About Five Guys
Five Guys is one of the UK's leading restaurant brands, employing thousands of frontline employees across restaurants nationwide.
As part of its people-first culture, the business continually invests in employee wellbeing, recognising the link between employee experience, engagement and business performance. When reviewing its wellbeing strategy, Five Guys identified financial wellbeing as an area where employees needed greater support.
Why did Five guys need Stream?
Like many employers, Five Guys had invested heavily in mental health and wellbeing support. However, the team recognised that financial wellbeing was becoming an increasingly important challenge for employees.
Rising living costs, financial pressures and requests for pay advances highlighted a growing need for support, particularly across a large frontline workforce. The business wanted to help employees feel more in control of their finances, reduce financial stress and provide practical tools that could support long-term financial wellbeing.
"We've learned so much over the past few years around financial wellbeing underpinning mental health. Most businesses look at wellbeing from a mental health perspective, but actually financial wellbeing underpins your mental health."
What challenges did Stream solve?
Initially exploring Stream as a way to provide employees with greater flexibility around pay, Five Guys quickly realised the platform offered much more than earned wage access.
What stood out was Stream's ability to bring savings, budgeting, financial education, discounts and flexible pay together in one place, giving employees access to a complete financial wellbeing platform.
The team saw Stream as an opportunity to support employees at every stage of their financial journey, whether they were building savings, managing day-to-day finances or looking for greater control over their money.
"It's a really one-stop shop for all things financial wellbeing for us. People can see their money, access discounts, manage savings and find everything in one place. That's definitely really helpful. It was just that feeling in control of your own money. That was a really big one for us."
What measurable outcomes were achieved?
One of the highest adoption rates in hospitality
Five Guys achieved one of the strongest launches seen across the hospitality sector, reaching around 40% adoption within eight days and outperforming hospitality benchmarks throughout the launch period.
Today, adoption has grown to 77.5%, with more than 3,300 employees enrolled and over 2,200 actively using the platform.
What was the business impact?
- Building stronger financial habits
Employee engagement quickly extended beyond Flexible Pay, with strong adoption of savings and budgeting tools.
Five Guys was particularly encouraged by the number of employees building savings through the platform, many of whom may never have saved regularly before.
"I was really surprised, but so proud that people were using it for that savings pot. Those are people that may not have even had a savings pot before. Every month the savings pot number increases. It's brilliant. If that doesn't scream success, I don't know what does."聽
- Reducing pressure on payroll and people teams
Before Stream, employees would regularly approach managers and payroll teams for pay advances and financial support. By giving employees direct access to flexible pay and financial wellbeing tools, Five Guys has reduced reliance on manual processes and enabled employees to access support independently.
"We're not seeing people come directly to us for that support anymore. People are using it as a self-help thing within the app."
- Providing safe access to financial support
Five Guys sees responsible lending as an important part of a wider financial wellbeing strategy. Rather than employees turning to high-cost borrowing, Stream gives eligible employees access to loans within a platform designed to support long-term financial wellbeing.
"If somebody needs a loan, they're going to find one. We'd much rather they access that support through Stream than turn to high-cost alternatives. People are often quick to judge borrowing, but we're in a world where people have phones on finance, cars on finance and all sorts of things on finance. The important thing is that employees can access financial support safely, responsibly and through a platform we trust."
- Financial wellbeing supporting business performance
One of the most important lessons for Five Guys has been the relationship between employee wellbeing and business performance. The business consistently sees its strongest wellbeing scores coming from its highest-performing locations, reinforcing the importance of investing in employee wellbeing.
"In our annual employee survey, the stores rated highest for sense of overall wellbeing, are usually the stores that are at the top of our scorecard. There's a direct correlation between wellbeing and performance."
For Five Guys, financial wellbeing is no longer viewed as a standalone benefit. It's a core part of creating a more engaged, supported and productive workforce.
See Stream in action A 30-minute walkthrough, tailored to your workforce.Book a demo
