The popularity of workplace wellness programs is growing. Financial wellness, in particular, is a hot commodity, given just how stressed most Americans are about their finances. Not every workplace wellness initiative is successful, however. Personal finances are a touchy topic and broaching that with employees can be difficult.
Some companies think that they can just provide some basic information about finances, maybe hand their employees a worksheet, and call it a day. In truth, it is not so simple and that is why many of these wellness initiatives fail. You don't have to be a part of that statistic. Here are the 4 things missing from most financial wellness initiatives.
1. Engagement
First things first, you need to make sure your employees know about your initiative. Not only that, but you need to keep them engaged throughout the duration. That doesn't mean you should beat your employees over the head with this information constantly. Try to find a way to include information about it in your routine communications. For example, if you send out a weekly company newsletter make sure that all the pertinent information about the initiative is there for everyone to see.
2. Communication
As with any successful corporate initiative, communication is key. Make sure you're consistently engaging with your employees and getting feedback on their experiences with the initiative. Ask what's working for them and what isn't. Ask if they feel that the initiative is properly respecting their right to privacy. This type of feedback is absolutely critical to running a successful wellness initiative.
3. Personalization
More broadly, you need to tailor your wellness initiative to your workplace demographics. Different groups of people have very different financial needs. These demographics would be age range, educational attainment, income, and marital status. Providing generalized financial information is simply not that helpful for most employees. An easy way to overcome this is to do a survey of your employees. Go right to the source and ask them what their biggest financial worries are and what they struggle with the most.
4. Assessment
If you want your financial wellness initiative to be successful, you first must ask yourself why you're doing it. Think about your goals for the program and formalize them so that you have some relatively objective way of measuring your progress in the future. One of these metrics should be employee engagement with the initiative, as getting employees to actually pay attention is the key to success.
Remember, at the end of the day the best metric is your employee's financial health as that's what these programs are really all about. Any gains in workplace productivity or morale should be of secondary importance.
A successful financial wellness initiative is well within your reach, and it pays off dividends with happier, more engaged employees. Just remember to engage your employees, communicate clearly, personalize your program, and assess your success. Follow these rules and you're well on your way to creating a wellness initiative that really works for you and your employees.
At Summerlin-Roberts we can help you come up with creative solutions that will reduce the burden of financial stress on your employees. Please, contact us today to learn more about how to successfully implement a financial wellness program into your workplace.
