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Boosting Employee Engagement: How Financial Wellness Leads to Productivity

Boosting Employee Engagement: How Financial Wellness Leads to Productivity

by | Apr 9, 2024 | Blog

Boosting Employee Engagement: How Financial Wellness Leads to Productivity. Learn how you can boost your employee engagement and why it should be a priority.

Money is a leading stressor for employees of all ages and income levels. About 60% of employees say that they are financially stressed, according to PwC’s 2023 Employee Financial Wellness survey, and for those earning $100,000+ annually, 1 in 2 employees report having financial stress. 

Poor financial wellness among employees can lead to larger problems for employers, including negative impacts on employee engagement and workplace productivity. The same PWC survey found that 76% of all financially stressed workers felt their financial stress harmed their overall performance. 

Learn more about how money worries may be impacting your workforce and how investing in a robust financial wellness program can help dial down employee financial stress, improve overall well-being and even boost workplace productivity.

A fact about employee engagement and financial wellness.

3 ways financial wellness positively impacts employee engagement and productivity

1. Fewer sick days and lower absenteeism

The effects of financial stress go beyond the wallet and bank account. Over time, money worries can compound and lead to a wide range of physical and mental health issues, such as insomnia, anxiety, depression and more. Stress-induced health issues can lead to increased employee absenteeism, use of sick days and decreased productivity. 

According to Gallup data, about 75% of employer medical costs are due to preventable conditions. For instance, prioritizing financial wellness can help companies address the root cause behind many employees’ physical and mental health issues: financial stress.

By addressing the root cause (and not just the symptoms of financial stress), companies can reduce employee absenteeism and the number of sick days used.

2. A less distracted workforce

Money worries aren’t only limited to the home — for many employees, financial stress also bleeds into the workplace, damaging day-to-day engagement. According to PwC’s survey, financially stressed employees are five times more likely to say their money worries are a distraction at work.

Moreover, 56% of financially stressed employees say they’ve spent at least 3 hours at work thinking about or tending to their finances. Over time, these money-driven distractions can add up and cost employers productivity. A quality financial wellness program helps dial down employees’ financial stress, minimize money-related distractions and ultimately boost company productivity and outcomes.

3. Increased job satisfaction and retention

Financially stressed employees are less likely to see a secure, stable future for themselves at their current employer, compared to employees who aren’t facing financial stress. For instance, financially stressed employees are twice as likely to look for a new job than their peers, according to PwC’s 2023 survey. They’re also more likely to lack a sense of belonging at their company. Together, these factors can lead to higher attrition and employee turnover.

Companies can demonstrate their commitment to improved employee well-being and reduced financial stress by adopting quality financial wellness benefits (e.g., money coaching, budgeting tools, etc.) Investing in financial wellness can lead to a more engaged workforce, increased job satisfaction and a higher likelihood of retention.

When it comes to employee engagement, the right financial wellness tool can make all the difference.

Best Money Moves is a mobile-first financial wellness solution designed to help dial down employees’ most top-of-mind financial stresses. As an easy-to-use financial well-being solution, Best Money Moves offers comprehensive support toward any money-related goal. With 1:1 money coaching, budgeting tools and other resources, our AI platform is designed to help improve employee financial well-being.

Whether it be retirement planning or securing a mortgage, Best Money Moves can guide employees through the most difficult financial times and topics. We have robust benefits options for employers, regardless of their benefits budget.

Our dedicated resources, partner offerings and 1000+ article library make Best Money Moves a leading benefit in bettering employee financial wellness.

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.

How to Increase Remote Employee Engagement in 2021

How to Increase Remote Employee Engagement in 2021

by | Feb 10, 2021 | Blog

How can you increase remote employee engagement in 2021? As COVID-19 keeps workers at home, remote employee engagement strategy comes into focus for employers.

With the COVID-19 Pandemic still sweeping through the United States, many people have been working from home for almost a year with no end in sight. Over two thirds  of Americans who can work from home are continuing to do so, according to a 2021 survey conducted by Pew Research Trends. More importantly, 54 percent of those currently working from home report a desire to stay remote even after the pandemic has ended.

Remote-work employees can feel stranded and not engaged

But no employee is an island. While working from home offers employees enhanced flexibility and further protection against exposure to COVID-19, it can also pose significant challenges to remote employee engagement and communication among an unprepared workforce

How can you increase engagement among remote-work employees?

What steps can you take to increase remote employee engagement in 2021? Try these three strategies. 

1. Be intentional about non-work communication with remote-work employees.

At the office, employees talk about work, but they also make jokes, grab lunch, and stretch their legs by the water cooler. These moments may not feel immediately productive, but they’re vital for building team unity and trust. From home, casual conversations with employees are often lost, resulting in employees who feel isolated from their peers and who may be less likely to reach out to team members for help when needed.

