Many employers are busy taking care of the business that they often take their employees for granted. Many don’t even care if any of their employees are having financial difficulties. They are satisfied with the fact that they already did their job right for as long as they keep up with their regular payments.
But then, even people who have good-paying jobs can still experience financial difficulties. But what your employee’s financial struggles have to do with you?
Why Your Employees’ Financial Wellness Is Also Your Problem
Financial stress affects the productivity of employees. There can be so many reasons why they are now struggling financially. If they are constantly stressing about their finances, this can keep their focus off from work.
Stress can manifest physical symptoms in the long run. They can experience headaches, back pain, sleeping problems, and appetite changes. All these can affect their health, often leading to late and absences.
Even if your employees arrive on time and are not applying for sick leaves, their productivity can still suffer. They can make reckless decisions since they are not focused on their jobs. This can put them or other employees at risk, ruin the quality of their or even make them miss their deadlines.
Failure to help your employees achieve better financial health can also lead to them doubting their abilities. When the stress clouds their judgment, even your best employees will find it hard to optimize their work. Just imagine what will happen if most of your employees are distracted because they are stressing over their monthly utility bills, mortgage, student loans, and credit card debts?
What Employers Can Do for Their Financially Struggling Employees
You might not have enough funds to raise the salary of your financially-struggling employees. It won’t also be fair to your other employees who work as hard as those with financial issues if you don’t raise their paycheck as well. But there are things you can do the help.
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Ensure Timely and Accurate Payments
The first thing you can do is to make sure you pay your employees on time. They have bills and debts to pay, and a delay will only increase their anxiety. Review your company benefits and see if you can improve some areas which can greatly help most of your financially struggling employees.
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Offer Free Financial Coaching
Many employers fail to realize just how helpful financial coaching is to their employees. This may seem like a waste of company time. But this can be your ticket to improve employee morale.
Financial coaching can help employees determine the very reasons why they are having money issues. This can be due to their poor budgeting strategies, failure to live within their means, or their failure to save money for emergencies. Knowing what causes your money issue is the best way to determine how to resolve your problem.
Some employees don’t know how they can ever repay their mortgage. If this is the case, a financial coach can help explain mortgages better. They can provide other options that might benefit your employees, such as refinancing the loan, get a forbearance, a loan modification or strike a deal for a better repayment plan.
There are employees who get financial headaches due to their massive student debt along with other debts under their name. A financial coach can help them come up with a more manageable way to pay off their debt. This can include debt consolidation, lifestyle modification, and a better repayment plan.
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Improve Employee Benefits
There are times when the high costs of healthcare is the main stress trigger of some employees. They may have dependents who often need medical care but can’t afford to pay for it. Improving their health benefits can be a good way to ease their worries and improve their morale.
Some find it hard to balance childcare and their work schedule, prompting them to pay someone to watch over the kids while they work. You can consider offering a more flexible schedule. This can help them avoid paying for a nanny while can continue working productively at their peak hours.
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Make Managers More Sensitive to Employee’s Needs
Your managers are the ones who can see how your employees are doing. If they find some who are less productive and were not in their usual self lately, then they should take some time to talk to them. They can also send the employees to the HR manager so that he can be the one to talk to them and see what’s wrong and how the company can help.
A raise is not the only way to help employees with their finances. Sometimes, better employee benefits, free financial consultation, and even a better team of managers can be excellent ways to help. Consider your employee’s needs, help them address their struggles and your brand’s productivity will be better than before.
