financial stress Archives

How to Make Employee Data Your Company’s Most Powerful Tool

by Leah Rosen | Feb 26, 2018 | Blog

Employee data is one of the most powerful tools at your company’s disposal – it reveals underutilized office talent, evaluates the efficacy of your hiring and training programs and highlights trends in overall employee productivity – all of which translates into the same thing: time, manpower and money saved for your business.

But if your HR department is merely collecting data without putting it to good use, you could be missing a great opportunity. In today’s data-driven economy, it’s vital that your company understands how to capitalize on its existing (and incoming) employee data. This will allow you to make smarter, more cost effective decisions about everything from hiring to building benefits programs targeting employee pain points.

Here’s how to make your employees’ data your company’s most powerful tool:

1. Properly utilizing employee data paints a comprehensive picture of your workforce and saves money
Employee data refers to all information collected by your company about its employees. It includes but is not limited to: basic identifying information (your employees’ age, race or gender) as well as in-depth information about workplace performance. If you provide employees with benefits from third-party providers, you might also have access to additional employee information regarding retirement planning and healthcare expenses or financial wellness. Your company most likely tracks:

Employees’ work status (part time, full time, contract, freelance, etc.)
Employee attendance records
Commuting distance and method
Amount and history of compensation
Length of employment
Overall performance

If you provide employees with benefits from third-party providers, you might also have access to additional employee information regarding retirement planning and healthcare expenses or financial wellness.

2. Employee data is most beneficial when used holistically
Looking at data from one employee may not provide significant insight. But when employee data is viewed holistically, it can identify patterns of growth and loss. Similarly, you can often determine which new hires are destined for leadership positions by tracking performance, raises and overall involvement in company culture. For a company with 500 or fewer employees, a bad hire who quits prematurely or doesn’t fit with company culture can cost around $11,000, and this cost only grows as the size of your workforce increases. By simply analyzing the employee data resources you already possess, you can predict patterns of attrition while minimizing costs.

3. If you’re using employee data well, your employees will be much happier
Keeping employees happy while at work keeps productivity high and turnover low. Happiness might be difficult to measure, but your level of employee engagement isn’t. Regular data collection in the form of employee surveys, exit interviews and performance reviews help HR assess what employees need to succeed at work. Offering a tailored benefits program, more experienced and engaged management, increased collaboration and out-of-work support systems can make priceless improvements in your employees’ happiness. Understand what your employees need and provide just that to create a more enjoyable and more productive office environment.

4. A lack of confidentiality is not an option
If you collect employee data, you need to have a plan in place to protect it. Ensure that personal employee information such as medical records or sensitive identifiers (health and financial wellness, social security numbers, addresses) are well guarded. Look for third-party benefits providers who can anonymize sensitive information. HR platforms that are able to harness anonymized data in the form of employee opinions and benefits usage (how many people are using medical, retirement, or financial services), are often the best at identifying patterns in employee behavior. Keeping sensitive information anonymous allows your employees to feel confident that their personal information won’t be known to their management teams and coworkers.

5. Have a plan in place to protect employee data before you need one.
Sixty-four percent of Americans have experienced a breach in their personal data, according to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center. Of those affected, 55 percent reported missing time from work to deal with the breach and the stress of losing sensitive information. With so much potential for data leaks, security hacks and cyberattacks, your HR and IT departments need to work together to protect valuable employee information. Encryption and firewalls are crucial first-steps, but it’s actually your own employees who are your first line of defense, yet often the weakest security link. Hosting workshops with IT professionals will bring your workforce up to speed. Losing data puts both the company and individual employee at risk.

In order to attract and retain the right talent, your company needs to take an active role in collecting and utilizing employee data – for the purpose of improving the overall work experience. In many cases, the needed data is already at HR’s fingertips – it’s just a question of using it in the right way.

Best Money Moves believes that an employees personal information should be respected, private and not shared with employers, marketers, or creditors. As a result, Best Money Moves keeps no sensitive employee data in its system. All information that is kept is encrypted, and unable to be accessed by HR or any other employee.

