Improving financial confidence for 280,000+ PepsiCo employees worldwide

• ‍Established: 1965  ‍
• Industry: FMCG
• ‍No. of employees: 318,000+
• ‍Countries operated in: 60+

The challenge

As part of their commitment to global workforce support, PepsiCo set out to build and support long-term financial health for everyone who works there. Outside the U.S., though, provision was uneven. Some markets had strong support, others had very little, and a few had nothing at all. The goal was a single, consistent experience for every employee, wherever they sit.

PepsiCo's complex workforce spans frontline, salaried, and management roles across dozens of countries, each with different financial systems, languages, and benefits. Many frontline employees have no company email or network access, so reaching them at all calls for a different approach.

The business case drew on external pressures, including the cost-of-living squeeze, and on employee survey feedback. Money management came through as a leading source of stress worldwide. Retirement readiness was a separate concern in markets where people can borrow against or withdraw from their savings. PepsiCo also wanted to lift financial confidence for employees, their families, and the communities around them.

The solution

Built on impartial, personalized guidance

PepsiCo chose nudge, a financial health platform, to deliver a globally consistent program powered by impartial, personalized financial guidance, localized to each market and free of product or provider bias.

Together, PepsiCo and nudge created Healthy Money, a financial health program live since October 2023, with five aims:

• Build employees' financial confidence, resilience, and overall wellbeing
• Improve understanding and appreciation of PepsiCo benefits
• Use analytics and insights to drive personalization
• Improve the digital experience, connecting the wider benefits and wellbeing ecosystem
• Expand Healthy Money globally with a consistent, best-in-class offer

A global-first launch

PepsiCo and nudge took Healthy Money to a global workforce through an omni-channel approach:

• Centrally created multimedia and promotional toolkits equipped regional HR and communications leads, ready to activate in local languages.
• A dedicated web page and QR codes let frontline employees log in without being on a company site or network.
• Where frontline workers had no company email, PepsiCo used personal emails captured through benefits administration to extend reach.
• Financial and prize incentives encouraged people to register and complete the financial health checkup, from sweepstakes entries to wellbeing dollars redeemable as gift cards.
• Regional reward teams attended on-site benefit fairs in selected countries, and nudge promoted wider benefits around key moments, including National 401(k) Day and World Mental Health Day.

Local in every market

Across PepsiCo's 60+ markets, impartial financial guidance is created by regional financial experts and local writers who understand each market's actual rules and systems, not just its language.

The same principle applies at the state level in the U.S., where retirement, tax, and benefits rules vary meaningfully from one place to the next.

Reaching everyone

A core aim was making sure frontline workers saw Healthy Money as built for them, not just for management. PepsiCo and nudge:

• Sent print home-mailers, recognizing that the person managing household finances might not be the employee.
• Connected financial guidance to other benefits, launching phase one during World Mental Health Week alongside EAP resources.
• Produced an energetic, reggaeton-style jingle and short video to introduce nudge across LATAM markets in Spanish.
• Led on the platform's dual-language functionality for the large group of U.S. frontline employees who speak Spanish as their first language, an approach PepsiCo leadership praised as inclusive and frontline-centric.
• Bought impartial financial guidance on-site, visiting manufacturing plants to support employees away from a desk.

"We use a lot of the different channels that are available to us and sometimes we need to get very creative… We do quite a bit of listening and surveys to give us an education into the channels that specific cohorts would prefer." Barry O'Brien, Senior Director, Global Retirement and Financial Wellbeing, PepsiCo

Impartial financial guidance also extended to one-on-one support. In the U.S., Healthy Money coaches give employees direct, confidential help, and key retirement information now sits on the platform itself.

Through the PepsiCo Foundation Family Scholars Program, support reaches further still, helping the children and families of employees with the cost of higher education.

The results

Employee impact

• 60+ countries reached, covering more than 95% of the global workforce
• 98% of employees get guidance localized to their country and language
• 3 in 4 active users come back three or more times
• 26% of employees made contribution changes to their retirement plan in the U.S.
• +10 points average rise in financial health for frontline employees (+8 point rise across the workforce overall)

Employer impact

• $2.9 million into retirement savings through salary sacrifice in one market, up 10% year over year
• $470,000 in payroll-tax savings, with contributions up around $270,000 year over year

The impartial financial guidance is translated into action. In the U.S., 26% of employees reached by the National 401(k) Day campaign went on to increase their contributions. Salary sacrifice arrangements directed around $2.9 million into retirement savings over the year, up roughly $270,000 from the year before, with about $470,000 in payroll tax savings.

Those actions sit on top of a broader lift in financial health: scores rose from 56 to 64, ahead of the cross-client average of 58, with frontline employees showing the biggest gain of any group.