Imagine coming into work terrified about the state of your finances. You’re worried not only about the state of your current account, but how much is in your savings. You can’t see a future where you achieve your dreams and goals, and don’t even start on when you might be able to retire.
Now imagine that the person terrified isn’t you: it’s one of the business’ employees. Maybe someone you have overall responsibility for, someone who just ‘comes through’ your office from time to time, or an absolute lynchpin of the firm.
With this feeling, the individual probably isn’t performing for the business at their peak every day. In fact, that could be an understatement and the chance that this person could be in your firm is high as evidence suggest that 8.2 million UK adults suffer with financial worries.
So, what can you do about it? After all, some financial matters are very private and the business may not be able to solve each and every worry.
There are good starting points that you can initiate throughout the year: not just at annual review time. Starting these conversations doesn’t just help with employee sentiment, engagement and productivity; it can also help with retention and engagement with pre-existing investments, such as your pension policy.
In fact, pensions are a good place to start. Increasing employee understanding around pensions, and how a little can make a big difference in the long run is a positive conversation to have. But don’t just have it once and forget about it. Plan out engagement and education sessions with your staff which fit with your unique employee demographics. If your workforce skews older, talk about the huge difference pension contributions between the ages of 50-65 can make, and the flexibilities that are available to employees when they come to take money from their savings. If your workforce skews younger, talk about the benefits of starting saving early.
After that discussion, think about how you’re going to bring it up again during the year. Employees are more open to these discussions at times when they’re making similar plans anyway; just after New Year or around their birthday. If they receive a pay review then discuss with them reviewing contributions. Think wider than this too. If pensions are in the news then employees will value input, and potentially be willing to change their approach.
A proactive and continuous financial well-being strategy can be inexpensive, highly beneficial and cost effective next to existing efforts. And just consider the difference you’ll be making to the team if you can limit the days when they come into work worried financially.
At Creative Employee Benefits we work with many of our corporate clients to deliver Financial Education sessions for their staff on a range of ‘relevant’ topics, working together to identify topics and appropriate timelines to deliver such sessions. If you feel that you and your employees would benefit from the delivery of engagement and education sessions on any ‘financial planning’ topics then please call your normal Creative consultant, or contact us by email at info@creativeeb.co.uk.
Sources:
https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/corporate/one-in-six-adults-struggling-with-debt-worries