Financial Information vs Employee Behavior Change: Which Is More Important for Your Company’s Financial Wellness Program?

Are you making important decisions for your company’s financial wellness program? You want to be sure your solutions are based on evidence. One of the questions you might have is simple. Is behavior change or financial information more important to consider?

A survey by John Hancock’s annual Stress, Finances, and Wellness report indicates that over the last year, 58% of employees have experienced financial stress¹.

On average, people spend about 15 hours every month² concerned about their finances while at work. This can lead to lower productivity in all industries.

However, that’s not the only way financial stress can impact individuals. Just under 50% of employees note that financial worries also have a major effect on their mental wellness².

Thankfully, implementing a successful financial wellness program can help.

Why Comprehensive Financial Wellness is Important Now

The pandemic has created economic hurdles for people of all kinds.

Some employees, those who are childless or who have no kids at home, might be doing well due to being able to reduce expenses.

But for most employees, finances have taken a significant hit.

Many parents with younger kids, especially women, have needed to either quit working or cut their hours down. This has led to a decreased income and a need for financial wellness plans that can keep them afloat.

Other employees have seen a decrease in income because their partner is making less money.

Some who had a second job have seen that income disappear since the pandemic started raging across the globe.

Additional employees have had to deal with true loss from COVID.

Almost 20% of people have had a relative or close friend pass away from COVID. This number jumps to 30% for Latinx and Black households³.

All of this has led to decreased income and extra expenses, which has led to worry about getting sick as well as concern about finances.

A holistic financial wellness program is the best way to resolve these issues for many people.

Financial Information vs. Employee Behavior Change

About 46% of organizations have a financial wellness program in place⁴. However, not all of them are hitting the mark. A true understanding of financial wellness is needed to create a program that works for employees.

Before looking into new options for financial wellness options, it’s important to know what works and what does not.

We’ll dive into some of the things that work for financial wellness as well as the things that might not. Then you can make a decision that empowers your workers and keeps them productive throughout the way.

Financial Information

A search online for financial wellness brings up hundreds of entries. The term has become common and doesn’t have a single definition. In addition, there are dozens of solutions that have their own interpretations.

One of those is financial information. It stands to reason that people who understand finances are aware of how money works.

For example, maybe your employees are aware of things like how compound interest is calculated. You may have taught them that in your existing financial wellness program.

The problem is that knowing something doesn’t mean these employees can apply it properly.

Most employers aren’t thinking about holistic financial wellness when thinking about how to create these programs for employees or customers.

"Financial wellness" education might be implemented without considering whether it works well or not.

Behavior Change

Instead, why not make employee behavior change the heart of financial wellness? The reality is that all employees know the basics, such as how important it is to save.

However, the main issue is that many of these people have no easy and engaging method to save. This is evidenced by the fact that 40% of lower-income workers have no savings account³.

Financial wellness means helping change behavior of this kind. The best employers will help employees achieve their financial goals, save money for future needs, and control their finances on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis.

When an employee changes their behavior to be more financially responsible, it can change their life.

A good program should focus on encouraging savings, teaching better money management, helping employees play for retirement, and more.

How Enrich Can Help Create Employee Behavior Change

For employee behavior change, Enrich has statistics available that show how helpful its programs can be.

Over a year, there have been several increases, including the following:

• 32% of users are on track to meet their financial goals
• 28% of them pay off their credit cards fully every month
• 27% have built a three to six months emergency savings fund
• 15% are currently contributing to a retirement fund
• 10% contribute enough to get the full employee match

Our comprehensive financial wellness plan can be customized to meet your company’s goals. You get real-time reporting to show the return on investment.

Employees also gain instant access to financial experts through live chat or phone calls.

Final Thoughts

Providing employees with ways to change their behavior is essential. Workers should have financial empowerment to move to the future. Giving them the tools to do so is essential.

Offering pure financial information is often not the best method to choose. Instead, provide solutions that inspire change. Work with Enrich to help your employees become financially healthy and more positive both at and away from work.

1 - https://retirement.johnhancock.com/us/en/financial-stress-survey

2 - https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/business-transformation/library/employee-financial-wellness-survey.html

3 - https://hrexecutive.com/why-financial-education-is-good-but-action-is-so-much-better/

4 - https://business.bofa.com/content/dam/flagship/workplace-benefits/id20_0905/documents/2021-WBR.pdf