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8 Ways to Empower Employees Through Financial Education

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These days, many people are dealing with stress from all kinds of personal financial concerns. This can harm workforce wellbeing — especially when people aren’t sure how to manage these issues or who they can trust for advice. That’s why organizations are increasingly offering workforce financial education.

But which strategies are most effective in helping employees develop financial literacy — especially considering that everyone has a different level of financial knowledge and experience?

We asked HR superstars to share one recommendation from their employee benefits and DEI programs. Here are 7 of the best suggestions we received:

  • Offer Resources to Help Employees Make Informed Choices
  • Host Budgeting Workshops and One-on-One Coaching
  • Think in Terms of Financial Wellness
  • Be Sensitive to an Employee’s Financial Literacy Level
  • Keep Equity in Mind When Offering Resources
  • Add More Benefits Instead of Outsourcing
  • Leverage Employee Questions and Anecdotes

To learn more about how you can make these ideas work for your organization, read the full responses below…

7 Proven Ways to Boost Employee Financial Education

1. Offer Resources to Help Employees Make Informed Choices

Financial literacy is an important life skill that can have a major impact on an individual’s overall wellbeing. Unfortunately, many employees lack the financial knowledge and resources necessary to make informed decisions about their money. As a result, they may end up making poor choices. And those choices can lead to serious financial problems down the road.

However, there are steps HR leaders can take to help employees improve their financial literacy. For example, you can offer resources to help employees make informed financial decisions. This can include access to basic financial education courses, budgeting tools, and debt management assistance. 

By tapping into these resources, employees gain the knowledge and skills they need to make better money decisions, avoid future financial difficulties, and improve their overall wellbeing.

Teresha Aird, Chief Marketing Officer and HR Lead, Offices.net

 

2. Host Budgeting Workshops or One-on-One Coaching

At our company, we offer different levels of financial education and resources. We recognize that not everyone is comfortable discussing or learning about personal finance, so we want to ensure we provide various resources that cater to different needs and preferences.

For example, we provide budgeting workshops for employees who want to get a better handle on daily money management. And for those who prefer a more personal approach, we offer one-on-one financial coaching. We also provide resources on our intranet and website for employees who want to learn more about finance-related topics on their own time. 

By offering a variety of resources that address different interests, we hope to make it easier for all of our employees to understand and take control of their finances.

Tracey Beveridge, HR Director, Personnel Checks

 

3. Think in Terms of Financial Wellness

Some organizations approach their benefits and DEI programs from a “financial wellness” perspective. Financial wellness is about much more than money management — it’s about creating a holistic, well-rounded view of one’s financial situation and health.

A financial wellness program can address people with different levels of financial literacy in several ways. One common approach is to provide employees with a variety of financial education options and resources, depending on their needs and interests. For example, employees who are just starting out may need more basic information on topics like budgeting and saving for retirement. Those who are further along in their financial journey are likely to benefit from more advanced topics like investing and estate planning.

No matter what an employee’s level of financial literacy may be, it’s important to provide them with accurate and up-to-date information. This means employers should plan to regularly review, refresh and adjust available content, courses, tools and resources.

Linda Shaffer, Chief People Operations Officer, Checkr

 

4. Be Sensitive to an Employee’s Financial Literacy Level

It is important to provide employees with the resources they need to make informed decisions about benefits and DEI programs, without forcing them to take part in activities they are not comfortable with.

One approach is to provide employees with resources that are tailored to their level of financial literacy. For example, you could offer an online course for employees who want to learn more about personal finance. Or, you could provide a list of recommended books or websites for employees who want to learn more on their own.

Another approach is to hold workshops or seminars on various financial topics. You can tailor these events to different levels of financial literacy so all employees can benefit from the information presented.

Alysha M. Campbell, Founder and CEO, CultureShift HR

 

5. Keep Equity in Mind When Offering Resources

It’s important to understand that we all start at different places in life. While this may seem like a given, many struggle with truly understanding how this applies to financial literacy. 

Specifically, many individuals from different racial backgrounds were not privy to having a mother or father to teach them the ins and outs of financial literacy. This is why equity is so important in the workplace. Equity recognizes that giving everyone the same tools or resources isn’t effective, and instead ensures that each individual has what they need to be successful. 

