New research findings show that providing financial wellness training and tools was expected to be a key workplace trend for 2017. Forty nine percent of employers offer some type of financial advice - which included providing resource materials or referrals; online assessment; advice tools; group instruction and one-on-one advice with a financial counselor.
The Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) 2017 Employee Benefits survey report - based on a survey of SHRM members conducted earlier this year - found that more organizations are offering financial advice compared to 2016 and to five years ago.
SHRM researcher Tanya Mulvey, the survey project leader said, “"This benefit can help employees improve their financial management skills, plan how to manage debt, and hopefully alleviate stress and worry as a result."
Carla Dearing, CEO of SUM180, an online financial wellness service in Louisville, Kentucky, stated, "We are seeing a big jump in the number of companies saying they intend to offer financial wellness support to their employees," She added, "For those employers that 'get it right,' financial wellness has tremendous potential to drive engagement and retention."
“For one company, financial wellness may be managing day-to-day finances," Carla Dearing said. "For another, it may be providing employees with a comprehensive financial plan that includes tax strategy and estate planning." She then advised that a three point action plan should be followed to “cut through the confusion”. This would incorporate defining financial wellness, reviewing current offerings and determining financial wellness goals.
A recent survey by financial services firm Charles Schwab shows that fifty-nine percent of U.S. and Canadian corporate executives say the best way to structure financial wellness programs is to integrate the offering with the rest of the employee benefits package. When discussing the fact that 37% of employers expressed concern over the potential cost of implementing a financial wellness program, Nate Bidner - managing director of workplace financial solutions at Schwab - said, “.......many of the features typically overlap with those already used by employers." He went on to say, “Today's 401(k) and equity compensation plans are already structured to arm participants with knowledge and encourage active engagement, and as such, these plans may be leveraged to build a financial wellness program without adding cost or significant resource demands. Implementing a financial wellness program doesn't need to be disruptive to existing benefits and compensation programs - it should complement them," and added. "Current programs should be evaluated for their effectiveness in meeting the challenges, whether simple or complex, that employees face. Employers can then incorporate additional elements to help educate employees and enable them to make better use of company offerings."
Other research also shows why these benefits are needed - PricewaterhouseCooper's (PwC's) 2016 Employee Financial Wellness Survey, with responses from 1,600 full-time employees, showed that 52% of workers overall are stressed about their finances - and the younger the worker, the more likely they are to be worried; 46 percent of workers spend three or more hours during the workweek dealing with or thinking about financial issues and 45 percent said their finance-related stress had increased over the last 12 months.
Andrew Brickman - Wayne, Pa. based director of benefits administration at consultancy Corporate Synergies - noted that PwC's survey found that 14% of employers had a budget for financial education and another 25 percent were looking to add budget dollars for these programs. He said, "But as with health and wellness programs, it can be daunting to encourage upper management to allocate dollars for financial education and support programs and then motivate employees to participate once executives give the nod." He added, "How well your plan is designed can impact employee participation."
Andrew Brickman noted that as with most benefits programs, "an effective financial wellness program won't be one-size-fits-all and will depend heavily on the resources made available to it."
