The report card for employee financial well-being is in, and it’s bad. (Like you’re about-to-get-grounded bad.)
Some 66% of employees said financial stress impacts their professional and personal lives, and 83% of HR pros see this stress harming productivity, according to a recent Morgan Stanley report. Also, 90% of employees think more employer-provided financial benefits would help achieve their goals.
“Overwhelmingly, employees said that due to the current economic instability, they feel employers should be more involved in helping employees to navigate these specific financial needs,” said Rodney Bolden, executive director and head of industry engagement and learning at Morgan Stanley. “But…it’s important for employers not to think there’s going to be a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to employee benefits.”
Different groups of employees want help with various financial aspects, Bolden told HR Brew, like how older workers may want more retirement investment while younger workers could use help with emergency savings. Older millennials and Gen Xers would likely benefit from caregiving assistance funds as they simultaneously care for parents and kids, Bolden added.
“It’s important that if you’re thinking about how we’re going to tackle that engagement challenge, that burnout challenge, and the fact that employees feel that they want us to demonstrate care about them and respect them, doing that through an intentional [financial] benefit strategy,” he said.
What can HR do? People teams can start with collecting both qualitative and quantitative data about the financial health of their workforce, Bolden suggested. Whether through polls or surveys, HR pros should know which financial pressures are plaguing workers.
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“If you go to the doctor, you want to know what’s ailing you. Is he or she going to run a test or several tests? You say you want to know the financial well-being challenges of your employees…You have to start by asking the question, ‘What’s going on?’” he said. “Then, disaggregating that data across the different demographics in the workforce.”
Data collection shouldn’t stop there, Bolden added, because HR leaders need to “back up that data with qualitative information,” and ask employees and employee resource groups (ERGs) if the reported financial pressures match what they’re experiencing and hearing from other employees.
Financial well-being can also improve when companies designate “benefit ambassadors,” Bolden said, or someone who’s used a company benefit and encourages other employees to use it too. One example, he mentioned, involved a colleague of his who used a Morgan Stanley benefit that provides college coaching services. After his colleague used this benefit to help their child with college prep, they became a benefit ambassador that encourages others to use the program too.
“Employees, if they have success with a benefit, they want to talk about it,” he observed.
Another tactic for improving financial well-being, Bolden said, is providing employees with a “life savings account (LSA),” as a catch-all benefit that could touch different aspects of financial need. “It’s not specific to a particular need,” he said. “This is a vehicle for you to get payroll deductions into this LSA for you to use for…whatever financial needs.”