Keeping equity in mind when planning and managing your employee benefits offerings is one way to ensure that each employee has what they need. Resources every employer should offer include financial coaching, legal assistance, and workshops about credit, budgeting, and the importance of investing.

Tawanda Johnson, HR Leader, Sporting Smiles

 

6. Add More Benefits Instead of Outsourcing

Our employee benefits are managed through another company, so we aren’t able to decide what most of the options are. However, this past year, the benefit premiums increased. Still, the company could add more benefits to make the overall package more robust and attractive to current and new employees. Adding these incremental benefits could help offset the premium increase.

Lindsey Hight, HR Professional, Sporting Smiles

 

7. Leverage Participant Questions and Anecdotes

When addressing financial topics in DEI programs where attendees have different financial literacy levels, we want to help participants understand the benefits of concepts like retirement plans, debt management, and budgeting. Then we explain the fundamentals of these subjects.

An excellent way to explain these concepts is by welcoming questions from attendees. Then we use real-world examples to make the topics clear enough for individuals, no matter what their financial literacy level may be.

Grace He, People and Culture Director, teambuilding.com

Want to Attract Top Talent? Provide the Best in Employee Benefits: Financial Wellness Plans

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The first quarter is widely known as the biggest hiring season of the year. As you post job listings, interview candidates and narrow down your top choices, you may wonder: In a job applicant’s market, how am I going to ensure that the best and brightest join my team?

Over 300,000 jobs were added to the market in December, which means you have to work harder than ever before to win over top talent. And it’s not just about getting the best candidates in the door — Americans are quitting their jobs at the fastest rate since 2001, making employee retention just as important.

To attract and keep the best candidates around for the long haul, your company needs to re-evaluate its employee benefits packages — starting with understanding what exactly employees are looking for. One key area to consider is offering comprehensive financial wellness plans to your employees. Here’s why.

They Can Help You Exceed Employee Expectations Without Flashy Perks

Studies have shown that as many as 60 percent of people cite benefits offerings as a major factor in their decision to accept a job. But because 401(k)s, health insurance and paid holidays have become the norm, they may no longer help your company stand out in the job market. On top of this, studies have shown that employees may not actually care about flashy perks like pingpong tables or yoga in the office.

Although they may not sound particularly exciting on the surface, financial wellness plans are the next big thing when it comes to employee benefits. Much like health insurance, financial wellness plans provide practical and actionable support to employees. For example, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 2018 financial wellness survey found that over 50 percent of employees are stressed about their finances and want help. The state of financial wellness in the U.S. speaks for itself — student debt is skyrocketing, savings rates are down and more Americans are retiring later in their careers.

Comprehensive financial wellness plans support employees on topics including legal issues, taxes, insurance and identity theft, and often include personalized advice from a certified financial planner (CFP). While some financial wellness programs are only geared toward retirement planning, financial planning isn’t solely centered around this topic — it’s something that takes place in many different facets of life.

They Apply Throughout Every Phase of Life

Holistic financial wellness plans ensure that employees feel prepared for life’s biggest moments — and they make it easy to find all of the advice one may need.

For example, an employee who plans to get married may find they need an attorney’s guidance with a prenuptial agreement, or help with taxes because they have a new double-income status after the big day. Sending a child to college is another life event that can be a lengthy and complicated financial process. With the help of a CFP, parents can figure out how much they should be putting away each month so they don’t have to worry about how to finance their child’s education.

Beyond life’s big moments, financial wellness plans ensure that employees feel prepared for the unexpected. In the instance that an employee finds themselves with a life-threatening illness, medical leave and health insurance may not cover all needs. Financial wellness plans provide an extra level of support — they can aid employees in determining how to best finance their care, and an attorney can help to parse estate plans or hospital agreements. In moments like this, employees shouldn’t have to worry about how they’re going to pay their bills — they should simply focus on getting better.

Also, there are some things that can’t be planned for — identity theft, for example, which reportedly was the fastest growing crime in the U.S. last year. A comprehensive financial wellness plan includes identity-theft protection, along with resources to help employees regain their identity in case of an emergency.

