2019 - Page 5 of 11 - Best Money Moves

The Top 3 Financial Stressors Affecting Gen Z

by AllyMauch | Aug 26, 2019 | Blog

The top 3 financial stressors affecting Gen Z. Gen Z is both the youngest and largest generation in the U.S., and they are beginning to enter the workforce with a whole host of unique financial stressors.

Generation Z — the generation immediately following Millennials — is the latest group entering the workforce, but work and money are already at the top of their list of stressors. According to the American Psychological Association, 81 percent of Gen Z adults are stressed about money, a staggering number compared to the 64 percent of all other adults who are similarly stressed.

Gen Zers are eager to reach their financial goals and have clear plans for the future, but a lack of financial literacy, the overwhelming burden of student loan debt and overspending are all holding this young generation back. Take a deeper look at the top financial stressors affecting Gen Z below.

Gen Z Needs Financial Literacy

In a study by EVERFI, only 33 percent of Gen Zers felt prepared to manage their money. The same study shows that this generation has a lack of knowledge regarding their personal finances: 9 in 10 have had experiences with a checking account, but less than 60 percent checked their bank account in the past year and only 40 percent have ever created or used a budget.

Unsurprisingly, these lackluster money management skills stem from an absence of financial literacy education for the youngest generation entering college and subsequently, the workforce.

Student Loan Debt Stress

The total student loan debt in the U.S. has reached nearly $1.6 trillion, making debt a pressing concern for all Americans, but particularly for those who are in college or recently graduated: Gen Z. Of the class of 2018, 7 in 10 took out student loans to cover their education, with an average debt of $29,800, according to research by Student Loan Hero.

With the cost of college continuing to rise, the student debt crisis is only worsening and a report by Brookings predicts more borrowers will default on their loans. As a result, over 40 percent of Gen Zers now identify student loan debt as a significant source of stress in a survey by Lifeworks.

Gen Z Overspending

Research by EVERFI found that 10 percent of Gen Zers buy things they can’t afford, and four in 10 don’t stop spending when resources are low.

Staggeringly high debt and a lack of financial education both contribute to this last Gen Z financial stressor — overspending paired with undersaving. One-third of Gen Zers reported feeling stressed about poor spending habits. The spending, paired with increasing debt, directly links to a lack of savings: almost 20 percent are not putting anything towards their savings each month.

This financial stress affects workers’ productivity and increases healthcare costs, hurting both employees and employers. Financial wellness programs like Best Money Moves can help. Best Money Moves is mobile, gamified and easy-to-use, with an emphasis on financial literacy and accessible tools that’s perfect for Gen Z. It provides practical, unbiased help so employees can make smarter financial decisions and manage the debt they have.

More on Financial Stress and Financial Wellness Programs

5 Must-Have Benefits for Millennial Employees

How Does Financial Wellness Affect Health?

5 Fast Financial Stress Statistics

Hiring Trends to Watch in 2020

What Is Financial Literacy and Why Is It Important?

4 Big Employee Benefit Trends for Family Planning

How Can Financial Wellness Be Improved?

Top 10 Employee Benefits for 2020

If you want to learn more about how Best Money Moves can bring financial wellness to your company download our whitepapers and sign up for a demonstration here.

3 Financial Stressors Affecting Every Generation

by ryanwangman | Aug 26, 2019 | Blog

3 financial stressors affecting every generation. Millennials, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers all have something in common — they’re stressed about their emergency savings, retirement and housing.

Every generation, from Millennials to Baby Boomers to Gen X, has varying financial pain points. However, they all have a few stressors in common — concerns over emergency savings, retirement costs and housing. When asked what financial wellness meant to them in a survey by PwC, the top answer across all generations was not being stressed about their finances.

Emergency Savings

For Millennial and Gen X employees, not having enough emergency savings for unexpected expenses topped their list of financial concerns. For Baby Boomers, emergency savings came in just behind not being able to retire when they want to as far as their most pressing financial challenge. All generations have reason to be concerned, as a recent survey by Bankrate found three in 10 U.S. adults have no emergency savings and couldn’t cover three months’ worth of living expenses.

Additionally, only 18 percent of Americans say they could live off of their savings for at least six months. Experts think part of the reason for the widespread lack of savings is that incomes haven’t kept pace with rising household expenses.

Retirement Contributions

A recent study by AARP found that at least two in five survey respondents from each generation were not confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement. Nearly half of people across the three generations said they hadn’t put away any money for retirement at all. This is particularly troubling, because the longer people wait to save for retirement, the longer they’ll have to work to sustain their preferred lifestyles. More than 80 percent of today’s employees expect they’ll need to work in retirement to sustain themselves financially, according to research by PwC.

