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4 Ways to Help Your Employees Tackle Financial Stress

4 Ways to Help Your Employees Tackle Financial Stress

by | Sep 14, 2022 | Blog

4 ways to help your employees tackle financial stress. Financial stress is on the rise among your employees. Here are 4 common financial problems facing your employees and how Best Money Moves can help. 

Between rising housing costs and continued inflation, U.S. workers are facing financial stress on all sides. According to a survey conducted by SoFi at Work and Workplace Intelligence, employees spend around 25% of their work week worrying about money, resulting in significant productivity loss. Another 45% of employees feel that their employer is unconcerned with their financial well-being. 

Your employees want greater financial well-being and they’re looking to you for help managing financial strain. Best Money Moves is a financial wellness solution designed to help dial down employees’ most top-of-mind financial stresses. 

Here are 4 common financial problems facing your employees and how Best Money Moves can help.

1 Address employee mental health strain by diagnosing the root causes of financial stress.

Employee mental health is top of mind for many employees in the post-COVID workforce. Not having a firm grasp on personal finances adds significant strain to employee wellbeing. 42% of American adults said money had a negative impact on their mental health as reported by Bankrate’s Money and Mental Health survey. That’s why diagnosing employee financial stress is at the heart of everything Best Money Moves does.

Using a unique tracking system known as the Stressometer, employees can measure their financial stress across 14 financial categories. Best Money Moves will map these stressors and use our unique content mapping system to connect each user to the financial resources they need the most. Identifying the root causes of financial stress is the first step toward alleviating financial anxiety.

2. Help employees build their financial literacy and make smarter financial decisions.

In a report conducted by Guardian, the average American worker could only answer about half of the questions of a standardized personal finance test. And it’s no surprise why — it’s often in the best interest of the financial services industry to keep consumers confused about their options.

However, your employees shouldn’t need a PhD in economics just to understand their finances. That’s why Best Money Moves prioritizes thoroughness and readability when it comes to financial education. Users gain access to a library of 800+ educational resources, including articles, videos, webinars, and more, about all kinds of money management strategies.

3. Employees are unprepared for a financial emergency. Help them catch up.

According to a survey by MagnifyMoney, 20% of Americans reported that they put $0 towards emergency savings during 2021. Successful savings starts with a strong budget, so Best Money Moves offers intuitive tools for both.

The Best Money Moves budget tool uses real-world data about an employee’s monthly income and living situation to create personalized budget goals (their Best Money Moves). Employees can organize their spending into a wide array of categories and receive alerts and guidance about areas of overspending. 

Plus, with the Best Money Moves savings tools, users can also break long-term goals into smaller, more actionalabe monthly savings. 

4. Address the specifics of financial stress by connecting employees to the guidance they need.

Providing employees with customized assistance to their finances can signal to employees that you’re listening to their needs. According to Morgan Stanley, 70% of employees say they’d be open to receiving personal financial support at work from a financial professional.

Best Money Moves offers high levels of customization and engagement, so your employees get the information, tools, solutions and products they need to live their best financial lives. Our latest, and most affordable, product is Best Money Moves Premium, which allows companies to personalize and contextualize the benefits they give to their employees, dramatically cutting down the time it takes to implement a full-service financial wellness program. 

We have a full slate of award-winning, best-in-class benefits our customers can choose for their employees or end users, or companies can pull in their own benefits and use our triggers & alerts overlay to push the right benefit to the right person at the right point in time. Best Money Moves Premium is available as a zero-cost or low-cost white label solution to the problem of getting employees to engage with their benefits

Need a financial wellness solution for your team? Try Best Money Moves!

Best Money Moves is a mobile-first financial wellness solution designed to help employees meet their most top-of-mind financial goals. With budgeting tools and personalized money coaching, users can easily receive comprehensive financial advice right from their phones.

Focused on user-friendliness, Best Money Moves is designed to bring financial wellness resources right to the fingertips of employees. Our dedicated resources, partner offerings and 700+ article library make Best Money Moves a leading benefit in improving employee financial wellbeing.

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.

