Measuring your firm's financial fitness

It may seem like ages ago, but 2020 ushered in historically low unemployment rates. As HR leaders, you were thriving and had no shortage of talent from which to choose.  Income was rising – but so was debt. Despite a rosy economic outlook, US workers were facing unmanageable debt. Nearly 8 in 10 US workers were living paycheck. Four out of 10 adults would struggle to cover an unexpected expense of $400.

And then we hit March – and the problems facing US workers accelerated.

Layoffs, work furloughs, and uncertainty accompanied the global COVID-19 pandemic. Once drowning in open headcounts, your focus shifted from hiring to ensuring you were taking the best possible care of your employees.

Prior to the pandemic, more than four out of 10 US workers were experiencing financial stress, according to a survey Salary Finance conducted in December 2019. In new data collected in June, that number had increased to more than two-thirds of American workers.

if you are one of the fortunate organizations that hasn’t had to lay off employees or reduce pay, you might be skeptical that this reflects the reality for your own employees. But keep in mind that a spouse or partner’s reduction in income is included in this number, and many are supporting other family members or loved ones who have lost jobs or income as well.

In that most recent study, we also asked what economic trends US workers are feeling the most anxiety about at this time. Their fears revolved around how to:

• Reduce spending
• Adjust to a loss of income
• Build up savings

This provides a tremendous opportunity for employers. It’s been uncommon for employers in the past to probe too deeply into the financial wellbeing of their employees, but we are at a crossroads where our best asset – our people – are crying out for help.

You may be tempted to think the status quo approach toward employee financial wellbeing is not your problem.

Think again.

Employee financial stress impacts your organization’s bottom line, to the tune of up to 18% of your annual salary cost. Employees experiencing financial stress are more likely to have sleepless nights, spend hours dealing with money issues at work, and are twice as likely to be looking for a new job.

Put bluntly: It is your problem.

So how do you go about implementing a financial wellbeing program for your company? It starts with two critical steps.

1. Understand your workforce

Let’s start by busting a common myth about employee financial wellness, which is that paying people more will solve the problem of financial wellness. According to our research, that’s simply not true. Money worries show up across the income spectrum, and don’t decrease as income level increases.

Gathering the data needed to truly understand the financial stressors your employees are facing can feel like a daunting task – but there are sources you can likely tap into right away. They include:

• Looking at 401(k) loans taken out. If you’ve seen an increase in that number – and we would expect many of you have seen a spike over the last several months – that is an indication that employees are financially stressed and looking for liquidity – or money!
• Conducting employee surveys. Adding questions about financial stress to anonymous employee surveys will allow you to gauge the current levels and most urgent needs of your employee population.

Based on the qualitative and quantitative data you pull together, you can start to put together a framework to support all of your employees, regardless of pay grade, with the right financial benefits.

But you shouldn’t stop there. It’s important to recognize that self-reported, anecdotal, or mostly qualitative data may not be enough – especially for large organizations that need to justify resources they put toward implementing new benefit programs.

That’s why it’s so important to dig deeper into the data and look for data in new places using tools — one example is Equifax’s BenefitsIQ solution. The report provides insight into debt levels, credit scores, and delinquencies by credit type, providing businesses with insight into the financial stress of their employees by income, age, tenure, and region.

2. Build a business case for financial wellness benefits

We’ve already acknowledged that it can feel uncomfortable to address employees’ finances if it’s not something you’ve done in the past. But the value to the employee – and the organization – is clear. As you build the business case for implementing a financial wellness program, it’s crucial that you tie the potential positive impacts to other strategic priorities. To make sure you’re building a compelling business case, you’ll want to include the following:

• The quantitative and qualitative data you’ve collected about your employees’ financial stress and most urgent needs
• The impact on your bottom line. You can do that with third-party data, or your own data such as 401(k) loans, sick days, employee satisfaction and turnover, etc.
• An outline of how financial wellness benefits can enhance existing HR initiatives is key – to demonstrate that a financial wellness program will be a strong complement to programs that are already in place.
• Associated costs that demonstrate that a financial wellness program doesn’t need to be expensive to be effective. There are many benefits that you can offer, at least to start, that cost your organization little to nothing to implement.

COVID-19 has fundamentally changed the way we do business and employee experience has never been more important in providing great customer experience. As your business stands on the precipice of enormous change, now is the time to take a lead and return financial empowerment back to your employees.

Dan Macklin is the CEO of Salary Finance.