LizStevens, Author at Best Money Moves

Recruiting Trends 2020: Top 5 Features for Financial Wellness Programs

by LizStevens | Dec 4, 2019 | Blog

Recruiting trends 2020: Top five features for financial wellness programs. Employees want features that are engaging and easy to use to help reduce financial stress.

Employers know that financial wellness benefits are a must, especially with the latest data from Financial Health Network indicating less than 30 percent of Americans consider themselves financially healthy.

But what makes financial wellness programs successful?

Recruiting Trends 2020: Top 5 Features for Financial Wellness Programs

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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.

Employee Experience 2020: 4 Key Aspects for High-Performance

by LizStevens | Nov 20, 2019 | Blog

Employee experience 2020: 4 key aspects for high-performance. Research by Willis Tower Watson shows a strong employee experience can boost the bottom line.

A great employee experience makes a big difference.

Businesses focused on a strong employee experience consistently outperform their peers by a margin of two to four percentage points across key business metrics, according to research by Willis Tower Watson. Conversely, companies delivering less effective employee experiences regularly underperformed their peers by up to 10 percentage points.

“Our breakthrough research shows that companies with a strong overall employee experience outperform their sector peers on top-line growth, profitability growth and returns on assets and equity, not only in the short term, but over the long term too,” said Stephen Young, Global Practice Leader, Willis Tower Watson Employee Insights.

In their research, Willis Tower Watson tapped into all aspects of employee experience, from local conditions such as training opportunities, immediate supervision and teamwork, to aspects of organizational functioning, such as senior leadership effectiveness, customer focus and company competitiveness. They found four key aspects of the employee experience that were unique in the high-performance group.

Employee Experience 2020: 4 Key Aspects for High-Performance

The four key aspects for strong employee experience that emerged from Willis Tower Watson’s research include:

Feeling inspired by the company’s mission and purpose
Being able to achieve one’s potential and career aspirations
Having a deep sense of trust in senior leadership
Having a sense of drive through strong customer focus and innovation and agility in meeting marketplace demands.

“The most significant change comes through a transformation of leadership mindset — inspiring your organisation around your purpose, driving agility and innovation to be ahead of the market, helping your people achieve their potential and building a culture of leadership trust,” said Young “The fact that so few organisations do this well suggests it is hard. But it is the ultimate magic key to unlocking high performance.”

Transforming the Employee Experience in 2020

Each of the four aspects Willis Tower Watson identified has something to do with communications and strengthening the relationships between employers, employees and the company itself.

Here are our four suggestions for transforming the employee experience with improved communications:

Remind employees about the company’s mission and purpose. If it’s only briefly mentioned in an employee handbook they likely skimmed, they could probably use a more-enthused refresher.
Connect with employees through one-on-one conversations. Learn about their career aspirations and then discuss how their current position and potential advancements could help them get there.
Open up communications with senior leadership. If it only happens one-way when senior leadership implements huge company changes, it could be time to reconsider communication strategies. Including employees in discussions about company changes before they’re finalized can increase their job satisfaction and loyalty to the company.
Keep employees in the loop. Give them progress updates on where the company is in terms of reaching quarterly and annual goals. Let them know how the company is innovating processes to maintain strong customer focus and meet marketplace demands.

Streamlining communications goes hand in hand with cultivating a stronger employee experience and those employers who are up to the task stand to benefit from a better bottom line.

How to Improve All 5 Areas of Employee Wellness in 2020

by LizStevens | Nov 13, 2019 | Blog

How to improve all 5 areas of employee wellness in 2020. Improved employee wellness helps employees perform better and saves money in healthcare costs and turnover.

Improving employee wellness can pay off in a big way.

Employees who thrive in all five areas of wellness perform better, miss less days, adapt to change with less resistance and have lower healthcare costs and turnover, according to research by Gallup.

How to Improve All 5 Areas of Employee Wellness in 2020

These are the five elements of employee wellbeing and suggestions for how employers can support each of them:

Employee Wellness Area #1: Career Wellness

Employees want to gain personal satisfaction and enrichment from their work. They also want their work to be consistent with their values, goals and lifestyles.

How Can Employers Improve Career Wellness?

Set individual goals and have regular performance reviews where employees can see their growth.
Create paths for advancement so employees can see a future for themselves within the company.
Make it clear how each employee’s work contributes to the overall company mission. This can be especially helpful for employees in monotonous jobs who might not see how their work fits into the bigger picture.

Employee Wellness Area #2: Social Wellness

Employees want to feel a sense of belonging and social inclusion at work. They want to feel supported by their colleagues and employers. Another report by Gallup observed that close work friendships boosted employee satisfaction by 50 percent.

