Help for employees in recessionary times

Financial wellness, simply defined is managing one’s finances effectively and meeting current

financial needs, while working towards future financial goals. This includes regular savings, reducing

and managing expenditure and even planning emergency funds. Today, personal finance is said to be

one of the leading causes of stress for young, working professionals. A PwC USA study revealed that

over 54% of all employees are stressed about their finances. This stress, in turn, leads to loss of

productivity that reportedly costs businesses about $300 billion, annually.

Employers must take care to ensure that they make arrangements for providing at least basic

financial education to workers, followed by periodic training sessions, workshops, etc. to promote

financial wellness. These impart necessary financial knowledge, life skills and most importantly the

confidence required for good personal financial management to employees. This can go a long way

in assisting employees learn to manage their income and expenditure and build their wealth

consistently.

Quite contrary to popular belief, these initiatives don’t increase costs for the organisation. Employee

satisfaction and happiness have a significant impact on the organisation’s long term growth and

future, even in terms of profitability than one would typically assume. Ideally, where the

organisation seeks to go, and catering to employee concerns especially of the financial kind, must

superimpose and go hand in hand as part of the long term vision or goals of a business.

As many as one in three employees state that personal finances are a cause of stress at work,

although the two are seemingly unrelated. These mainly stem from high debt levels, poor cash flow

management, student debt and so on. Financial wellness programmes apart from prevention of loss

of employee productivity and subsequent impact on profits, also help retaining employees which in

turn help businesses achieve massive savings. Given that such financial wellness initiatives cost

companies a bare minimum, they provide a win-win situation for both employers and employees.

Contact info@sequor.biz for more information on our series of Financial Wellness programmes.