4 Ways Financial Stress Harms Overall Employee Wellness

4 Ways Financial Stress Harms Overall Employee Wellness

by | Apr 5, 2022 | Blog

4 ways financial stress harms overall employee wellness. Financial stress can have ramifications that affect far more than your wallet. Here’s what to keep an eye out for among your team. 

According to Financial Fitness Group, companies lose roughly $7,000 per employee per year due to stress caused by personal finance issues. And for employees, the effects of stress go far beyond dollars and cents. Long-term financial stress can take a huge toll on overall employee wellness and can even lead to emotional and physical consequences. 

Here are 4 ways that financial stress impacts overall employee wellness.

cost of financial stress

1. Financial stress can keep your employees up at night.

A good night’s sleep is important for both physical and mental health. A full night’s sleep has been linked to boosting the immune system, brightening mood, improving memory and even increasing day-to-day productivity. Unfortunately, those who are financially stressed are among the worst sleepers in America, according to the Better Sleep Council’s State of America’s Sleep survey.

Without healthy sleeping habits, an employee is more likely to experience mental strain, anxiety and depression, along with physical symptoms such as a weakened immune system. And those effects can spill over into the workday. According to the sleep foundation, sleep-deprived employees take more time to react in critical situations and are more likely to make mistakes than their well-rested counterparts. Reducing the financial stress that’s keeping your employees up at night is one step toward helping them rest easier.

2. Prolonged stress upsets employee work/life balance.

Proper work/life balance has already become a challenge following the COVID-19 pandemic, with millions of employees transitioning out of the office and into remote work. 

Burnout is a rising concern associated with stressed employees. Job burnout is a specific type of work-related stress that causes physical/emotional fatigue. Employees who suffer from significant levels of burnout can suffer from insomnia and increased stress levels and are more likely to take sick leave or look for another job. 

Employers can help their employees avoid burnout by creating a healthy workplace culture, allowing employees to work on a flexible schedule, and providing resources to address mental health concerns. Burnout remains a rampant problem in the workplace as, according to Deloitte, 77% of professionals have felt burnout at their current job.

3. Financial stress is a physical problem too.

Stress not only raises anxiety levels, but it can also take a physical toll on the body, causing high blood pressure, headaches, fatigue, pains and aches among other things. 

If the problem persists, stressed employees are more likely to get cardiovascular disease and other ailments that wind up killing around 120,000 people per year. Reducing that kind of stress in the workplace can avoid a cycle of various stressors that poor financial habits can cause.

4. Stress could be harming your workplace culture.

According to the Mayo Clinic, some of the most common effects of stress include increased irritability or anger. Employees burdened by stress are nine times more likely to have troubled relationships with coworkers and twice as likely to be searching for a new job.

It’s vital to address employee stress to foster a positive workplace culture  — one that allows employees to ask for personal finance assistance when they need it. One solution is to offer your team a financial wellness program. Providing employees with comprehensive financial wellness tools can help them address their financial stress head-on Plus, it signals to your employees that you care about their overall wellbeing.

Offer your employees relief from financial stress with Best Money Moves.

Less than 33% of workers have access to benefits that can assist with their financial needs according to a Financial Health Network survey. 

By offering financial wellness programs, like Best Money Moves, employers can help employees manage their personal finance goals and stress. 

Best Money Moves is a mobile-first platform that offers personalized financial planning and coaching resources, focused on solving your employees’ pain points. The program uses artificial intelligence, along with a human-centered design, to measure employee financial stress and then dial it down with personalized solutions. Our triggers and alerts system — as well as budgeting tools, personal finance resources and more — help guide employees to make more informed financial decisions and reduce their overall stress.

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.

What is Employee Financial Wellness?

What is Employee Financial Wellness?

by | Feb 28, 2022 | Blog

What is employee financial wellness? With financial stress on the rise among employees, what can employers offer to help? Here’s what to know about employee financial wellness benefits. 

Sixty-three percent of employees feel their financial stress has increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to PwC’s 2021 Employee Financial Wellness Survey. Now they want their employers to step in: The same survey found that 87 percent of participants want help with their personal finances.

As reducing financial stress becomes a top priority for employees, financial wellness benefits may be the key to retaining top talent.