How Can Employers Improve Social Wellness at Work?

Hold staff lunches.
Host friendly competitions, like NFL Fantasy Leagues and March Madness pools.
Throw an annual company party or coordinate a company outing where different departments can get the chance to mingle.

Employee Wellness Area #3: Physical Wellness

Employees want physical wellbeing, the balance of physical activity, nutrition and mental well-being. They want to live long, healthy lives and avoid preventable diseases and conditions.

How Can Employers Improve Physical Wellness?

Provide healthy snacks.
Reimburse gym memberships.
Expand healthcare benefits.

Employee Wellness Area #4: Community Wellness

Employees want to engage with the communities they live in. They want to address social, economic, environmental, cultural and political conditions and help the community flourish.

How Can Employers Improve Community Wellness?

Schedule volunteer days where employees get paid to help at a local nonprofit.
Reduce your company’s environmental impact and get employees involved.
Hold a drive to donate canned food or gently used coats to a local organization that supports people experiencing extreme poverty or homelessness.

Employee Wellness Area #5: Financial Wellness

Employees want to effectively manage their finances. They want to pay off debts, manage their monthly expenses and save for retirement.

How Can Employers Improve Financial Wellness?

Give employees access to a financial wellness program that’s personalized and easy to use, like Best Money Moves.
Enroll employees in a 401(k) or a comparable retirement savings program.
Offer a student loan repayment benefit.

The battle for talent in a labor market with the lowest unemployment rate (3.5 percent) in 50 years will be won with employee wellness benefits that retain current workers and attract new hires.

Employee Financial Wellness: 5 Financial Stress Statistics for 2020

by LizStevens | Nov 6, 2019 | Blog

Employee financial wellness: 5 financial stress statistics for 2020. How much financial stress costs employers and how employees really feel about financial wellness programs.

The latest Financial Stress Survey from John Hancock Retirement found that financial wellness programs improve job retention, stress levels, and job productivity. Financial wellness programs are now a component of employee benefits that employers can’t afford to ignore.

Employee Financial Wellness: 5 Financial Stress Statistics for 2020

Here are the top 5 most important findings from the report:

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Financial Wellness Programs: Personalization Is a Must

Almost 90 percent of employers say they currently have or are developing a financial wellness strategy, but only 20 percent of employees claim their employer offers anything more than a limited financial wellness program, according to the report by John Hancock Retirement.

While most employees are experiencing financial stress, they’re all experiencing it in different areas and to different degrees. That’s why it’s increasingly important that employer solutions like financial wellness programs have capabilities for customization and personalization to make sure they can address each employee’s unique financial pain points.

Financial wellness programs, like Best Money Moves, are mobile, personalized, gamified and easy to use. Best Money Moves provides practical, unbiased help so employees can make smarter financial decisions.

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5 Retirement Challenges for Older Employees

by LizStevens | Oct 23, 2019 | Blog

5 retirement challenges for older employees. New research highlights housing inequality on top of other barriers to retirement readiness.

A recent survey by Transamerica found nearly 70 percent of Baby Boomers expect to work past age 65 or don’t plan to retire at all. More than 80 percent of them say their decision to stay in the workforce is financially motivated.

Older employees are facing considerable financial challenges as they approach retirement. Homeownership rates are lower and debt rates are higher for older workers aged 50 to 64, as compared to earlier generations, according to research by the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS).

“The falloff in homeownership rates among those approaching retirement, and the elevated levels of mortgage debt among those who do own, is concerning,” says Chris Herbert, Managing Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The dip in homeownership rates and the spike in mortgage debt is just the tip of the iceberg sinking older employees’ timelines for retirement. Older workers are paying off credit cards and student loans, providing financial support for grown children, becoming caretakers for aging relatives and struggling to save for emergencies, let alone retirement.

5 Retirement Challenges for Older Employees

Click through the slideshow below for some fast stats on five of the biggest retirement challenges older employees are facing on top of housing inequality:

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How Employers Can Help Older Employees Get Ready for Retirement

More than 60 percent of Baby Boomers feel like they don’t know as much about retirement investing as they should and almost as many of them (55 percent) would like more education and advice from their employers on how to reach their retirement goals.

Financial wellness programs, like Best Money Moves, give employees personalized tools to help them better manage their money, pay off their debts, build their savings and plan for retirement. Best Money Moves provides practical, unbiased help to make it easier for employees to solve financial problems quickly and easily. And, for employers, less financially-stressed employees translates into a happier, healthier and more productive workforce.