Case Study
Meta and UST create human centered Paven app to help employees achieve financial empowerment
OUR CLIENT
Meta is one of the premier social media technology companies in the world and the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and several other platforms. In 2022, the company generated more than $116 billion in revenue and employed nearly 85,500 employees.
THE CHALLENGE
Wanted to reduce financial planning stress for Meta employees
The Meta benefits team was surprised to discover that 50% of employees felt medium to high financial stress - even though they were well compensated. The team also discovered that although 90% of employees were motivated to take steps to create financial well-being, 62% felt like they did not have the guidance and knowledge to make astute decisions.
Since Meta’s benefits department prides itself on providing employees with a high degree of holistic personal attention, they viewed the issue as the next frontier of employee engagement and wellness.
THE TRANSFORMATION
Used design for happiness methodology to uncover human-centered insights for personal finance app
Meta asked the UST experience design and business transformation group for help to understand the issues surrounding employee financial well-being and devise a strategy to address the situation. Round Feather, an award-winning UST company that offers a unique combination of human-centric research and technology strategy expertise, used its Design for Happiness methodology to conduct a series of in-depth empathy sessions using metaphor elicitation and dilemma resolution to create detailed journey maps that uncovered the emotional, cultural and generational barriers to employee financial planning. After an exhaustive research effort evaluating apps, online resources and advisory services available in the personal financial industry, UST and Meta agreed nothing fit the bill to help employees with a holistic, high-engagement approach. The project team decided to build an app from scratch.
The app design team created the application using an engaging user interface and a guided approach to financial planning using friendly, informative visuals and clear, concise language. The goal was an active learning environment to help Meta employees understand different financial concepts and give them behavioral nudges to take specific actions toward financial security. The app was developed using a plug-and-play framework, so the Meta benefits team could easily integrate or extract 3rd party solutions to evolve the app to keep pace with employee needs — with the scalability to serve Meta’s vast employee base. Throughout the two-year design strategy and finance app development process, UST provided the Meta benefits department with diligent support to justify the project, secure funding, create visibility, and gain buy-in and enthusiasm from executives and leadership across the company.
The result was Paven, an easy-to-consume financial planning app that meets Meta employees where they are at any stage of life and engages them with holistic insights and guidance.
THE IMPACT
Paven quickly reached 20% user adoption
Following an extensive “surround sound” employee awareness campaign, the Meta benefits team successfully launched the Paven app in September 2020. Since the team tracked metrics from day one to understand the user experience, adoption, and engagement, they discovered that over 20% of Meta employees were using the app, with 75% repeat users. The benefits team also found that Paven created an effective bridge to other company benefits programs. The user-friendly UI/UX and behavioral nudges built into the app led employees to take specific positive actions toward personal financial empowerment, such as:
- 83% - users set financial goals in the app
- 5,000 - instances of connections to other benefits via Paven
- 30% - users made tax appointments via Paven
- 40% - financial coaching touch point leads via the app
RESOURCES
https://www.ust.com/en/evolve
https://www.ust.com/en/evolve/design
https://www.ust.com/en/industries/financial-services