Financial stress in the workplace & tips to avoid
Financial stress is not an uncommon phenomenon. Whether it’s your credit card debt, mortgage, the state of your retirement account or how you are going to afford Christmas presents this year, there are a lot of financial triggers that can affect you. And they, in turn, affect your work. Cindy Krishner Goodman, with the Kansas City Star, wrote an article this week about how businesses can help workers handle their financial stress.
After all, the business world has changed in a lot of ways. It’s no longer unusual to have a gym at work, yoga at lunchtime, or fitness competitions within a workplace. It shouldn’t be too unusual to have a childcare within a business to allow people to maintain a work/life balance. The wellbeing of your employees is no longer just restricted to whether or not they are being acknowledged for the work they are doing, and paid the right amount. It’s about providing a place where they can feel safe and be productive.
One of the main reasons companies have started to be concerned about all facet’s of a worker’s wellbeing is because a lack of productivity will affect the business’ bottom line. Almost two-thirds of employers think that their employees are less productive when they are financially stressed. We can all understand that- you turn up to work, hoping to get a good solid eight hours of effort in but by lunch time, you’re doing the budget over and over again to see if there’s any extra money you can find somewhere. 52% of employers believe that workers take days off more often when they are financially stressed.
Now, some workplaces are recognizing that improvements in the personal finance situations of their employees will improve their productivity, Some workplaces host seminars in the lunch hour to discuss various issues of budgeting or saving. Instead of letting the HR department try and assist with advice for serious financial problems, or letting the accounting department negotiate the quagmire of emotions when someone asks for an advance, businesses would be wise to preempt these problems and offer a couple of solutions.
So what are some tips and tricks?
Recognise your employees have lives and concerns
Thinking that people can leave all their problems at home is naïve. Recognize that people will be trying to address them in working hours. As one counselor stated, most of their contact from clients happens from work. Acknowledge that and try and bring some practices into the work to address it.
Play host
You’re a business, and you’re happy to provide free yoga sessions, so why not host a speaker once a month for your employees on financial literacy? You may be surprised how many people attend. If you’re a smaller business, why not allow for your employees to get involved with Web seminars on company time?
Provide support
Even the simple act of saying to an employee, ‘I understand you’re having some difficulties. Here are some resources’ will go a long way in alleviating your employees financial stress. If things seem particularly bad, suggest that the company will support them if they wanted to attend financial counseling. Every little bit of help you can offer will count.
How do you address financial stress in a workplace?
Do you provide any assistance or resources for you employees?
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