4 ways financial stress harms overall employee wellness. Financial stress can have ramifications that affect far more than your wallet. Here’s what to keep an eye out for among your team.
According to Financial Fitness Group, companies lose roughly $7,000 per employee per year due to stress caused by personal finance issues. And for employees, the effects of stress go far beyond dollars and cents. Long-term financial stress can take a huge toll on overall employee wellness and can even lead to emotional and physical consequences.
Here are 4 ways that financial stress impacts overall employee wellness.
1. Financial stress can keep your employees up at night.
A good night’s sleep is important for both physical and mental health. A full night’s sleep has been linked to boosting the immune system, brightening mood, improving memory and even increasing day-to-day productivity. Unfortunately, those who are financially stressed are among the worst sleepers in America, according to the Better Sleep Council’s State of America’s Sleep survey.
Without healthy sleeping habits, an employee is more likely to experience mental strain, anxiety and depression, along with physical symptoms such as a weakened immune system. And those effects can spill over into the workday. According to the sleep foundation, sleep-deprived employees take more time to react in critical situations and are more likely to make mistakes than their well-rested counterparts. Reducing the financial stress that’s keeping your employees up at night is one step toward helping them rest easier.
2. Prolonged stress upsets employee work/life balance.
Proper work/life balance has already become a challenge following the COVID-19 pandemic, with millions of employees transitioning out of the office and into remote work.
Burnout is a rising concern associated with stressed employees. Job burnout is a specific type of work-related stress that causes physical/emotional fatigue. Employees who suffer from significant levels of burnout can suffer from insomnia and increased stress levels and are more likely to take sick leave or look for another job.
Employers can help their employees avoid burnout by creating a healthy workplace culture, allowing employees to work on a flexible schedule, and providing resources to address mental health concerns. Burnout remains a rampant problem in the workplace as, according to Deloitte, 77% of professionals have felt burnout at their current job.
3. Financial stress is a physical problem too.
Stress not only raises anxiety levels, but it can also take a physical toll on the body, causing high blood pressure, headaches, fatigue, pains and aches among other things.
If the problem persists, stressed employees are more likely to get cardiovascular disease and other ailments that wind up killing around 120,000 people per year. Reducing that kind of stress in the workplace can avoid a cycle of various stressors that poor financial habits can cause.
4. Stress could be harming your workplace culture.
According to the Mayo Clinic, some of the most common effects of stress include increased irritability or anger. Employees burdened by stress are nine times more likely to have troubled relationships with coworkers and twice as likely to be searching for a new job.
It’s vital to address employee stress to foster a positive workplace culture — one that allows employees to ask for personal finance assistance when they need it. One solution is to offer your team a financial wellness program. Providing employees with comprehensive financial wellness tools can help them address their financial stress head-on Plus, it signals to your employees that you care about their overall wellbeing.
Offer your employees relief from financial stress with Best Money Moves.
Less than 33% of workers have access to benefits that can assist with their financial needs according to a Financial Health Network survey.
By offering financial wellness programs, like Best Money Moves, employers can help employees manage their personal finance goals and stress.
Best Money Moves is a mobile-first platform that offers personalized financial planning and coaching resources, focused on solving your employees’ pain points. The program uses artificial intelligence, along with a human-centered design, to measure employee financial stress and then dial it down with personalized solutions. Our triggers and alerts system — as well as budgeting tools, personal finance resources and more — help guide employees to make more informed financial decisions and reduce their overall stress.
To learn more about Best Money Moves Financial Wellness Platform, let’s schedule a call. Contact us and we’ll reach out to you soon.