Focus on remote employee engagement outside of a traditionally productive setting. As an employer, make an effort to not only keep your communication open to lighter commentary, but actually schedule time for employees to get together to socialize in remote or virtual spaces. Coffee breaks and happy hours can go a long way to improve morale.

2. Prioritize mental health.

According to a new report from the ExecuSearch group, “over 50% of employees reported not getting mental health support during these unprecedented times.” The report also noted that employees marked “unplugging” as the number one challenge to remote work. Consider creating a framework for employees to practice mindfulness or meditation. It’s important to find time to step away from the screen.

In any case, make sure you check in often with your employees. Don’t just ask how the work is coming along, but ask how they are doing and in what ways they can be better supported by management.

3. Support financial wellbeing.

2020 was a difficult year for everyone. While we enter 2021 hopeful for improvement, things are still not normal. The biggest stressor for many employees is the state of their financial wellbeing.  According to a 2021 Capital One CreditWise survey, 73% of Americans rank their finances as the most significant source of stress in their life. Increase remote employee engagement by creating avenues for employee financial stress.

And, don’t forget that more than half of all households lost income during the Covid-19 pandemic. Even if your employees held onto their jobs, their spouse or partners might have lost their, taken a forced furlough, or experienced a temporary or permanent pay cut.

Best Money Moves boosts remote employee engagement

Best Money Moves offers a human-centered and individualized approach to financial wellbeing. The comprehensive and user friendly platform provides a plethora of financial resources and educational tools. The library of resources contains over 800 articles, videos, and calculators. Each Best Money Moves user has their personal feed tailored to the several distinct factors that monitor their personal stress.

This means your employee can use Best Money Moves to educate themselves on anything from investing in the stock market to co-signing loans to buying their first home. Employee information is always private but employers do have access to key analytics that show overall employee financial stress and stress levels over time. The Employer Dashboard also features information on program usage, debt and savings levels and more so employers can see just how valuable Best Money Moves is to their employees.

If you want to learn more about how Best Money Moves can bring financial wellness to your company, download our whitepapers.

Top HR Challenges in 2021 and How to Overcome Them

Top HR Challenges in 2021 and How to Overcome Them

by | Oct 20, 2020 | Blog

Top HR challenges in 2021 and how to overcome them. The most pressing issues in human resource management and what organizations can do about them.

Employers made difficult decisions to navigate COVID-19 in 2020 but it’s unclear what the lasting impact of those changes will be.

A new report by Lattice, The State of People Strategy: The New World of Work, asked HR leaders what their most crucial initiatives are for the 12 months ahead and what challenges they’re most concerned about.

Top HR Challenges in 2021 and How to Overcome Them

HR leaders said their most important initiatives in the next 12 months are: 

  • 48 percent said employee engagement
  • 46 percent said training and enabling managers
  • 44 percent said diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) programs
  • 37 percent said learning and development 
  • 33 percent said performance management

Most of these initiatives have to do with adapting procedures and processes established to limit the risk of COVID-19 while remaining operational, with the exception of DE&I programs which have become an organizational priority for many companies after the events of this year underscored the pervasiveness of systemic racism and inequality. 

The top challenges HR teams face are:

  • 58 percent said emotional exhaustion (for themselves or their team members)
  • 54 percent said an overwhelming number of projects and responsibilities
  • 51 percent said employee morale/retention
  • 43 percent said budget constraints
  • 29 percent said low perceived value of HR’s worth in an organization

Health and wellness programs can help HR teams overcome their challenges in 2021, if they can find the right mix of benefits within their budget constraints. Benefits that help employees improve aspects of their overall health, like mental health benefits and financial wellness programs, can build resilience and help employees both manage and avoid exhaustion and burnout. 

Communication is going to be critical to organizational success next year, especially as many workplaces plan to continue working remotely indefinitely. Finding the right balance between professional check-ins where supervisors touch base with employees’ workloads, productivity and engagement are going to be just as important as personal check-ins where supervisors ask employees how they’re doing with everything going on and encourage them to ask for support when they need it. 

The businesses that are most adaptive and communicative stand to come out of 2021 on top. Effective HR teams focused on their most important initiatives and highly aware of the challenges they’ll face will help their organizations beat their business goals in the new year.

More on Topics Related to Top HR Challenges in 2021 and How to Overcome Them

HR Trends 2021: Which Benefits Do Employees Value Most?

Reducing Employee Burnout During the COVID-19 Pandemic

How to Build Remote Work Culture to Support Virtual Teams

Why Financial Wellness Is a Must-Have Employee Benefit

How Employee Health and Wellness Programs Help Build Resiliency

HR Trends 2021: Which Benefits Do Employees Value Most?

HR Trends 2021: Which Benefits Do Employees Value Most?

by | Sep 1, 2020 | Blog

HR trends 2021: which benefits do employees value most? Employees want benefits that better support their health and wellness after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Benefits priorities are shifting considerably due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Only 55 percent of employees believe their company is making the best decisions about their benefits, according to new research by The Hartford. Just 44 percent think their benefits package is above average compared to what other employers are offering.

