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Do you have an employee who seems distracted or not fully engaged in their tasks? They always seem to have their thoughts on something other than work. If so, do you realize that this kind of behavior can be affecting you bottom line? A recent study shows that 30% of your workforce may be distracted, most likely due to personal financial issues. This might not come as a surprise to you. Most employers know that their teams are struggling with making good financial decisions. So, what should be done about this? Have you considered implementing a Financial Wellness Education program into your company?
What is Financial Well-Being?
Let’s take a step back and review what it means to have financial well-being. For an employee, they need to have 4 ingredients present in their life.
- Having control over the day to day, month to month finances
- Having the capacity to absorb a financial shock
- Being on track to meet financial goals
- Having financial freedom to make choice that allow one to enjoy life
Well, it’s pretty reasonable to suggest that while the ingredients to financial wellness are fairly basic, they are not considered to be common. Can you imagine if an employee had financial well-being present in their life, how engaged they would be? They would be working at maximum productivity. Isn’t the goal for any company to have their team working at this level? By offering a Financial Wellness Program within your organization you would give your employees the insight and direction they need to make better decisions in their personal life and in turn be more focused at work.
What is a Financial Wellness Program?
This is a strategy that can be put in place to better prepare your staff and help them have a better understanding on how their personal finances work, as well as helping them prepare for retirement, and reach their financial goals. What I would call the Triple A approach by giving them: Access, Awareness, and Assistance.
Access
When giving Access, you have probably already done some of this by providing the core benefits like offering health insurance, 401k, or maybe even a group life and disability insurance. If you have this in place, good job. There are also extended benefits you could offer to your employees that are voluntary and they pay for, but it is at no additional cost to the company.
Awareness
Awareness comes with the offer of financial education, which will consist of lunch and learns and other group learning opportunities. Then adding online tools and resources for them to do their own research and self-study. This will equip them with valuable information to assist them in getting out of their circumstances.
Assistance
Finally, we have Assistance. This is having a professional come in and sit down with the individuals of the team and offer them personal and professional advice to help them reach their goals. With this personal touch added to the picture, it will give a well-rounded and effective approach to having you employees in a good healthy state of mind when they arrive to work.
Putting a program like this in place is a team effort. One that will require your commitment to your team and also having partnered with financial professionals to assist in the more advanced steps of the implementation process. If this is something you think your team needs or has at least created some questions for you, feel free to reach out to me, I’d be happy to offer more in-depth discussion on this and how it might relate to you.
Have a question for Leonard? Connect with him or leave a comment down below.
This article originally published on GREY Journal.