What is employee financial wellness?

An employee’s financial situation impacts more than their wallet. Employee financial wellness refers to the way personal finances tie in to overall physical, emotional and mental health. Financial stability is an important component of overall employee wellness.

How does financial stress impact employees?

Long-term financial stress can impact a person’s overall wellbeing. Employees with elevated levels of financial stress are four times as likely to experience a decrease in overall household income, and struggle with meeting monthly household expenses.

These stressors can carry over into the workplace. Concerns about being able to manage finances and pay bills have naturally impacted employee performance, leaving many stressed and distracted. Other research studies echo the same sentiment of financial stress impacting employee lives and productivity. In a survey conducted by the Society of Human Resource Professionals (SHRM), 37% of employed adults agreed or strongly agreed that they had to miss work because of a financial emergency in the past 12 months.

Without employer support, financial stress can also become a retention issue. Of those surveyed in PwC’s Employee Financial Wellness Survey, 72% said they would be attracted to a different organization that cared more about their financial wellbeing. o keep the most productive and talented employees and show that the organization cares about their staff, employers will need to strengthen their financial wellness programs.

How can employee financial wellness programs reduce employee stress?

Employee financial wellness programs are any benefits that can help employees more successfully manage their personal finances. Retirement savings and safety net insurance are the most common benefits offered by employers. However, employees are also voicing their need for additional wellness programs, such as consulting for wealth management, estate planning and investments; financial literacy training on the basics of budgeting, debt and credit management, and other personal finance topics; and emergency funds preparedness.

Fewer companies provide financial well-being programs such as coaching services about everything from the basics of budgeting to credit score monitoring. However, according to the surveyed HR professionals who come from organizations that do, these programs are now more crucial for employee financial well-being. Emergency funds, financial planning and financial coaching services have all been used more by employees since the start of the pandemic.

Offering financial wellness programs for your workers can result in reduced mental stress, which can potentially improve productivity and retention rates. Since employees find financial wellness support as a top priority from their employer, they may be less likely to seek work elsewhere if they already feel that their financial needs are being met.

Looking for an all-inclusive employee financial wellness plan? Try Best Money Moves.

If you’re looking for a first-in-class financial wellness solution, Best Money Moves could be the answer you need. Best Money Moves is a financial wellness program that provides all the guidance and support employees need to help them reduce their financial stress. It has tools and features that help employees measure their financial stress, budget for monthly expenses, pay down debt and plan for emergencies. 

Employees can talk to trained professional financial counselors and educate themselves about everything from investing to co-signing loans and buying their first homes with access to a library of over 700 articles, videos and calculators. 

Best Money Moves is also gamified, featuring a point-based rewards system where users earn points every time they log in, enter their information into their profile, work with their budgets, read articles and measure their stress. Each point translates into a chance to win a monthly contest.

Employers want a financial wellness program that is expansive, engaging and suited to meet each of their employee’s unique needs and they’ve found it in Best Money Moves.

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.

Why Financial Wellness Is Important to Employees in 2021

Why Financial Wellness Is Important to Employees in 2021

by | Dec 9, 2020 | Blog

Why financial wellness is important to employees in 2021. Why employees want financial wellness benefits and what they value most about their tools and features.

An astounding 86 percent of employees agree it’s important for employers to offer financial wellness programs, according to research by John Hancock.

The time employees spend distracted by their personal finances at work equates to over 47 hours in lost productivity per year. Nearly 20 percent of employees worry about personal finances at work every single day and roughly 60 percent worry about it at least once a week. Financial stress is top of mind for 64 percent of employees.

More than 65 percent of employees believe that employer-sponsored financial wellness programs have an impact on reducing financial stress, 59 percent say such programs improve loyalty and the likelihood they’d recommend their employer and 54 percent say a financial wellness program would increase their job productivity.

All financial wellness programs are not created equally, however, and employees are looking for a specific mix of tools and resources to help them manage their finances and reduce financial stress. 

Why Financial Wellness Is Important to Employees in 2021

The vast majority of employees agree it’s important for employers to offer financial wellness programs. Most employees don’t feel knowledgeable enough to determine their overall financial wellness and 62 percent would like their employer to help them. 

