so that her and her husband could have a stress-free holiday in Fiji. For Julz, the win was 15 Loft learners who walked away with stronger knowledge and understanding of how to plan for their financial futures.
They were able to explore their KiwiSaver options, compare providers, and see the benefits of adjusting their contribution rates
says Julz. “A few learners were so motivated that they took contribution change forms to action straight away, which was a great outcome of the programme.” Brett too was impressed with the way the boards were presented at the final graduation. “It was a great way for them to work things through, think about money related things and the impact. So it’s had real meaning for them, which I guess that’s what you want at the end of the day. So it wasn’t just turning up to tick boxes.”
The Why
For Brett and the Loft Food Co management, it comes back to looking after your people through wellbeing and learning:
I think if a company’s genuinely committed to their staff and helping them out then this is a great option. I really believe that the more sorted your employees are outside of work you’re going to end up happier and more constructive worker.
The research backs up Brett’s thinking on this issue. Aotearoa New Zealand surveys from the Te Ara Ahunga Ora/Retirement Commission indicate that 46% of employees worried about their finances. 86% of employers reported that money worries interfered with their employees’ productivity.
Read more
About how you can Upskill your Pacific Workforce
About our Becoming Money Confident Programme
