Health and financial wellness plans have evolved quickly in the last few years, offering employees newer and better options to relieve some of the money-related stress they experience and plan better for retirement. The next step in this evolution is access to personalized financial wellness plans for each employee. Why is this so important and why are personal financial advisors in vogue now?
Employee communications is always improved by health and financial wellness plans that directly address your employees’ needs. Many employees, even those happy with their salaries, are still worried about the future. They could still use help budgeting and planning for retirement beyond signing up for a retirement savings benefit at work. Today, the next frontier in health and financial wellness is nuanced, personalized financial benefits such as access to financial advisors and student loan repayment practices.
Health and Financial Wellness Plans Improve Mental Health
Stress is a silent (and sometimes not so silent) killer among office workers today. While personalized financial plans won’t take away from the strain all workplaces have on their workers, ameliorating one source of stress doesn’t hurt. Personal health can be a significant source of stress for anyone. Today, 60% of employees say they are constantly doing everything in their power to improve and maintain their health, according to Alight Solutions’ 2018 Consumer Health Mindset Study. Providing answers to employees’ most stressful and pressing questions helps them stay in the office every day, focusing on their work.
The direct benefits of workplace wellness plans are fairly obvious. Healthy, stress-free employees take fewer sick days, and are distracted less when they’re at work. The problem that human resources departments and employee communication specialists often face is finding the right plans, tools, apps, and programs for their employees.
The Right Plan for Your Team
There’s no right answer here, but perhaps a good start is ensuring the employee communications solutions you have in place are effective. Can you provide information to your employees quickly and efficiently? Is your communication system tailored to the size of your workforce and how your workplace is distributed? There are many ways to build your employee communication system around your workforce and ensure that everyone is getting the same information and opportunities to utilize your employee benefits.
There is a wide range of personalized financial services available for employees out there. If you know what your employees want in terms of financial wellness programs, you can make the right decisions about what exactly you provide. Sometimes, getting different departments—i.e. the wellness program managers and the employee benefits team—to integrate can be a challenge. But if you gather as much detailed information on your employees as possible to better help them, you can provide them with a financial benefits package they’ll actually use. Provide them with free financial analyses and find out which specific problems you can solve.
Conclusion
Tailored health and financial wellness plans not only help your employees thrive at your company, they also improve employee communications throughout your organization. Solve your employees’ most pressing problems, and they’ll be willing to help solve yours.