Your Next Employee Benefit: Financial Health & Wellness

By L.B. Hudson January 10, 2023

In late 2022 we began to explore providing My Financial Snapshot, a personal finance platform, as an employee benefit. Here is some of what we have learned and why you should consider providing financial health benefits.

We are financially unhealthy.

We are living paycheck to paycheck.

61%
Yes, 61% is the share of consumers living paycheck to paycheck in June 2022 (PYMNTS).

Financial stress negatively impacts our lives

PwC released statistics about how employees are affected by financial stress (PwC). If you look at the data below, you will see nothing about bank accounts, retirement, or rent/mortgage. You see where it affects mental, emotional, physical, and social health.

Lack of financial education at home, school, and university

“Financial education programs benefit 100% of students. Compare this to only 19% of students needing high school algebra in their job.” – The National Educators Council

As of August 2022, only 15 states require a financial literacy class to graduate high school (Financial Literacy).

Many colleges and universities offer personal financial classes as electives but are not required for graduation.

While I do not want to blame our educational systems entirely, and I know education is about how to learn and think versus what to think, there is a void. As much value as the Pythagorean theorem and slope-intercept formula is to learn, why are we not teaching about budgeting, the basics of accounting, and personal finances?

Market conditions

Market conditions are things out of your control. Inflation and the rising cost of living in places like rent, housing prices, food, and gas. As well as a volatile stock market where your retirement is typically held.

Personal responsibility

People have a habit of living beyond their means and spending more money than they make. Maybe they overspent on an apartment or living situation. Sometimes they underestimated how much take-home pay they would have and couldn’t save like they thought they could—the ever-present temptation of credit card debt. Regardless, positive financial habits and education is the solution to prevent these problems from happening or to get out of bad financial situations.

It is affecting the workplace.

When employees are feeling financially stressed, it overflows into the workplace. It can go unnoticed because It is often a silent/unspoken stress that can be embarrassing/uncomfortable to bring to an HR representative or management.

More stats from PwC’s 2022 Employee Financial Wellness Survey are below (PwC):

Financially stressed employees are six times more likely to be less productive.

People are two times as likely to be looking for a new job.

55% of stressed employees who are distracted by their finances at work spend three more hours each week at work dealing with their finances.

Existing financial benefits aren’t solving the problem

Employee benefits are great, and ones centered around your finances and future well-being, like retirement, HSA/FSA, and life/disability insurance, serve a purpose. They can provide a sense of security and help your personal finances, but they are not addressing the issue of overall financial health.

These benefits are financial services and products where you pay premiums and fees through payroll deductions. They are not financial health & wellness. Often you enroll and hear from a representative one time a year to re-enroll and make any necessary changes. This is not cutting it.

What is the solution?

We have to start somewhere. We need simple solutions to meet people where they are in their life journey.

Your physical health improves through diet and exercise, from going to the gym, attending a fitness class, or sticking to a diet plan. These are places where you exercise to improve and maintain physical health. Many companies offer gym membership reimbursements to incentivize good physical health.

There is no “gym” membership for our financial health where you can apply financial education and practice positive financial habits, until now.

Financial Education + Positive Financial Habits = Better Financial Health

The My Financial Snapshot Solution

We have a basic philosophy. Keep things simple, step-by-step, and build universal tools that anyone can understand and benefit from.

Financial Tools:

Budgeting Tool – Ditch the paper, spreadsheets, and complicated phone apps you don’t keep up with. Our budgeting tool makes it easy to track where your money is coming from and where it is going.

Snapshot Tool – See your net worth on one page. Also, use our snapshot tool as a personal financial statement when applying for loans.

More Tools: We are working on adding more tools to help people in 2023, like a retirement tool, mortgage tool, and more.

Education and Resources:

Weekly educational blogs covering personal finance-related topics.

Resources like financial planners and guides to help people understand their finances better.

Privacy:

We value individuals’ privacy. We never view or access people’s personal financial information. We will never share individual information with an employer. We will never share or sell individuals’ information with a third party.

We are unbiased and do not sell affiliates or additional financial services/products. We do this to reduce conflict of interest and to be able to share the best information and education possible.

Why your company, organization, school, and university are the perfect fit.

We surveyed 228 people across various industries with our 2023 Financial Wellness Survey.

People responded 78.5% positively to whether they would participate in a personal financial benefit offered by their employer!

Employees want a resource like My Financial Snapshot, but there are few cost-effective options, and we are a cost-effective option. You are investing in your people all the time. You are paying them salaries and wages in exchange for their time and effort. Why not provide a personal financial benefit to ensure better the financial health of those individuals and your company?

The Trust Factor

There is an existing level of trust between employers and employees. We want to build on this level of trust to be the go-to personal financial resource.

Contact us today!

We work with businesses of all sizes and across various industries. We would love to work with you as well!

At the cost of less than $4 or less (depending on the size of your company) per person per month. My Financial Snapshot can be one of the least expensive benefits you provide with great upside to your business.

Email me directly at lb@myfinancialsnapshot.com or fill out the contact form on our Enterprise page, and we will be in touch about how we can partner to improve financial health!