How to Successfully Offer Valuable Financial Wellness Education to a Changing Workforce

Last Update: November 21, 2022

Adapting how you communicate with a changing workforce is essential to employee participation in financial wellness programs. Even more importantly, employers must offer financial wellness programs that are personalized and easily accessible to each employee, whether they work remotely or on-site.

A majority of your employees are struggling with finances.

A survey from Charles Schwab¹ found that 59% of Americans are a single paycheck away from homelessness. That means that something as minor as an emergency room visit or a transmission failure could take three out of five employees from making ends meet to catastrophe.

Unfortunately, things are even worse since the pandemic, with three times as many people having less money in emergency savings now than before COVID-19².

Even high-wage earners experience financial stress, with nearly one out of five employees earning $100,000 or more living paycheck to paycheck³. Despite these numbers, 65% of Americans cannot tell you how much they spent last month⁴.

Personalization is Key

While the majority of your employees need a financial wellness program, they don’t need the same financial information at the same time in the same way.

Employees have differences regarding:

How much financial knowledge they have
How comfortable they feel about personal finances
Life stages
Family make-up
Income
Current financial situation
Motivation to enroll and engage in a financial wellness program

That’s why it is essential to look for a program that offers a variety of information and tools that are personalized according to the employee’s age, life stage, and financial situation.

Anytime, Anywhere Access

With employees traveling and working remotely, you must offer a financial wellness program that can be used anywhere, anytime.

Financial wellness benefits should be available to employees wherever they are and whenever they happen to have time, which is why digital solutions make sense.

A digital financial wellness program can be accessed at work, at home, and while traveling or commuting. An employee can learn about identity theft when the matter comes to mind, whether that is on a lunch break or at 3 a.m.

Not only will a digital solution available on any computer or mobile device help those without traditional hours or working environments, but it can also help:

Busy professionals who cannot find time during working hours to deal with financial wellness
Entire families who can access the information together
Employees too embarrassed about their financial situation to sit down in a group to discuss potential solutions
Employees in companies without a central location

On-demand financial wellness content is crucial for helping employees create healthier financial habits.

Communication is Key

Finally, it does no good to have a financial wellness program if your employees don’t know about it, don’t sign up for it, or don’t use it. Because your workforce is changing, you must also change how you communicate.

Benefits Fair

One of the more traditional ways to promote a financial wellness program is through a benefits fair. However, consider making some adjustments to accommodate remote and flex-time workers such as extending its days/hours, offering it at more locations or making the event completely virtual.

Text Messages

A majority of employees now have smartphones, so texting information such as a link on how to enroll is something that they will appreciate.

Digital Communication

Use email communication to encourage employees to sign up for and use financial wellness. Make sure to:

Keep messages short
Provide a call to action: Sign up, sign on, read an article, enter a contest, etc.
Piggyback on digital communication already going to employees

Meetings, webinars, snail mail, posters, and providing information as new employees onboard can also be good ways to promote financial benefits.

Keep Reading: 4 Program Promotion Tips Proven to Increase Financial Wellness Participation

Look for a financial wellness program that can reach your employees through existing communication channels and offer new ideas to help reach every employee.

1 - https://content.schwab.com/web/retail/public/about-schwab/Charles-Schwab-2019-Modern-Wealth-Survey-findings-0519-9JBP.pdf

2 - https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/emergency-savings-survey-2020/

3 - https://www.willistowerswatson.com/en-US/News/2020/02/despite-improvement-in-their-financial-wellbeing-US-workers-remain-worried

4 - https://mint.intuit.com/blog/budgeting/spending-knowledge-survey/