Your Employees Are Stressed About Healthcare Costs. What Can You Do?

by Leah Rosen | Feb 19, 2018 | Blog

Healthcare costs are the leading cause of financial stress for 17 percent of Americans, according to a 2017 Gallup poll gauging household stress. As uncertainty around the fate of Affordable Care Act mounts, this stress is only getting worse for your employees – and more expensive for your business.

Fifty two percent of male employees and 58 percent of female employees worry about becoming ill and not being able to work anymore, according to the 2017 Workplace Benefits Report. Financial stress leads to lower productivity and higher rates of absenteeism – this stress is even causes physical illness among some employees which only compounds the problem.

What can you do when healthcare costs leave your employees financially stressed? Try these 5 strategies:

1. Understand which healthcare-related stressors are affecting your employees
Your employees may be feeling massively stressed about their healthcare, regardless of their employee-sponsored benefits programs. The costs associated with monthly coverage, the difficulties of navigating confusing plan options and the weight of outstanding medical bills continue to stress out employees. Talk with your team as well as your HR department to determine exactly how healthcare may be contributing to your employees’ stress levels. This will allow you begin taking the appropriate steps to resolve these healthcare-related stressors.

2. Reassess the healthcare resources you already have
Once you understand the root cause of your employees’ stress, begin to review the healthcare resources you already have in place to help them. It may be time to diversify your approach. Reach out for external resources in order to analyze existing data.

Request assistance and information directly from your company’s insurance provider and its agents.
Reach out to company-linked financial advisors for relevant employee data
Access your company’s existing financial wellness programs in order to evaluate your employees’ stress levels, major financial concerns and overarching long term personal and professional goals.

If your company doesn’t currently retain all three of the above, it’s time you change that. These professional services assist you with educating yourself and your employees on how to maximize their healthcare benefits.

3. Provide your employees with the tools they need to educate themselves.
Your employees want to take control of their financial stress – many of them just don’t know where to start. Do your employees know the difference between an HMO, PPO, EPO, or POS? Between a copay and coinsurance? Do they understand how the size of their deductible will affect their monthly payment? Do you?

Improving employee literacy around healthcare is paramount to reducing employee stress and improving both their healthcare usage and your company’s savings. Look for tools through your insurance provider and if you don’t have one already, finding a financial wellness platform that will break down complex laws and regulations into readable, consumer-friendly language. By empowering your employees to take an active and supported role in researching their options, you’re helping them make educated and informed decisions. This translates into nearly $409.38 in savings for your company – per procedure, per employee.

4. Help your employees stay on top of recent changes to the healthcare system.
Healthcare stress is the highest it’s been since 2007, according to the same Gallup poll. This rising stress is tied in no small part to the uncertainty surrounding the future of the Affordable Care Act and what legislation might take its place. Whether your employees are receive insurance through you or the open market, stay aware of the changes happening in the world of healthcare – and make sure your employees do the same. Encourage employees to be proactive in gathering their own healthcare information. Task HR with maintaining effective outreach strategies including email updates, written literature in clear, readable language, face-to-face meetings and regular surveys. Host recurring employee workshops or lunch-and-learns to catch employees up on the latest changes to their plan options. Keeping employees up-to-date on the latest changes to their healthcare will cut down on employee stress, keep you connected with your workforce and keep your company’s overhead in check.

5. Make sure your employees are using the healthcare resources you already provide.
Employee benefits are useless if no one uses them. Employees who understand and utilize their benefits are more likely to be satisfied with their employer and recommend their organization as a good place to work, according to research from the Society for Human Resource Management. Yet, 80 percent of employees don’t even open the benefits materials given to them and of those who do, less than half don’t fully understand the benefits options available. In-person communication is the best way to cover confusing, and often changing, healthcare benefits. Make sure that resources about provided benefits – and about healthcare in general are easily accessible online.

Increase your employees’ access to their benefits resources. Create an environment that allows you to ensure that your employees are less stressed and more productive. That’s good for the health of your employees – and your business.

Women and Financial Stress: Reducing Financial Stress for Women Can Help Your Workforce Overall

by Kris Mackenzie | Feb 15, 2018 | Featured - For Employers

When it comes to money and financial stress, women and men are not created equal.

