It is no secret that people are struggling with their finances. Many people have debts that have overtaken their lives, while others are struggling just to pay their everyday bills. All of these financial problems produce stress and distract employees when they are at work. This leads to mistakes, lower productivity and even employee absenteeism. If you want to help improve your company position then you need to help your employees manage their personal finances. Fortunately, this can generally be done with your in-office staff’s assistance.
Financial Counseling – A Benefit for Employees?
Financial counseling can be a huge benefit for employees at all levels. It can be used to identify retirement savings strategies, it can be used to help find a way to pay off personal debt or it can be used to establish a budget and more appropriate spending behaviors. Financial counseling services can also be used to help employees set financial goals for things like saving for their children’s college education, saving for a house or increasing their net worth to a specific dollar amount.
Who Offers Employee Financial Counseling
Financial counseling services can be offered by a number of different staff members on your payroll. First of all, if you have a financial advisor that works for your company then they will obviously be the first choice. However, personnel managers that are familiar with your company’s retirement savings plans and other financial products can also be utilized as a financial counseling, at least for sessions that relate to retirement planning. If the company offers financial planning services then you can offer your services to your non-financial employees like your administrative staff. Finally, if you don’t have a financial planner or advisor on payroll then you can bring in a financial advisor from a third party company to meet with your employees once a year, once a quarter or once a month.
Setting Up This Benefit
In order to set up this benefit you will need to create a policy. This policy will describe who is eligible for the benefit, what the benefit will include, how the employee will be able to access the benefit, when it is offered and what restrictions will be applied to the benefit. This policy will need to be added to your employee handbook and an enrollment form will need to be generated. When you are ready to implement this benefit you will need to hold a company meeting or at least release a memo that describes the benefit and the benefit’s policy.
Encourage your employees to know more about financial counselling. As a start, you may encourage them to write down their thoughts and dreams in an organizer, like the one I am using from Toad Diaries. I bet it will be beneficial for them.