When I ask people, “What comes to mind when you think about wellness at work?”, typically they talk about traditional employee benefits — health insurance, employee assistance programs and ensuring healthy snacks in the vending machine.
These are important benefits, to be sure, but employers should also take stock of employees’ financial wellness — employees’ ability to make confident choices so they avoid financial stress today and provide for secure financial futures tomorrow.
For employers, the lesson is employees’ financial stress can’t always be cured with a regular paycheck. The other important lesson is understanding that employees’ financial stress impacts their personal well-being and their workplace contributions.
Here are some sobering findings from the 2018 PwC “Employee Financial Wellness Survey”:
• Regardless of age — millennials, Gen X and baby boomers — financial challenges and money matters create the most stress in employees' lives.
• Despite a steadily improving economy and strong job market, nearly half (47 percent) of employees report they are stressed dealing with their financial situation and 41 percent say their stress level related to financial issues increased over the past 12 months.
• Employees who are stressed about their finances are in worse financial shape compared with employees who are not stressed about their finances. For example, 37 percent of those feeling financial stress struggle to make minimum credit card payments each month, compared with 6 percent of employees not coping with financial stress.
• Research shows employees at times resort to taking time off to deal with financial concerns. At times, the stress will cause employees to call in sick. Other times employees are present at work, but their attention is focused on resolving their financial problems. Willis Towers Watson research showed employees with financial worries lost 12.4 days to “presenteeism” — being present but significantly distracted — nearly four times the days lost to actual absences.
Workplace financial wellness programs are one solution to this ongoing problem. Employers considering a financial wellness program should look for the following services:
• Onsite sessions where employees can learn about financial wellness and best practices for understanding their personal finances and how to take control of their finances.
• Online resources so employees can track their spending, set budgets and document their progress.
• Personalized advice that is tailored to employees’ individual financial concerns, from getting out of the destructive payday loan cycle and understanding the home buying process to the benefit of workplace retirement accounts to employees preparing to retire.
• Banking products that support financial wellness.
Research shows workplace financial wellness programs make a difference. PwC reports 65 percent of employees who have workplace financial wellness programs tap those programs to get spending under control, prepare for retirement and pay off debt.
I can personally attest to how a worksite can make a tangible difference for employees: After a recent session, we were able to help four employees start the homebuying process because they learned their down payments could be less expensive than they thought.
Workplace financial wellness programs also let employers demonstrate how much they value their employees, providing real-life and tangible support that helps employees make confident financial choices.
We know how much managers care about their teams. We know business owners consider their employees their most important asset. And they know that in a tightening labor market, workplace financial wellness programs can help retain valued employees and attract high-quality new talent, so their business can remain competitive.
Terry Grant is president of KeyBank’s Utah market.