Despite the fact that women make up roughly half the U.S. workforce, many employers don’t recognize and aren’t prepared to solve to unique financial stress points facing female employees. In her recent article for Shortlister, Best Money Moves Founder and CEO Ilyce Glink took a hard look at how financial stress affects American women – and what their employers can do to help:

More than half of all college graduates are women and women make up just under 50 percent of applicants to the top business schools. Yet by the time they graduate and enter the workforce, women are paid a median salary that’s 81 percent of what their male colleagues make, according to data from the US Department of Labor.

And the picture isn’t much better at home. Whether through choice or cultural expectation, women continue to take the lionshare of housework and child rearing duties and spend an average of 2.6 hours completing these tasks compared to 2 hours for men.

Between being underappreciated at work and overworked at home, it’s not hard to imagine why women feel overwhelmed. The problem is compounded by the reality of financial stress. Roughly 75 percent of Americans don’t have any savings to fall back and many live paycheck to paycheck. More than half of all workers admit to feeling financially stressed, costing business an estimated $250 billion a year in lost productivity and absenteeism, according to one Mercer study.

That’s a ton of stress to deal with all at once, which is why it comes as no surprise that women report higher percentages of stress than men. Your employees shouldn’t have to worry about staying financially stable paycheck to paycheck. Take action and provide relief for your workforce by:

Instituting recognition and rewards programs.
Acknowledging that financial stress is an issue for your workforce.
Creating new job sharing and flex opportunities.

If employers can help the women on their workforce deal better with stress at home, work and in their wallets, then they’re sure to see huge improvements across the board.

This is all only a piece of the picture. For a full look at women and financial stress, read the full blog post on Shortlister.

Financial Wellness Is About More Than Just Retirement Planning Advice

by Leah Rosen | Feb 5, 2018 | Blog

Financial wellness has become table stakes for employers. But while many employers believe they’ve ticked the financial wellness box by providing employees with a 401(k) and retirement planning advice, that’s only a tiny piece of the help employees need.

That’s not to say comprehensive retirement planning isn’t vital to your employees’ overall financial wellness. It is. But if your employees are typical, they likely struggle with paying down debt, significant medical expenses or other financial hardships, which means they may not always have the option to set aside funds for retirement. Their financial stress goes beyond wondering whether they have, or they can, save enough for retirement.

What percentage of employees struggle with other causes of financial stress? Plenty. Forty-nine percent of employees say that if their workplace benefits included financial planning programs in addition to existing retirement savings assistance, their productivity in the workplace would significantly increase, according to the 2017 Retirement Confidence Survey conducted by the Employee Benefits Research Institute.

In addition to allowing auto-deductions for retirement savings, best practice financial wellness programs offer a wide range of preventative and curative options for your employees’ financial stress, with both long and short-term solutions for tackling tough financial issues such as debt, elder care, identity theft and more.

Other studies have concluded that financially secure employees are more motivated and focused at work. In order to help your team reach this level of financial wellness, consider providing a financial wellness program that offers a broad range of services, including:

An easy-to-use budgeting system
There’s nothing like seeing whether you’re cash-flow positive (or not). Seeing a clear view of your income and expenses along with an evaluation of your spending habits helps employees take a long hard look at the choices they’re making today and how they can make different choices going forward. Simple, yet effective tools that help employees identify the root causes of their financial stress can help eliminate financial insecurity and increase overall financial wellness.
Resources for managing debt
More than half of the workforce is financially stressed, according to a PwC study on financial wellness. And, among millennial employees that number rises to 64 percent. Debt is a big driver of financial insecurity and figuring how to pay down or manage debt can be incredibly tricky, especially if employees have multiple types of debt, with more than one creditor. When choosing a financial wellness platform, pick one that assists employees with calculating the total sum of what they owe while also tracking interest rates and repayment habits. Understanding what is owed helps employees recognize how much their existing debt will cost them in the long run and what their best options are for consolidation and repayment.
Help to set savings goals
You can’t reach a goal if you don’t set one. Financial wellness programs should allow employees to set individualized goals, based on personal circumstances regarding income, lifestyle, basic expenses, individual interests and family size. A qualified financial wellness program should offer assistance with assigning realistic time frames to accomplish each financial goal. The ability to visually track personalized savings timelines encourages commitment to the savings plan and ongoing smart spending habits.
Comprehensive, personalized answers to individual concerns or questions
Financial wellness isn’t just about creating a tight budget, or just about reducing debt. Financial wellness is integrated with all areas of life. Whether directly associated with financial planning or not, financial wellness deeply impacts an employee’s sense of overall well-being. All of life’s big decisions and events carry lasting effects on an employee’s bank account and overall financial wellness. Ensure that you provide a comprehensive financial wellness provider that can address – and resolve – your employee’s individual financial stressors.