These are top sources of financial stress that employees believe financial wellness programs could help them with:

  • 80 percent of employees aren’t sure if they’re on track for retirement
  • 57 percent of employees worry about not having enough emergency savings to cover an unexpected expense
  • 23 percent of employees have student loan debt for themselves or others and 60 percent of them have a balance of $20,000 or more
  • 20 percent of employees believe their debt is a major problem

Employees are most interested in financial wellness programs that can help them assess their situation, manage debt, balance financial priorities, set goals and create a budget. More than half of workers believe if they were taught how to balance their financial priorities, they would be able to save more for retirement.

How Best Money Moves Can Help

Best Money Moves has it all. It has tools and features that help employees assess their financial situations, budget for monthly expenses, pay down debt, plan for emergencies and save for retirement. Our team of Money Coaches, trained professional financial counselors, are ready to give employees financial guidance whenever they need it. Employees can educate themselves about everything from investing in the stock market to co-signing loans to buying their first homes with access to a growing library of over 700 articles, videos and calculators. We leverage user analytics to create individualized employee content and Best Money Moves is gamified to encourage consistent engagement. 

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 and sign up for a demonstration here.

More on Topics Related to Why Financial Wellness Is Important to Employees in 2021

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How Employee Health and Wellness Programs Help Build Resiliency

How Employee Health and Wellness Programs Help Build Resiliency

by | Oct 14, 2020 | Blog

How employee health and wellness programs help build resiliency on an individual and organizational level to better navigate economic uncertainty.

An astounding 75 percent of U.S. employees are struggling at work because of anxiety caused by COVID-19 and other recent events, according to a survey by TELUS International.

Employers aren’t blind to the unprecedented levels of stress employees are feeling. In fact, as the pandemic drags on, 85 percent of them are increasingly concerned about their employees’ health and wellness needs, according to research by Unum.

Another report by Principal found roughly 30 percent of employers plan to adapt benefits offerings to provide better mental health and wellness programs, childcare support, healthcare benefits and financial wellness programs to support employees through times of uncertainty.

“COVID-19 has fundamentally reshaped the benefits landscape,” says Kara Hoogensen, senior vice president of U.S. Insurance Solutions for Principal. “Employees and employers alike are recognizing the need for coverage that protects the health and well-being of both individuals and their families. This has brought new meaning to benefits that may have previously fallen lower on an employee’s priority list, such as income protection, life insurance and mental health programs.”

How Employee Health and Wellness Programs Build Resiliency

According to the research by TELUS International, since working from home during the pandemic, almost four in five employees have found it challenging to “shut off” from work in the evenings. Forty percent of workers aren’t getting enough sleep and 13 percent are hardly sleeping at all. Over 35 percent of employees reported feeling less healthy physically and 45 percent said they feel less healthy mentally. But just 40 percent of employees feel empowered to let someone at their company know when they aren’t feeling physically or mentally well, and that’s a problem. 

Employees who aren’t feeling well struggle to focus, aren’t as engaged or collaborative, take more time off and are less satisfied with their jobs, ultimately taking a toll on an organization’s productivity and retention. Nearly 80 percent of employees would consider quitting their current position for a job that focused more on employee mental health. 

Flexible Schedules Build Resiliency and Better Health Outcomes

Nearly 90 percent of employees agreed having more flexibility in their work schedule would positively impact their health, 49 percent said health care benefits that include therapy and counseling would make a difference, 43 percent would like thoughtful one on one check-ins from their employer and 37 percent thought virtual workshops about health and wellness or yoga and meditation classes would make them feel like their mental health is being prioritized.

Prioritizing Employee Health and Wellness is a Win-Win

Prioritizing employee health and wellness is mutually beneficial. Through health and wellness programs employees have the opportunity to improve their physical, mental and financial health, lower their stress levels and learn how to better manage the various struggles they may face in the future. This absolutely carries over to their performance at work. The result is a company culture that is healthier, more supportive and more resilient to challenges on all fronts.

More on Topics Related to Health and Wellness Programs at Work

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