Set Your Youngest Employees Up For Strong Financial Wellness

Here’s how to do it

Financial wellness is an often overlooked aspect of employee well-being. Despite how common and damaging financial stress is, it’s still widely regarded as a taboo topic -- especially in the workplace.
 
However, all generations experience financial wellness obstacles, even the newest generation to enter the workforce. My company, LifeWorks, recently conducted a survey and found that 71 percent of Gen Z employees say they’re moderately to very stressed about finances.
 

What’s more, 40 percent say they’re distracted by their finances at work, and 19 percent say they miss work because their financial stress impacts their health.
 
To empower Gen Z to perform at their best, help set them up for financial success:

Identify Their Biggest Obstacles

To help your Gen Z employees, you need to first understand where they struggle financially. According to our survey, their top financial challenges include cost of living, student loan debt, and poor spending habits.
 
So, not only are they struggling to make ends meet, but also they’re incapable of preparing for retirement or saving for emergencies.
 
To best help your staff, start conducting employee well-being surveys quarterly to determine what their biggest obstacles are. This way, you can offer better benefits to help them address specific needs
 
For example, if the most common obstacle is managing their spending habits, provide them with subscriptions to personal finance tools. Apps like Mint or You Need a Budget help them better understand where their money goes and how to prepare a spending and saving plan.

Establish Financial Goals Together

Your employees need financial goals so they can prepare for a healthy financial future. The good news is, most of the Gen Zers we surveyed (77 percent) already have a clear set of financial goals.
 
Their top goals include building savings/emergency funds, establishing a budget and sticking to it, and tracking spending and changing habits.
 
However, goals are not worth much if they can’t be achieved. Gen Z employees need your help creating an action plan. A detailed action plan includes mini-goals that align with larger ones and step-by-step guidance on how to achieve these goals.
 
Your staff also needs continual engagement, so start meeting with them regularly to assess their progress. Also, encourage peer accountability by establishing money management support groups.

Offer a Strong Benefits Package

Financial wellness benefits are essential to a successful employee well-being strategy. But to be truly effective, financial wellness benefits should be tailored to each employee group’s unique needs.
 
Gen Z is the future of your company, so treat them as such.
 
Review the compensation package you provide to your youngest staff members, and evaluate how you can offer a competitive salary within your industry.
 
Then, start beefing up your financial benefits package. A strong package includes:
 

Create promotional content that illustrates how these financial wellness benefits help employees make meaningful changes to how they think about money.

Make Financial Wellness a Priority

Your employee well-being strategy needs to be central to your workplace culture. Otherwise, aspects like your financial wellness program go unused. And low participation means low ROI.
 
According to our survey, most Gen Zers (84 percent) say it’s important that employers offer financial wellness programs. So they’re interested, but they have a few barriers to utilization.
 
Their main barriers are a lack of time, concerns about confidentiality, and feeling intimidated. The best way to help them overcome these is by scheduling financial wellness initiatives within the workday.
 
Build wellness program participation into employees’ performance evaluations to assess their engagement. This shows their financial wellness is linked to their performance. Be sure to praise those who are actively involved.
 
For example, host weekly workshops where a financial advisor speaks on a specific financial wellness aspect, like retirement or budgeting. Provide incentives for those who attend, like a gift card or a company branded shirt.
 
You can’t afford to ignore employee well-being, especially with your youngest talent. They’re entering the workforce excited to thrive. Boost their financial well-being and empower them to grow with you.

Author Bio

Kayla Lutz is a Regional Sales Manager at LifeWorks, a company that delivers holistic and comprehensive well-being - physical, emotional, financial, professional & mental - through meaningful and purposeful technology and services. Visit www.lifeworks.com Follow @LifeWorks