Your employees are most likely experiencing financial stress. While retirement planning benefits are important, they don’t come close to capturing the full needs of your workforce. Provide your employees with access to a financial wellness platform that addresses their own financial stressors, not someone else’s.

Don’t forget: when your workforce is less financially-stressed and more financially-stable, it’s better for everyone.

Financial Wellness Matters: Here’s How to Convince Your Boss

by Leah Rosen | Jan 22, 2018 | Blog

Financial wellness programs often go overlooked by HR departments because employers don’t understand the tangible benefits of reducing employee financial stress. If you know that your coworkers are carrying high levels of financial stress, don’t wait any longer to speak with management about a solution.

Show your employer that employee financial wellness is equally important to the health of the business as it is to the health of the employees themselves, by using these five talking points:

1. Every employee needs financial wellness and that starts in the workplace.
The majority of all employees worry about their finances on a regular basis (and spend an average of 12 work hours per month on financial issues, according to the latest research from Mercer). Nearly 40 percent of employees say they’d like for their employer to provide additional help with financial education, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s 2017 Workplace Benefits Report Millennial Supplement. Productive ways to think about finances include planning for retirement, budgeting to pay off debt and learning how to live within your means. However, when financial stress hits, unproductive thoughts about finances rise to the surface and many people begin to feel overburdened and helpless. If employees are constantly preoccupied with their financial stress, they become distracted, unproductive and devote their work hours trying to resolve personal financial issues.

2. More of your employees are stressed about their finances than you think.
Forty-eight percent of employees admit to being distracted by their finances at work, according to a 2017 study from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Of those stressed employees, 46 percent spend three hours or more at work each week dealing with financial issues. Aside from hurting overall productivity (and, in turn, company profit), it also means that employees are less likely to be creative, thought-leading and reaching their highest potential during work hours. Financial wellness can help restore employee engagement and longevity with your company.

3. Financial stress is costing your company thousands of dollars every year.
Emotional stress causes physical symptoms as well. Your employees may be experiencing rapid heart rate, headache, gastrointestinal problems, restlessness or lethargy – among others symptoms – and all due to their lack of financial wellness. Over time, these symptoms evolve into chronic health problems. Nearly one million employees miss work each year due to stress related illnesses, with an estimated annual cost of $602 per person.

4. Financial stress is manageable – as long as you provide the right tools.
Financial stress is caused by many sources. From an inconsistent paycheck to the inability to pay down debt; anxiety over insurmountable student loans and even an inability to meet basic monthly expenses – financial stress looms from the inability to address life’s financial needs and this often can be easily resolved with the most basic of resources: education. Stressed employees want to get a handle on their finances – but they might not know where to find help for their personal, financial stressor. Providing employees with educational tools that help them track changing interest rates, plan for long-term (and short-term) payment goals and visualize their current spending habits are highly effective ways to reduce financial stress.

5. Employees with financial wellness benefits are happier, more productive and less likely to leave their jobs.
Experiencing financial stress doesn’t always equate to being underpaid. But, without the necessary financial wellness tools, it may lead your employees to seek out higher paying positions, or even take on a second job in order to relieve their financial stress. Seventy-six percent of employees who are financially stressed say that they would be more attracted to a potential employer who cares about their financial well-being, according to the previously mentioned PricewaterhouseCooper study.

When employees have the knowledge, tools and resources they need to make their best financial moves, it provides them with financial wellness while, at the same time, reduces their financial stress. This frees up time and energy in order for your employees to fully dedicate themselves to their work, while they’re in the office.