According to Sunday Business Post Article (Sunday 23/04/2023) the latest consumer mood tracker from Red C tells us that over 80% of Irish consumers expect that there will be no improvement in the Irish Economy over the next six months. Other figures in the research show that 84% of people expect the Cost-of-Living crisis to get worse in the next six months.
How are people dealing with this financial strain? There is evidence to say that people are dipping into savings or using credit cards or loans to fund day to day costs. All this negative financial feeling can have serious effects on people’s stress levels both at home and in the workplace. As employers how can we help?
How can employers help employees with these increased financial concerns?
Another study conducted by Red C has shown that Ireland has a financial literacy score of 54%, this is lower than Australia, Germany, and the UK. Where do employees look for help? Our research has shown that 83% of employees wanted to receive more support regarding their finances from their employer (EFW,2023). As an employer you may feel at a loss, you are not able to provide financial help to employees.
Financial Wellness programmes that focus on providing education to employees (not product selling) on a wide range of financial topics can really help employees understand their money and how to manage it to meet their needs now and into the future.
Some of the key areas that financial education programmes can help with include:
- Educating employees on their benefits package such as their salary, retirement plans, and share schemes etc.
- Helping employees with their concerns about their savings and investment choices
- Helping employees to prepare for retirement
Financial Stress can affect employees at any stage of their career and financial concerns will change over their career so ongoing financial education can help deal with financial stress at all stages of an employee’s career, early, mid, and late career. The advice needed changes as employees move through the various career stages.
Don’t know where to start with a financial wellness programmer for your employees?
As one of Ireland’s leading providers of impartial financial education programmes to both Private and Public sector employers, we’re always happy to talk and point you in the right direction. We have a proven method based on WHO guidelines where we work through education first and then onto guidance to make sure your employees understand how to make their money work for them now and into the future. See here for our proven method.
Go to www.employeefinancialwellness.ie for information on our Financial Wellness Programmes.
