It’s no secret that when we’re stressed, our ability to concentrate and be effective at work is likely to be impaired and  financial worries are invariably a big part of this. Money is a daily concern for 16% of adults in the UK, according to a Money and Pensions Service survey, with nearly half the adult population saying they had worried about money once a week or more in the previous month1.  This is only set to intensify as the cost of fuel, power and consumables continues its fast pace of inflation.

Most of us are affected by financial stress and other worries at some point in our lives, undermining our ability to concentrate and do our jobs properly (and sometimes keeping us from work altogether).  In the wake of a pandemic and the subsequent inflationary hikes in the day to day cost of living that has had a big impact on people’s mental health, and HRO believes employers have a golden opportunity to support employees with their financial wellbeing.

There are various ways of doing this, often inexpensive and include, optimising the cost efficiency of benefits such as pension or taxable benefits, facilitating discussions, holding workshops, distributing timely information and providing access to one-to-one guidance.  Check out 5 of my top ideas below:

Top tips for supporting financial wellbeing at your workplace

1. Raise awareness of financial wellbeing

This includes aspects of education, such as explaining financial terminology, and facilitating conversations that can help employees to understand the nature of financial stress and how it might be affecting them.  For instance, having a Financial Advisor come into your workplace to run a financial-wellbeing workshop might help them pinpoint if  finance is the main cause of their stress and what the root of this might be and how to address it.

Financial wellbeing resources are also often a feature of wellbeing platforms such as the inexpensive reward gateway

There are also a number of other fantastic companies out there like Bipptit who offer employees their own financial coach which can be offered as part of an employee benefits package.

HRO is supporting the National Wellness Conversation, which works with organisations to encourage their people to talk more openly about their finances and enable them to tackle concerns, thereby reducing stress levels.

2. Optimise your Benefit Offering

Helping your employees money to go further is something many employer can help with and often at no or minimal cost.  Our top suggestions include:

  • setting your company pension up on a salary sacrifice basis so that employees save on NICs as well as Income tax on the money they put into their pension.  Further, the employer saves ER NICs too which could be put towards funding other benefits, such as:
  • Reward and recognition platforms such as Reward Gateway for Small Businesses or Perkbox enable employees to benefit from discounts and savings at over 700 retailers including on everyday items such as grocery shopping, mobile phones and insurance.  Employee can save 5% for example on every single weekly grocery shop, helping combat the recent price inflation.  These can cost as little as £3 per employee per month and come with your own branded platform.
  • If you provide travel insurance for your employees for business trips, for very minimal extra cost this can be extended to cover personal trips too which might save your employees around £100 a year.
  • Facilitate car pooling to help employees get to remote workplaces and save on fuel costs.
  • Introduce a cycle to work benefit
  • Secure a group policy for life insurance or income protection – this can save employees a lot of money on securing the policy independently, doesn’t require any medical underwriting for them and gives financial security for their loved ones.

3.  Launch Appreciation Schemes and/or Peer to Peer Giving

Some companies have even started peer-to-peer giving programs to help their employees in times of need. This is a great way for managers and HR alike to show support, as well as give back to those who work hard every day. It can be fairly inexpensive to for example, load employees up with £25 a quarter that they can pledge to a colleague who has gone the extra mile to help them, or to demonstrate the company values.

Why not also launch a company recognition scheme where employees can receive a voucher or gift directly from the company, and a noticeboard to host and share achievements.

4. Communicate clearly

Explaining the various financial rewards and schemes you offer in a clear, accessible way can make employees more likely to engage with them and benefit from their value – its a sad reality that may businesses I work with have benefits they are paying for but which are totally overlooked and underutilised due to a lack of promotion.  Arrange specific sessions about those rewards and help employees understand the packages that are financially linked, such as health insurance, protection insurance and discounts with local firms.

Any information should be communicated on a timely basis and resources added to intranet or noticeboards as regular prompts.

5. Benchmark regularly

It is important that staff are compensated fairly relative to eachother, and wherever possible, in line with market rates, or you will risk losing your best talent who seek better financial compensation.   The value of different components of the package can differ greatly depending on the employer so it is important that your benchmarking considers all aspects of remuneration to ensure it gives an accurate reflection of the take-home package.

Overall, salary benchmarking gives an impartial and accurate idea of pay information to help businesses make informed and effective remuneration decisions, while at the same time accounting for variations that need to be considered.  By being open and transparent about your benchmarking, you also give your employees more financial certainty and reduce the anxiety caused when people feel reward determinations are simply arbitrary.

 

If you would like help boosting financial well-being within your organisation please get in touch, we are happy to help.

 

Sources

1 Money and Pensions Service; ‘Shame, upbringing and burdening others: why 29m UK adults don’t feel comfortable talking about money despite being worried about it’. November 2020. Sample size: 5,200 UK adults.