Will Increasing Financial Literacy Reduce Overall Financial Stress?

Will Increasing Financial Literacy Reduce Overall Financial Stress?

Financial Literacy Can Reduce Overall Financial Stress and Increase Financial Wellness, Survey Says

Nearly 90 percent of Americans believe financial literacy courses should be a high school graduate requirement. An annual consumer survey highlights growing concerns about financial stress. The survey, which was conducted by Equifax, follows a 2017 American Psychological Association study that found money to be one of the top stress-inducing concerns for Americans.

When consumers from the Equifax survey were asked to grade themselves on their basic level of financial literacy, only 39 percent of surveyed consumers gave themselves a “B”, while 33 percent of consumers between the ages of 18-29 gave themselves a “C.”

Because so few Americans get financial literacy classes in high school, Equifax will make financial information and education more accessible to its consumers. Dann Adams, president of Global Consumer Solutions at Equifax, said the company will provide “the fundamentals and basic credit essentials to help consumers establish the right habits early on.”

“We want to help consumers get to an ‘A’ grade, which is why we’re studying and offering new ways to help them improve their financial literacy grade,” Adams added.

Should Financial Literacy Be Required For Graduation?   

Currently, each state sets its own requirements for high school graduation, although there are federal guidelines. While few states currently mandate financial literacy, some 30 percent of states are already looking for ways to incorporate financial literacy into high school curriculum.

What Are Results of Financial Literacy Education?

In schools where a full semester of financial literacy was required a FINRA Investor Education Foundation report card showed significant improvement in credit scores for young adults aged 18 to 22. A separate study conducted by Ohio State University’s Center for the Study of Student Life found that students who had completed financial literacy courses are less affected by financial stress.

What If Your School Did Not Offer Financial Literacy Education?

While more students in the future will likely receive financial literacy education, what about adults? “Consumers often think that because they didn’t do well in high school math, that they can’t manage their finances, but that’s just not true,” said Ilyce Glink, CEO of Best Money Moves, a mobile-first financial wellness app that helps people measure their level of financial stress.

“I believe that everyone can do about 95% of whatever they need to do with their money themselves. You don’t need a professional to help you figure out a budget or shop around for car insurance to get the best deal. You can easily learn to implement those cost-saving and financial management strategies yourself,” she said.

Reaching Out With Mental Health Awareness Month

Reaching Out With Mental Health Awareness Month

In this week’s Best Money Moves roundup, we take a look at news stories and new research studies that may impact employee benefits and HR issues. We hope you find this news roundup helpful, and we’d love your feedback.

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month, and it’s a great time to raise awareness of the impact that mental health has on the physical, emotional and overall well-being of your employees.

About one in 5 employees in the U.S. has a mental illness, but hasn’t disclosed the information to their employer, according to Employee Benefits News. The stigma attached to mental health issues in this country means employees are afraid to talk about this particular aspect of their health. The problem is, the mental health of your employees doesn’t  just affect their personal lives, it significantly impacts their workplace experience, and that of your other employees.

What can you do? Start by providing your HR team with the resources they need to help them handle mental health issues in the workplace and provide your employees with the necessary resources to teach them how to prevent – and handle – life’s stressors (especially financial stress) that are most commonly linked to mental health issues. Remind your employees what steps they can take if they need to reach out for help. A healthy workforce is a happy workforce – show your employees you care.

This week is Small Business Week. Led by the Small Business Administration, from April 30 – May 5, outstanding small business owners and entrepreneurs throughout the country will be recognized during livestreamed ceremonies (you can follow along on social media via @sba.gov and #smallbusinessweek). These national events culminate on Friday, May 4 with a Twitter chat about tips for starting and growing a small business.

Your employees may not be as financially competent as they think. In honor of April’s Financial Literacy Month, First National Bank of Omaha released the results of its 2018 Financial Literacy and Lifestyle Survey. While 93 percent of respondents considered themselves financially literate, nearly 50 percent don’t regularly contribute to a 401(k) and 75 percent don’t stick to a budget. Your employees are struggling with their financial wellness and may not even know it.

Students struggle with medical debt – and are bringing their financial stress into the  workplace. The University of Washington studied its student population and found troubling statistics. Nearly 15 percent of students carried medical debt and almost 40 percent delayed necessary healthcare because of related costs. Some Universities are beginning to offer free student financial wellness workshops. How can HR be prepared for this coming influx of indebted, entry-level employees?

Which HR tech trends are gaining traction this year? HR needs to stay on top of the latest tech trends in order to attract top talent and stay competitive in the marketplace. Watch for blockchain technology, gamification and continuous performance management tools to streamline HR operations management in a major way. Which of these trending technologies will your company use?

Don’t offer a 401(k)? Help your employees explore other options. Employees with access to a work-sponsored retirement plan are 15 times more likely to save for their golden years. But for those without, the cost of starting to save later in life versus early on is significant.  And when people approach retirement without enough savings, they face the financial stress and uncertainty of outliving their money – stress and uncertainty that will impact their place of work, as well.

