How to Get Empowering Employee Financial Education for Your Teams in South Africa

Financial inclusion, accessible information and why your team(s) need it – here’s how to get high-quality, accessible employee financial education in SA for free via WhatsApp

How to Get Empowering Employee Financial Education for Your Teams in South Africa

Want to empower your employees to budget better, manage debt and thrive in South Africa?

For a few years now, Jem HR has been helping SA companies digitise their HR and payroll to save time and money on payslip distribution, streamline employee communications, manage work with timesheets and rosters and even help employees manage debt better with earned wage access.

But did you know that all of our vital HR products come with 100% free employee financial education modules that your team(s) can access anytime, anywhere via their mobile phones?

We all need to do our part to promote financial inclusion in our country, and this unique initiative by Jem is a way of giving every SA employer a chance to offer their employees quality, easily accessible and 24/7 access to financial education via WhatsApp.

Here’s what you need to know.

South Africa Desperately Needs to Educate Working People on Managing Finances

Suppose you’ve seen our features on how financial stress impacts productivity and the role of products like earned wage access in promoting financial inclusion in South Africa. In that case, you might already be aware that an estimated 40% of South African households are caught in debt traps where they owe payday lenders and loan sharks as much as 62% of their monthly income (some even owe much more than they earn), due to unscrupulous credit agreements with staggering 50%-plus interest rates.

Research shows that this is due to financial pressure (inflation and constant rising prices) and a large portion of the population simply needs to understand how debt, interest and repayments work.

In ongoing studies, the Reserve Bank found in 2024 that nearly 20% of South African adults are unbanked or unbankable (a staggering 8 million people), throwing up warning signs that a very large portion of the employed population likely lacks financial literacy.

As a country, for our economic growth, we need to educate South African adults about finances and financial instruments, so Jem developed a free (no extra cost to employer or employee) financial education service for any company making use of Jem’s services.

Here’s how it works.

About Jem’s Free Employee Financial Education Feature

One of our big innovations at Jem is digitising the payroll and company communications processes. We found that many South African companies still hand-delivered payslips, used printed paper for communications or even tried to use internet-based channels like email when most of their workforce didn’t even have email accounts.

We did lots of research and found that the one thing almost everyone in SA has (around 95% of adults) is WhatsApp on their phones. And so, we developed a system that allows companies to send payslips, manage payroll queries, earned wage access benefits – virtually everything you can think of, via WhatsApp.

It worked so well that it has saved numerous SA companies millions of rands. It also led our cofounder and Chief Product Officer, Caroline van der Merwe, to spearhead a campaign to use the same channel to deliver valuable financial education to employees.

How Jem’s Financial Education Feature Works

If you make use of any of Jem’s digitised HR & payroll services, all your employees get instant and 24/7 access to financial education. Here’s how they access the tool.

• They simply send a message to Jem’s dedicated WhatsApp number.

• They select the “Financial Education” option.

•  The system guides them through four modules on Jem’s financial learning portal.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • They can select any of four languages – Zulu, Afrikaans, English or Xhosa.
    
  • They work through 4 modules – Budgeting, Debt Management, Business Skills and Saving.
    
    
  
  

• Each module has a little menu, with numerous topics to learn (course outlines below).

• Each lesson is a series of audio files that present information in a tangible, relatable narrative format – we help teach with little stories and examples so that everyone can understand.
  
  
  

It’s also fully interactive. Each lesson is presented, and then your employee gets to respond and engage with the system, to help them learn at their own pace.

And, since it’s all automated and via WhatsApp, it’s secure, their privacy is protected and it’s available 24/7, allowing your employees to engage and learn any time of the day or night, at their leisure.

What’s more, they can repeat lessons as often as they like, helping foster deep learning and understanding.

What’s Included in the Free Financial Education Feature

Language Options

• Zulu
• Afrikaans
• English
• Xhosa
  
  

The Course Outline

Module 1: Budgeting

Helpful anecdotal lessons on why it's important to budget and how to budget and prioritise expenses based on income.

Included in the Budgeting course:

• Paying off Debt
• Learning to Save
• Understanding a Payslip
• Gross and Net Pay Explained

Module 2: Debt Management

A series of 10-minute anecdotal lessons on different types of debt and schemes to avoid, as well as alternative ways to access funds, save and budget better.

Included in the Debt Management course:

• Exploring Debt Traps (and how to avoid them!)
• Understanding Money Schemes (and making better money choices)

Module 3: Business Skills

An in-depth, anecdotal series of 10-minute lessons on basic business terms, skills and tools to help employees learn to think in business terms.

Included in the Business Skills course:

• Identifying your Skills
• Identifying Resources
• Generating Business Ideas
• Managing Cash Flow
• Making Good Financial Decisions
• Setting Financial Goals
• Proper Financial Planning
• Understanding Profit & Deductions
• Products VS Services

Module 4: Saving

Helpful 10-minute anecdotal lessons covering basic baking terms and services, specifically to help teach the fundamentals of saving and using financial instruments to improve your financial standing.

Included in the Saving course:

• Savings & Advances
• Saving & Interest Rates
• Inflation & Interest
• Opening a Bank Account

Each lesson is fully interactive, takes about 10 minutes to complete and be repeated as many times as the employee wants, 24/7.

See Jem’s impact at real SA companies.

How to Get Employee Financial Education for Your Teams Today

Jem’s employee financial learning portal is available to all employees of employers making use of Jem’s services, 24/7 and conveniently via their phones on WhatsApp.

To get your employees access, contact Jem here.