But beyond major and unexpected life events, financial wellness programs provide resources for everyday planning. Financial wellness plans have employees covered in terms of monitoring their credit, providing assistance with taxes or helping them proactively create an estate plan.

If your company is looking for ways to provide depth and breadth to your employee benefits package, financial wellness plans may be the perfect solution. While health insurance and paid time off aren’t going anywhere, it’s going to take more than free snacks in the office to bring in the best candidates. Providing a financial wellness plan as part of a well-rounded benefits package can help you win the most qualified new hires and keep employees around for life.

Those Employees With Financial Wellbeing Keep The Workplace Pumping

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“Big money got a heavy hand
Big money take control
Big money got a mean streak
Big money got no soul…”

—Rush, Big Money

Throughout commencement on that warm May morning over two decades ago I thought, I did it. Not the traditional seamless timeline of 4ish years, but I did it nonetheless. The first one in my immediate family to do it in fact. I did it and received a Bachelors of Arts degree in psychology with a minor in anthropology from San Jose State University. I financed most of it myself, working full-time at SJSU during the latter half of completing my degree.

But there were loans involved in bankrolling my degree. Not an excessive amount, but somewhere north of $15,000 worth of loans during those frenetic college years. In economic comparison, the full time job I had at the time with the university paid about $30,000 annually.

The future looked brighter than ever. I had my degree, I left the university job for one in the exciting world of high-tech marketing and the dot.com boom – all was well in my world.

Until it wasn’t and I was swimming in other debt plus the student loans and lots of other life choices hitting the skids.

As the saying goes – life happens and not all the choices we make work out – but I made it and fortunately many people with similar stories did and do as well, especially since we’ve had two economic busts within the booms since. But today student loan debt had increased dramatically. With smaller savings (if any) and continually rising tuition, there are over 40 million Americans with at least one outstanding student loan, which is up from 29 million consumers in 2008.

Of those, the average student loan balance is about $30,000 per borrower. For those who finish graduate school the total can be over $80,000. Medical school debt is twice that or much more. Today the nationwide student loan debt is at an all-time high of over $1.2 trillion, an 84% jump since the great recession, according to a study from Experian, which analyzed student loan trends from 2008 through 2014.

Plus there’s the fact that “student loans surpassed home equity loans/lines of credit, credit card and automotive debt.” Yet, for the millions who struggle with student loan debt, not many loan relief and repayment programs have been available to these borrowers, unlike those with underwater mortgages over the past seven years.

There is the Federal Student Aid website that provides resources and recommendations on how to manage and repay federal loans, which accounts for the majority of student loans, but otherwise repayment and refinancing programs have been limited.

Dan Macklin, co-founder and vice president of the nation’s second largest marketplace lender called SoFi, told us on the TalentCulture #TChat Show that the student-lending market is a very strange one indeed. When he and his co-founders started SoFi about four years ago – which offers mortgages, personal loans, student loan refinancing and more including free services for employers and employees – they looked into the market and there was no one refinancing federal student loan debt at the time. In fact, they almost didn’t launch the company because they thought there must be a reason there weren’t any lenders offering these services.

Financial wellbeing has finally gained traction in the workplace and I’ve had the opportunity to work with a few startups in the space years ago, GuideSpark being one of them. According to a survey by benefits consulting firm Aon Hewitt, more than 90 percent of 250 large employers said they want to introduce or expand their financial wellness programs this year. These programs have been on the rise and help employees understand and manage their personal finances, save money for emergencies and employ strategies for dealing with economics ups and downs.

The impact of debt can be overwhelming. Add to that the instability of the job market and the world of work and life become a pressure cooker affecting productivity, psychological and physical wellbeing. Too many student loan debtors are delaying saving for retirement until they’ve paid off their debt, which seems like it’ll never happen and exacerbates helplessness exponentially.

More and more companies obviously do great things (and creative things) around 401K, retirement planning, financial wellbeing and other healthcare benefits, with HR taking the lead here. Cost-benefit analysis of higher education aside, the reality is that when you come out of college with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt, you’re probably more worried about that for the first few years or even decades and getting that off your back until you’re really able to think about starting a family, buy a house, retirement and so on.

Big money may have no soul, but it’s always been a means to beginnings, middles and ends. Those employees with financial wellbeing keep the workplace pumping.