How to Help Employees with Financial Wellness

Is Financial Education Part of Your Inclusion Efforts?

When your organization thinks about diversity and inclusion is financial education on your radar? Here are the facts… most likely, your organization includes employees from every (financial) walk of life. There are the high earners, and the lower earners, the budgeting gurus and those that believe in living every day like it is their last.

There is no way of knowing which financial part of life your employees are in. You cannot tell a book by its cover. You may have an employee who always has the trendiest clothes and latest iPhone, but they are living way above their means. Or you could have an employee who always brings their lunch and never takes vacations who saves every nickel and dime they make.

Most people are dealing with some sort of financial burden, whether its student loan debt, high mortgage payments, maxed out credit cards, and the list goes on. Offering financial education to your employees is one of the best ways to show inclusion because financial stress affects us all. 83% of HR professionals have reported that personal financial challenges had a large impact or some impact on overall employee performance.

In 2014, The Society for Human Resources (SHRM) did a study where they found that employees are looking for employers to help with their financial wellness. Just knowing this opens up a huge opportunity for your organization. Being able to offer financial wellness to employees is not only beneficial to them, but cost effective to you. This isn’t a benefit that breaks your own (HR) budget.

Your local credit union is a great place to start. Many credit unions offer free site visits to employer groups to help their employees navigate the financial waters. Because financial wellness looks different to everyone, having the credit union available to answer questions is so helpful.

What else can you do?

• Don’t just encourage employees to contribute to your organization’s 401K plan, educate them on WHY it’s so important.
  
• Subscribe to financial wellness blogs and forward relevant articles to employees. Maybe it’s something simple like saving money on groceries or something more complicated like contributing to a Roth IRA – whatever it may be, it will benefit someone.
  
• Provide workshops on basic financial wellness topics like budgeting, buying a home or paying off debt.