Your questions, answered clearly

Aetas Workplace is a financial wellbeing consultancy for UK employers, including SMEs, LLPs and professional practices. We help organisations improve their return on investment in people (ROEI) through a financial wellbeing programme with three parts: a benefits review, employee financial education, and ongoing support.

Every engagement begins with a no-cost Workplace Review that identifies whether financial pressure is affecting performance and where the opportunity is largest. Nothing is introduced without one. Rather than applying a template, we build each programme around the findings of the Review.

EAPs and benefits platforms are reactive, generic, and designed for large corporate employers. They rely on self-service content and low-touch delivery. Uptake is typically below five percent and commercial impact is difficult to measure.

Aetas Workplace is different in three ways. Scope: we work across leadership, wellbeing, benefits, culture, technology and commercial improvement, not just one dimension. Method: every engagement begins with a Workplace Review specific to your organisation before any recommendation is made. Delivery: Aetas manages implementation on your behalf throughout.

Many clients retain an EAP alongside the programme. They serve different purposes. What Aetas Workplace adds is strategy, depth, and measurable commercial impact.

Aetas Workplace works with UK organisations of between 10 and 250 employees, the range where performance improvement has the greatest individual impact and where most corporate consultancy models do not translate.

In a smaller organisation, one underperforming or disengaged person represents a meaningful share of total output. The commercial case for getting it right is strong. Most off-the-shelf solutions were built for HR departments in organisations of 1,000 people or more; the assumptions they make do not hold in a business of 40 or 80 or 150.

If you have fewer than 10 employees, we would still welcome a conversation, particularly where the engagement would centre on leadership, commercial improvement or financial planning for founders and directors.

Most SMEs are competing on margin, talent and speed. The organisations that will perform best over the next decade are those that build higher-performing teams, adopt technology earlier, and develop leaders capable of scaling the business.

The cost of not investing in performance is visible in staff turnover, management time absorbed by people issues, underutilised benefits spend, and commercial opportunities missed. The Workplace Review exists to surface that cost clearly, before any investment is recommended.

ROEI is Return on Employee Investment, the commercial return your organisation generates from its total investment in people. That includes salary, pension, benefits, recruitment, training, leadership development, wellbeing and management time.

Most organisations have never calculated it, which means they have no benchmark for whether their investment in people is performing. The Workplace Review surfaces that picture for the first time and identifies where the greatest improvement opportunity sits.

Yes. Our core programme is financial wellbeing, but the Workplace Review looks at the whole picture. Where something such as leadership capability is affecting performance, Aetas Workplace can introduce specialist support through its partner network.

The approach is always commercially grounded: every recommendation comes with a rationale and an expected outcome, not just a training catalogue.

Technology adoption, particularly AI, is increasingly a meaningful performance driver for SMEs. Where the Workplace Review identifies technology as a lever for commercial improvement, Aetas Workplace can provide initial guidance and introduce specialist partners through the Competitive Edge network.

This is not an IT consultancy service. It is a commercially-led assessment of where technology can improve organisational output, reduce overhead, and create competitive advantage, and a warm introduction to the right people to deliver it.

Some returns are immediate. Pension and benefits reviews regularly identify cost savings in the first three months. Leadership and culture improvements build over six to eighteen months as engagement, retention and commercial performance indicators move. Across most engagements the programme fee is offset within the first year by the savings and improvements identified in the Review.

Per-employee, agreed in writing before any work begins. No flat corporate minimums. The Workplace Review is always provided at no cost, regardless of whether further work follows.

Indicative rates for the full programme range from £140 to £165 per employee per year depending on headcount band. Individual pillars (Clarity, Confidence, Stability) can be engaged separately at lower individual rates. Exact figures are confirmed in writing alongside the savings identified in the Review, so you see the net position before deciding.

A no-cost diagnostic conducted across four short stages: an initial conversation, a discovery meeting, an options meeting, and a written proposal. It identifies where the greatest performance gaps sit in your organisation, across leadership, wellbeing, benefits, culture, technology and commercial improvement, and what addressing them is likely worth.

A written summary is provided that you can take to your senior team or board. No commitment is invited until the proposal stage, and many engagements end there with a clearer picture and no further work needed.

The initial programme runs for twelve months. Annual renewal is reviewed and agreed at the end of each term, with scope adjustments up or down based on what has been delivered and what your organisation needs next.

No. Aetas Workplace is a consultancy service. Where regulated financial advice is genuinely needed, this is provided separately by Aetas Wealth (a trading style of Insight Financial Associates Ltd, FCA registration 458421). Employer fees are entirely separate from any individual advice fees, and no Aetas team member is incentivised on product placement.

Aetas coordinates and drafts all employee communications, in your branding and tone, for you to approve before they go out. We handle the announcement, the workshop invitations, the follow-ups, and the access details for one-to-one guidance. The leadership team retains full visibility and final approval, but the operational load sits with us.

Always. Workshops are invitation-based with strong encouragement to attend. One-to-one guidance is opt-in by the employee. We track engagement at an aggregate level and report this back to leadership, but individual participation data is never shared. Confidentiality is core to the work.

Where regulated advice is appropriate, employees can access an FCA-regulated financial planner through Aetas Wealth as a workplace benefit. The introduction is made through the programme but the regulated engagement sits separately and confidentially with the adviser. This is a meaningful differentiator from EAPs and benefits platforms, which cannot provide regulated advice.

Book a Workplace Review through the link in our nav, or take the eight-minute employer diagnostic for a quick picture first. Either route is free and carries no obligation. The Review runs across four short stages from initial conversation to written proposal, and most clients reach the proposal stage within four to six weeks.

Matthew Steiner leads every Workplace Review and most of the consultancy work directly. Workshops and one-to-one financial guidance are delivered by Daniel Cottam (Financial Planner) and Peter Rose APFS (Chartered Financial Planner, Pension Specialist). Where the performance opportunity requires specialist expertise beyond the core team, in leadership, technology, HR, legal or commercial strategy, this is arranged through the Competitive Edge partner network with your approval.

Across three categories: commercial outcomes (pension and benefits savings, recruitment cost reduction, productivity improvement); workforce outcomes (engagement, retention, absence); and leadership and culture indicators. Reporting cadence is agreed at the outset. The starting point is always the baseline established in the Workplace Review, so improvement is measured against your specific organisation, not a generic benchmark.