Talk Money Week 2021 – How to talk money with your employees

For this year’s Talk Money Week, we’re encouraging employers to talk money with their employees.

The pandemic has highlighted the importance of building financial resilience, but according to a 2019 survey, 55% of employers don’t offer any support to improve financial wellbeing. And 77% of employees admit worrying about money at work, affecting productivity, talent retention and absence rates.

Off the back of our successful virtual event, ‘Your money and mental health’, alongside People in Law, health provider, Cigna and law firm, Pinsent Masons, here’s 3 things you can do today as an employer to get your employees talking about their finances.

Make the workplace an open, safe space in which to talk about finances

Whether a high or a low earner, many employees can be embarrassed about their financial situations.

Here in the UK, we just don’t talk about money. And this can be a problem.

If people don’t have an environment in which to vent their money problems, difficult feelings can arise. This puts pressure on the individual mentally and can affect their performance at work.

But what if the workplace was somewhere in which people could be free to talk about their finances? Or if they don’t feel comfortable talking freely, could there be dedicated internal or external contacts to whom they could speak confidentially if needing guidance?

According to a 2020 PWC report, financial matters cause your employees more stress than all other factors combined.

A good financial education programme that offers a safe space in the form of confidential 1-2-1s can go a long way to ensuring a more present, productive and healthy workforce.

TAKE A LOOK AT OUR FINANCIAL WELLBEING PROGRAM

Provide financial education at key life stages

Employers are uniquely positioned to be the driving force behind talking more about money.

They can provide financial education at key life stages, such as starting a first job, getting married or approaching retirement. These key moments can come with their financial stressors – if employees feel supported, it could result in a more loyal, engaged and efficient workforce.

To support your employees at each life stage, you could:

We’ve put together five short clips for employees, to answer the most common questions our team of Financial Wellbeing Specialists hear.

Watch the playlist

Set your HR team up for success

According to a 2019 report, the majority of workers want more transparency around pensions, calling for firms to be more open about retirement. And what is more, according to the same report, only 39% of HR leaders said they were ‘very satisfied’ with their efforts to drive engagement with their workplace pension.

This suggests that, although workers are calling for more information, communication from employers could be improved.

To help talk to employees about money, employers must step up their communication about personal finances and financial resilience. A couple of quick tips are:

FIND FINANCIAL EDUCATION RESOURCES ON HL LEARN

Even though we find it hard to talk about money, we can prepare and set ourselves up for success for the long term. To help build financial resilience across the UK, let’s make the workplace a safe space for talking about our finances.