Financial planning as a workplace perk

As individuals strive for stability and security, organizations have a unique opportunity to offer financial planning as a valuable employee benefit

WITH MUCH OF the workforce feeling the pinch of cost of living, more people are turning to their employer for help — not necessarily for a raise, mind you, but for a bit of help trying to navigate new financial realities. They aren’t crazy for doing so, either, as experts say that employers are increasingly thinking about how they can offer financial wellness benefits as a retention and recruitment tool.

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Financial wellness benefits differ from just offering additional finances (which, hey, never not appreciated!). For tenured staff, it might look like an employer playing a more active role in offering retirement planning; for companies looking to attract new talent, it can be exploring student loan repayment schemes. For everyone else, it might be something like benefits that offset the cost of accessing financial advisors, on top of things like standard-issue retirement matching programs, or loan programs to cover emergency expenses.

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A full 26 per cent of employees recently surveyed by Bank of America said that they are now relying on services offered by employers for issues like emergency savings and debt repayment — double the share that said the same two years ago.

“The modern employee wants help with their broader financial goals,” said Lorna Sabbia, head of Workplace Benefits at Bank of America. “Employers should consider additional resources to support their workforce in ways that bolster their long-term goals while also helping them tackle short-term challenges.”

Kai Walker, a managing director at Bank of America, points out that “there’s a relationship between one’s financial wellness, their emotional wellness, as well as their physical wellness — and when one of those gets out of balance, it seems to affect the other two.”

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But these remain, for now, rare benefits to see in the job market, even though the evidence suggests employees would benefit from it, and that it aids in employee loyalty. “While almost all employers feel responsible for their employees’ financial wellbeing, less than half offer financial wellness programs to support it,” the Bank of America report found. “While employees say they’re stressed just thinking about their financial situation, many employers are focused on offering traditional benefits alone — like retirement and healthcare — rather than including them in a broader framework of resources that benefits what employees value as their needs and goals evolve.”