Most of us have been there before: you are confronted with unexpected expenses and forced to find the funds recover. Maybe your furnace burnt out in the middle of the winter or the 20-year-old washer and dryer you inherited finally ran it’s last load. It might be stressful coming up with a solution but odds are, you have access to sufficient resources to make ends meet. But for the 58 percent of households making less than $60,000 a year that don’t have access to emergency funds, there isn’t an obvious place to turn. In their case, emergency expenses can impact their ability to afford even the basics. In a modern, diverse workforce it’s an unavoidable truth that leaders should place a premium on a suite of resources that help their employees address the real, unsolvable issues that keep them up at night.
Build a suite of financial wellness offerings that work for your people
It’s no secret that today’s workers are invested in how their company supports their holistic well-being. In fact, more employees (52%) report more concern over their financial health than their physical and mental health. In an increasingly young workforce, employee-sponsored financial wellness offerings are expected by Gen Z employees. It has become commonplace for companies to offer their teams gym memberships, meditation app subscriptions, or healthcare stipends. But it’s clear that compassionate leaders who prioritze pressing issues of employees’ complex financial lives, alleviating their financial stress and its impact on their work will have the competitive advantage when attracting and retaining talent.
76% of stressed employees say financial worries have had a negative impact on their productivity according to the 2022 PwC Employee Financial Wellness Survey
Luckily, there are many different, complimentary options that don’t require a large allocation of an HR teams valuable time and resources. Canary has partnered with PTO Exchange to offer just that. When a company adopts both financial wellness platforms, employees can easily contribute their unused PTO to Grant Circle, their company’s hardship relief fund. Other interesting offerings include:
- Sunny Day Fund, an employer-rewarded emergency savings solution that helps stabilize workers’ finances.
- Addition Wealth, a financial wellness platform that makes personalized financial expertise inclusive and accessible for employees.
In addition to third-party tools to support employee financial wellness, we recently took a look at how to identify and address financial hardship and stress in the workforce no matter the size of your company. The key is recognizing an opportunity to develop a framework for quick, dignified decisions to help employees when they need financial help. Doing so will help teams scale offerings for equitable, tangible results that are both good for your people and good for the business.
Work community is central to our lives like never before
It is central to the modern company’s success to ensure happy, healthy employees that feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work. Especially since the line between work and home is blurred for so many. When you invest in creating this kind of work community, you create a more engaged, productive workforce capable of bringing empathy to the table when relating to interpersonal relationships with coworkers. To ensure a supportive work community evolves as teams grow (and new challenges arise) you must also think about the resources you’re providing to help employees when work and life get hard. Without plans to help mitigate the resulting stresses, inevitably employees will fall into cycles of lower productivity and happiness that can cloud their perception of the company and culture you have worked so hard to build.
About Canary
Canary’s technology and services enable their clients (including employers, nonprofits, and others) to give individuals money at pivotal moments in their lives, with dignity and efficiency. They connect the latest technology and payments innovations to the innate and enduring human desire to help each other. They believe that the right money at the right time matters: it gives people the peace of mind and confidence to recover from emergencies and to invest in their futures.
Watch PTO Exchange’s David Sherman’s recent interview with Canary Founder & CEO, Rachel Schneider, as a part of PTO Exchange’s monthly Partner Profile Spotlight.
Published on Dec 08, 2022 by Canary