More than 75 percent of AARP’s respondents also agreed that Social Security and Medicare are important to their personal retirement. An overwhelming majority of Baby Boomers (95 percent) said it’s very or somewhat important that Social Security is there for them in retirement. With the future of these programs uncertain, it’s worrisome that so many Americans are aiming to rely on these them in retirement.

Housing Costs

Although buying a house is a quintessential part of the American Dream, there are many barriers in place that prevent people from making the purchase. For Millennials and Gen Zers, the biggest obstacle to buying a house is the high cost of the down payment on a home, according to research by Freedom Debt Relief. That’s the second-biggest concern for Baby Boomers, who are most stressed about the cost of the monthly payment on a house.

Many people are also unable to afford a home because of debt that they already have. Credit card debt makes up a majority of debt that people across generations have, with 46 percent of Americans reporting they have credit card debt. This makes it one of the bigger burdens for people trying to save up more to buy a house.

All this financial stress is damaging the quality of the workplace, as employees are spending an average of 3-5 hours per week at work worrying about their personal finances. Financial wellness programs like Best Money Moves can help. Best Money Moves is mobile, gamified and easy-to-use. It provides practical, unbiased help so employees can make smarter financial decisions and manage the debt they have.

More on Financial Stress and Financial Wellness Programs

5 Must-Have Benefits for Millennial Employees

How Does Financial Wellness Affect Health?

5 Fast Financial Stress Statistics

Hiring Trends to Watch in 2020

What Is Financial Literacy and Why Is It Important?

4 Big Employee Benefit Trends for Family Planning

How Can Financial Wellness Be Improved?

Top 10 Employee Benefits for 2020

If you want to learn more about how Best Money Moves can bring financial wellness to your company download our whitepapers and sign up for a demonstration here.

How Do You Retain Employees?

by LizStevens | Aug 20, 2019 | Blog

How do you retain employees? Forty-three percent of workers will look for a new job in the next year, putting employer focus on retention strategies.

More than 80 percent of employers are concerned about retaining employees — and with good reason. Almost half (43%) plan to look for a new job in the next 12 months, according to research from global staffing firm Robert Half.

“In a tight employment market, workers have more options, and the grass may look greener somewhere else,” said Paul McDonald, senior executive director for Robert Half. “Employers can help prevent turnover by learning what motivates their most valued employees and customizing their retention strategies. While money is an important motivator, benefits or growth opportunities are also strong enticements.”

How Do You Retain Employees Looking for a New Job?

Robert Half asked respondents if there was one thing their employers could do that would convince them to stay at their current jobs. The top answer was what you’d expect: more than 40 percent of workers would stay if their employer offered them more money.

Access to more time off or better benefits would retain 20 percent of employees looking for new jobs. Nineteen percent of workers would be happy to stay at their current job if they were given a promotion. A new boss would retain only 8 percent of employees. Lastly, 10 percent of employees said there was nothing their employer could do to convince them to stay.

What Employee Retention Strategies are Companies Using?

Forty-six percent of employers are increasing communication with employees through town hall meetings and employee engagement surveys in an effort to retain more employees. Just over 40 percent of employers are improving employee recognition programs and providing professional development to improve employee retention.

Enhancing compensation and benefits is the retention strategy 40 percent of employers are using, which makes sense since more than 60 percent of respondents said more money, time off or benefits would keep them at their current job.

Other employers are providing reimbursement for ongoing education, facilitating mentorship programs or working with interim staff to prevent full-time employees from becoming burnt out.

Surprisingly, 7 percent of employers aren’t using any employee retention strategies. If they knew nearly half of their employees would be looking elsewhere within the next year, we bet they’d reconsider.

More on How to Retain Employees

How High is Work-Related Stress and What’s Causing it?

Choosing the Most Important Benefits to Employees in 2020

Is Rehiring a Former Employee a Good Idea?

How to Retain Hourly Employees

2 Simple Strategies to Improve Office Culture

How to Make Traditional Work Better for Freelancers

What Are the Consequences of Too Much Tech?

How Do You Improve Employee Retention?

How Does Remote Working Work?

by LizStevens | Aug 14, 2019 | Blog

How does remote working work? The best remote work policies give employees flexibility and a better work-life balance without sacrificing productivity.

Remote work, or telecommuting, increased significantly (159 percent) between 2005 and 2017, according to a report by FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics.

“Talent shortages are fueling the growth of workplace flexibility right now because not only is it one of the most sought-after benefits among job seekers today, it also expands the talent pool by allowing employers to hire the best and brightest from around the world,” said Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics.

How Does Remote Working Work?