A Millennial’s dream come true? Their reputation as “job hoppers” precedes them and, it’s forcing employers to become more creative in order to attract and retain the millennial employee. Software-maker Qualtrics offers this over-the-top company perk: in 2018, they started providing each employee with $1,500 to spend on an experience they “wouldn’t normally be able to have,” allowing some employees to swim with sharks, ski the alps and trek the Great Wall of China.

Are you in need of 5 important guidelines to increase your HR Values? Human Resources has grown from its traditional role of hiring and retaining top talent to a much more strategic one: HR is now a significant part of an organization’s overall processes including corporate culture, employee engagement, performance evaluation and operational efficiency.

Have something to add? Do you have any questions, comments or concerns?
Email us at: info@bestmoneymoves.com.

Women in Tech: Financial Wellness and Workplace Equality

Women in Tech: Financial Wellness and Workplace Equality

In this week’s Best Money Moves roundup, we take a look at news stories and new research studies that may impact employee benefits and HR issues. We hope you find this news roundup helpful, and we’d love your feedback.

According to a recent study by Honeypot, the United States is the second-best country in the world for women in tech. The US ranked at the same position worldwide for its percentage of women in senior management positions, although women make up just over 6 percent of CEOs in the Fortune 500.

While women have made incredible strides towards workplace equality, reports show that women can still earn up to 45 percent less than men for the same job, but it’s not for lack of performance.

New data shows that while women and men in their 20’s are promoted at the same rate, men are more likely to be promoted into management roles. The same study showed that women were 22 percent more likely to achieve higher ratings of job performance than their male counterparts.

Not only do women still earn less for the same work, women also have fewer tools for and less knowledge about financial wellness. “Women have come a long way both personally and professionally, but when it comes to their finances, there is still a trail left to blaze,” said Lorna Sabbia, head of Retirement and Personal Wealth Solutions for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Sabbia believes that women need more support in pursuing financial security for life, including investments, retirement savings and additional financial solutions.

What is your company doing to help minimize the gender pay gap and provide financial wellness for all of its employees?

Workforce demographics are changing, reinforcing the need for employee financial wellness.  Millennials are flowing into your workforce and are concerned that social security may not be around for them when they need it. Which may be why they’re proving to be more financially conscious than their older counterparts by contributing at higher rates to their 401(k)s, and are twice as likely than baby boomers to say that stress interferes with work productivity.

Should HR be taking its cues from the IT department? In today’s world, five-year plans and predictable career paths seem out of date. In order to keep up with today’s rapid pace of corporate change, you need a forward-thinking HR department willing to be transformative and meet the demand of evolving skills, technology and work models.

Right now is the best time to plan your new benefits programs for 2019. YouDecide studies and develops enrollment best practices. They’ve determined that Q1 is the ideal time to review last year’s enrollment results, while Q2 should be reserved for assessing employee population needs and evaluating your employees’ overall benefits enrollment experience.

“It’s so obvious.” Millennials, who were raised on technology, are flooding the logistics workforce. Evan Garber, CEO of EVS has created a new warehouse management system: “one device that can do everything” which runs on Apple iOS. And he’s not the only one. More back-office operations systems are being designed to look, feel and run just like your technology at home, an obvious evolution of tech-at-work.

Will HR automation save you time and boost job satisfaction, too? As robotic process automation (RPA) is becoming more commonplace within payroll and benefits practices, many HR teams are realizing the broader opportunities that RPA can bring to their workplace. Between onboarding, recruiting, learning and development, RPA is reducing errors and growing overall HR capacity. Could this be the right tool for you?

Employees know what they want. Studies show that the  digital health benefits employers provide have low engagement while employees are finding solutions to meet their digital health needs on their own. It’s a lose-lose proposition. Is 2018 the year that employers and employees get on the same page regarding benefits?

Do more fertility benefits equal lower turnover? A new report from FertilityIQ shows that workplace fertility benefits directly correlate to strong employee loyalty, higher levels of retention and higher rates of productivity.  Although an expensive investment for the employer, it might be worth it.

Have something to add? Do you have any questions, comments or concerns?
Email us at: info@bestmoneymoves.com.

Boost Employee Engagement and Loyalty with Financial Wellness

Boost Employee Engagement and Loyalty with Financial Wellness

In this week’s Best Money Moves roundup, we take a look at news stories and new research studies that may impact employee benefits and HR issues. We hope you find this news roundup helpful, and we’d love your feedback.

With everything we now know about employee financial wellness, financial stress and financial education, there’s no wonder that employees and employers alike are witnessing significant growth of financial wellness programs in the workplace.  A new study revealed that 91% of employers plan to develop or expand employee financial wellness programs beyond retirement planning and in the next 5 years, more than half of all employers will be offering  employee financial wellness benefits.

And these financial wellness benefits aren’t simply helping to retain your existing employees, they can also provide your company with a leg-up in the hiring market. A whopping 84 percent of employees say financial wellness programs are the workplace benefit they need the most.

While saving for retirement grows, employees’ confidence in those funds is on the decline. A survey of 5,000 employees shows that more than half of respondents are confident that they’ll be able to live comfortably 15 years into retirement – but that’s down nearly 30 percent from 3 years ago. What’s changed – and how can you fix it?

