Assemble Housing Financial Coaching Service Design

Assemble is a property development and management company focused on delivering projects where good design, community and sustainability go hand in hand. Assemble offers a new pathway to homeownership – bridging the gap between renting and owning your home.

I led a project at Paper Giant with Assemble to design their new financial coaching service.

Project Team: Reuben Stanton, Emma Blomkamp, Kasia Pawlikowski

Client: Assemble

Assemble’s promise to residents in their rent-to-own program includes complimentary financial coaching to help them save towards a deposit on their own home.

Assemble weren’t sure what shape this financial coaching should take. It was important to them that it be genuinely helpful to their customers, so they engaged Paper Giant to find out what their customers wanted, what they would actually engage with, and what would help them on their pathway to homeownership.

We interviewed fifteen future residents of one of Assemble’s first communities, along with financial coaches and expert stakeholders. We worked with them to develop a proposed model, that we then developed was tested further with financial coaches and expert stakeholders.

The model consists of seven learning modules and includes a variety of tools, sessions and guidance. Residents can select and apply those that work for them, when and how they want. The service shapes itself around residents, rather than forcing residents to fit the service.

The subject of money and finances can often have hidden emotional weight and complexity, and the purchase of something as expensive as a home, even more so. Each of our proposed learning modules is accompanied by psychological, emotional and behavioural insights into Assemble customers.

The implementation strategy includes recommendations for how to best space out training so as not to overwhelm customers with too much information at once.

Paper Giant provided recommendations for effectively evaluating the coaching service to make sure it is engaging customers and helping them reach their goals. This includes performance targets, review dates, and key indicators to track. The coaching service will be responsive to feedback and stay relevant to customers throughout the long duration of their relationship with Assemble.

Assemble employees are now using the framework as a ‘playbook’ to know how and when to engage with their residents who are saving for a deposit and building financial wellbeing while enjoying life in their new home.