The rules of remote work vary at each organization. Remote work typically offers employees some measure of flexibility regarding when and where they get their work done. And it’s not just employees who benefit—organizations that allow employees to work remotely on a full-time basis expand their candidate pool well beyond the region they operate in. Other organizations permit employees to work remotely in certain situations. For instance, some companies let employees work remotely if they or their child is sick or on certain days, like work from home Fridays.

Setting employees up for remote work used to be a lengthy process. Now, it can be as simple as approving them to log into work from their desktop or laptop at home. Some companies even provide equipment for employees to use when they need to work remotely.

Cybersecurity is something organizations need to take into account when developing remote work policies. Protecting company information is critical when giving employees access to systems and documents outside of the workplace.

The Future of Remote Working

“Remote work has grown steadily since 2005, as companies of all types—private, public, nonprofit, or startup—continue to recognize the bottom-line benefits of integrating remote work into their business strategies,” said Sara Sutton, founder and CEO of FlexJobs. “With improvements to technology, and increasing demands from employees in a tight labor market, we fully expect to see the momentum around this important workplace continue to grow,” said Sutton.

There are five industries that FlexJob’s predicts will have continued growth in remote working:

Computer and IT
Medical and Health
Sales
Education and Training
Customer Service

The explosion in remote work doesn’t show signs of slowing down any time soon. Over the last five years, remote working has grown more than 40 percent. Nearly 5 million people in the U.S. currently telecommute, up from almost 4 million in 2015. Remote work is a win-win for employers having a hard time sourcing talent and employees who desire more flexibility and a better work-life balance.

More on Remote Work and Flexible Scheduling:

Why You Need a Remote Work Strategy

Top 10 Employee Benefits for 2020

Do Flexible Work Schedules Work?

5 Must-Have Benefits for Millennial Employees

How to Make Traditional Work Better for Freelancers

4 Big Employee Benefits Trends for Family Planning

Choosing the Most Important Benefits to Employees in 2020

by LizStevens | Aug 7, 2019 | Blog

Choosing the most important benefits to employees in 2020. Increase employee benefits participation and engagement with our three-step strategy.

Best Money Moves recently forecast the top 10 employee benefits for 2020 and we’ve developed a simple, three-step strategy to help you identify the benefits your employees want most and formulate a communications plan to increase participation and engagement.

How to Choose the Most Important Benefits to Employees in 2020

Step #1 Audit Your Current Employee Benefits

Conduct an audit of your current employee benefits package. You’ll want to know which benefits are used most frequently and which benefits are underutilized. If there isn’t an annual report for benefits utilization, work with HR to create a process for it going forward. Historical data comes in handy whenever you’re making benefits decisions.

If a benefit is underutilized, it doesn’t necessarily mean that benefit should be scrapped. Nearly half of employees don’t understand all the benefits their organization offers. The next step helps you determine whether it’s a benefit that employees don’t value a benefit that needs to be restrategized.

Step #2 Survey Employees and HR

A short employee survey gives you insight into what benefits are the most important benefits to employees in 2020. Make sure to include questions about benefits that appear to be undervalued and benefits you’re thinking of introducing. Multiple-choice questions quickly determine which benefits are most sought after, and, if you include open-ended questions, they’ll tell you why those benefits matter most.

While you’re at it, survey your human resources team. What questions do they get about benefits? Are there any benefits employees have asked about that the organization doesn’t offer? What do they think about the current benefits engagement process? Is there any way they think benefits communication can be improved? How? Including HR in the planning process gives you a better understanding of how benefits are managed day-to-day and where improvements can be made.

How to Increase Employee Benefits Participation and Engagement

Step #3 Improve Benefits Communication

Employee benefits participation and engagement comes down to one thing: communication. Traditional meetings or emails that give employees large amounts of information are no longer an effective way to educate employees. Shorter, bite-sized benefits information sent over a longer period of time is a better way to improve employee understanding.

“Releasing “bite-sized” bits of information on different benefits every quarter could vastly improve employees’ understanding of benefits selection and enrollment,” said Misty Guinn, director of benefits and wellness at cloud-based benefits platform provider Benefitfocus.

This does mean more work for HR, but the good news is that most of it can be automated with minimal updates once templates are written. Test different methods of communication, like text messaging, phone calls and instant messenger in addition to emails or meetings. Track participation, open and click rates to see which method is the best way to reach your employees.

Employee benefits and perks are the battlegrounds where employers are fighting the war for talent in a tight job market where unemployment hovers at a nearly 50-year low (3.7%). Moreover, employee benefits account for more than 30 percent of total employee compensation. It’s worth developing a better benefits process and improved engagement strategies to make sure your organization offers the most important benefits to employees in 2020.