“The pandemic has put pressure on the American workforce in ways few could have predicted and employees need support more than ever,” said Jonathan Bennett, head of Group Benefits at The Hartford. “Now is the perfect time for employers to address employees’ changing attitudes about benefits.”

HR Trends 2021: Which Benefits Do Employees Value Most?

These are the benefits and services that employers are adding to bring their benefits plans closer to their employees’ values:

  • Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) (56 percent)
  • Paid Time Off (52 percent)
  • Wellness Benefits (51 percent)
  • Behavioral/Mental Health Services (51 percent) 
  • Critical Illness Insurance (50 percent)
  • Hospital Indemnity Insurance (48 percent) 
  • Paid Time Off for Volunteering (42 percent)
  • Student Loan Repayment Plans (38 percent)
  • Paid Sabbatical (38 percent)
  • Pet Insurance (29 Percent)

Many of the most highly sought after benefits are centered around employee health, including their physical, mental, financial health as well as the health of their loved ones and their communities. Health and wellness has been an HR trend for quite some time but the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the employee demand for these types of benefits is as strong as ever.

The Importance of Benefits Communication

More employers are recognizing how important communication is to the success of any benefits program. Up from 63 percent at the start of the pandemic, 69 percent of employers told The Hartford they’re mostly or fully responsible for making sure employees understand the benefits offered.

In other surveys, employees have admitted that they don’t understand all the benefits their organization offers or that the programs available don’t meet their needs or are too difficult to understand. 

Employers can improve benefits communication in three steps:

  1. Send shorter, bite-sized benefits communications over a longer period of time rather than the traditional method of dumping it in an employee handbook or an annual employee benefits email. 
  2. Test different methods of communication, like text messaging, phone calls and instant messenger in addition to emails or meetings. 
  3. Track participation, open and click rates to see which method is the best way to reach your employees.

It’s not enough to follow the latest HR trends and make changes accordingly, employers need to work with their employees to determine what benefits are most valuable to them, which programs fit their needs and how they can make it easier for them to access their benefits.

More on Topics Related to HR Trends: What Benefits Do Employees Value Most?

Top 10 Employee Benefits for 2021

How to Choose Your Benefits Package

Support Workers with Better Employee Benefits

Helping Employees During Coronavirus/COVID-19 Pandemic

Choosing the Most Important Benefits to Employees

Financial Wellness as an Employee Engagement Strategy

Financial Wellness as an Employee Engagement Strategy

by | Sep 4, 2019 | Blog

Financial wellness as an employee engagement strategy. If you want to improve employees’ productivity, start with the heart of the problem.

If you’re looking for a way to improve your employees’ productivity, start with tackling their financial stress — not only will you bolster engagement, you’ll also boost your bottom line. 

Financial Stress Is Affecting Employee Engagement

That’s because employee financial stress is costing American businesses $500 billion per year, according to a recent survey of over 10,000 Americans. Employee financial stress finds its way into the workplace, as workers spend an average of three hours a week thinking about their personal finances on the job. 

According to the same study, that lost productivity represents between 11 and 14 percent of payroll expenses per employee, per year. Additionally, employees stressed by their personal finances report more than 56 percent more absences than their co-workers. For businesses that don’t provide financial wellness programs, this stress adds up and decreases their income. 

This stress is felt across a variety of different areas. For instance, over two-thirds of financially stressed employees say they consistently carry credit card balances each month, according to research by PwC. Additionally, 68 percent of those employees have saved less than $50,000 for retirement. 

Financial Wellness Programs Can Help With Employee Engagement

While the range of financial problems your employees are facing can vary — from a lack of retirement savings to mounting student loan debt — the first step to help them address the situation is to provide a comprehensive understanding of it. A majority of employees still want to make their own decisions when it comes to their financial lives — but they also want a resource that will help validate their decisions. The most desired employer benefit for one in four employees is a financial wellness program with access to unbiased counselors. 

Among employees who were provided a financial wellness program by their employer, 71 percent say they’ve used the benefit, and the programs are particularly popular among Millennials and Baby Boomers. Usage of the programs is up as well, with just 49 percent of employees using these same programs in 2015. 

Financial wellness programs give you a competitive advantage in the hiring market as well. Seventy-eight percent of employees who reported being stressed about their finances said they would be attracted to another company that cared more about their financial wellbeing. 

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 Wellness and Employee Engagement

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 visit us at Success Connect in Las Vegas this September 15th-19th. Join Best Money Moves founder and CEO Ilyce Glink’s session “Transform the Employee Experience by Reducing Financial Stress and Improving Financial Well-Being” on Wednesday, September 18th at 1:00 p.m.

Then, you can find us in booth #2550 at HR Tech this October 1st-4th and listen to Ilyce Glink’s speech “Employee Financial Stressors by Generation and How to Help at Every Stage” on Thursday, October 3rd from 1:10-2:00 p.m. in the Expo Room.