Are you on top of your employee retirement contributions? The Department of Labor is auditing employee contributions to retirement plans and has recovered $1.1 billion in missing contributions from 2017’s fiscal year alone. Companies that aren’t contributing according to the law are being heavily fined – and the amount of those fines are increasing.

Your employees are unique assets – not resources. Lea Peersman, Talent Community Manager at SYPartners considers herself a “people investor” and believes that you should, too. Through the lens of employees as assets – hiring, job descriptions and teaming can be completely reinvented. According to Peersman, these are the top five things to keep in mind when building an innovative team.

Is your ‘smart office’ just a bit too smart? Pretty soon, you won’t be able to find office equipment that doesn’t require being online. How will that affect your system’s costs – and security? From developing and updating your IoT (internet of things) strategy to training and educating your employees, all devices that are internet connected must have security in place and be monitored at all times.

What is your state’s business credit score? This score indicates ease of funding, hiring practices and available credit. This data can be incredibly relevant for small businesses when making important operational decisions – and if you have the ability to do so, when choosing where to launch from or move to.

How have organizations been investing in talent management? Artificial Intelligence and Wellness benefits top the list. Here is a roundup within the Roundup of recent Human Resources growth and evolution. HRtech, Fintech and Martech aren’t the wave of the future. They have become today’s standard.

Can employee genetics testing lower healthcare costs?  In theory, employees who learn they may be at higher risk for certain medical conditions would take extra preventative measures in care, thus, lowering long term healthcare costs. However, some medical professionals feel that these screenings may not be all that useful. Either way, it’s becoming an incredibly popular, novel benefit.

Have something to add? Do you have any questions, comments or concerns?
Email us at: info@bestmoneymoves.com.

Your Cheat Sheet: How To Attract and Retain Top Talent

Your Cheat Sheet: How To Attract and Retain Top Talent

In this week’s Best Money Moves roundup, we take a look at news stories and new research studies that may impact employee benefits and HR issues. We hope you find this news roundup helpful, and we’d love your feedback.

Everyone knows that a competitive benefits package includes much more than just financial wellness and a good salary. And, an exceptional benefits package may even counteract a high salary expectation.

Piecing together your exceptional benefits package doesn’t need to be difficult. The first step is simple: provide your employees with the tools they need to be smarter about how they handle their personal finances. Your employees are craving financial education – studies show what we already know: your employees need help with understanding how to manage their finances – and they want you to help.

Employee financial wellness doesn’t just create happier and healthier employees. Providing a best-in-class employee financial wellness program increases engagement and productivity while reducing unexplained absences, turnover, and ultimately, healthcare costs. Improving overall financial wellness has a solid corporate ROI – one that you can easily share with your CFO. If you’re seriously looking to attract cream-of-the-crop talent, you also need to offer transformational HR technology. From mobile-first financial wellness platforms to videoconferencing apps, to recognition and rewards, this new wave of HR technology integrates wellness, development, education and performance management. And, with unemployment at or near all-time lows, your company needs every tool available to be on the cutting edge of competitive.

Your employees may not have the tools to deal with workplace stress. Financial stress is the number one source of all employee stress – which not only negatively impacts personal health and wellbeing, it also costs your company money in the form of lost productivity, higher costs in healthcare, higher turnover and more absenteeism. Helping your employees learn how to prevent financial stress, learn how to cope with it and learn how to recover from workplace stressors will be one of the best benefits you can provide.

Are your employees living up to your expectations – or down to them? Often, too many rules can create a work environment where employees feel like they’re stepping on eggshells. GM CEO Mary Barra explains how empowering your employees to make small – yet important – decisions will strengthen company culture while empowering them to step up in other areas, as well.

How do your benefits stack up against those of other employers in your area? Newly published research shows employee benefits choices and costs – by region – as well as data on employer provisions. Both employers and their employees can access information on benefits offerings from across the region. This can help employees better understand their selection of voluntary benefits at their company – and at others.

Are you sending out late-night work emails from the comfort of your bed? In the wake of France’s law banning work email after hours, New York City may be one of the first cities in America to follow suit, banning the requirement of an after-hours response. According to New York City Council member Rafael Espinal, “the lines between our work and personal lives have blurred. My bill will simply protect employees from retaliation when they choose to disconnect.”

Organizational rhythm: have you got it? How can you gauge and identify what makes people behave in the way that they do? What makes your employees tick? Happy employees are more creative and enterprise organizational growth. Organizational rhythm comes once you’ve learned what elements hone your employees’ continued success. “The paradigm shift will only happen when you observe employees from far and see how they behave and converse informally.”

Is your company expanding but leaving women and minorities behind? Even as workplace diversity, equity and equality are on the forefront of HR and media awareness, young women and people of color are still at high risk of discrimination – at all levels of employment. Workplace discrimination can come in many forms, both intentional and otherwise. Employers must ensure that they’re protecting the safety and welfare of all employees by taking stock of their hiring practices, organizational culture, core values and salary structure in order to ensure that all employees are given the same opportunities.

Have something to add? Do you have any questions, comments or concerns?
Email us at: info@bestmoneymoves.com.