With the cost of living crisis still waging (or, rather, hitting wages hard) Financial Wellbeing remains a priority for Health and Wellbeing professionals.
But given how squeezed company budgets currently are, how can employers genuinely support employees without breaking their own banks?
This is a question Leaders in our Leaders’ Club have told us is a major priority, and why we’ve created an entire session dedicated to ‘Equity, Resilience and Financial Wellbeing: what employers can do when pay can’t stretch further’ at this year’s Make A Difference Leaders’ Summit, which takes place in London on Thursday 9th October.
(In fact, this year we’ve created a whole new conference stream around ‘The New Shape of Rewards & Benefits’, which the above session forms part of. To find out more about the agenda and registering, see here).
In the meantime, before you join us and other leaders at the Make A Difference Leaders’ Summit, here are a few ideas to keep you going before October 9th…
Leverage your providers
You may not be an expert in financial products, but your providers of financial service products should be. Get them on board to take a more proactive approach (if they don’t already) in educating your employees about what they can do to maximise their money.
An employer, who is part of our Make A Difference Leaders’ Club, shared honestly about her frustrations in this area, passing on valuable advice to others about how she pushes back on providers:
“On Financial Wellbeing, providers in the loans and pay access market now seem to be just trying to cross-sell and are missing the key component, which is education. But to stretch pay further, this is key: providers need to be educating people about hidden state benefits and perks that they could access, as well as acting as a communications tool to highlight company benefits.”
(To find out more about joining our Make A Difference Leaders’ Club, see here).
Partner with mortgage providers
As Mercer’s Health on Demand 2025 report says, 41% of employees who are parents today worry about whether they will be able to own their own home. A way that employers can support their employees with this concern is by partnering with mortgage providers and, by doing this, giving them access to mortgage offers which are not available in the open market.
As the report says: “These types of initiatives, while relatively inexpensive, can provide significant value to employees and improve their sense of financial security.”
Similarly, other financial support that employers can offer like this include low cost insurance offers, loans, salary advances and one off payments.
Identify where the biggest financial worries are
If you have a workforce made up predominantly of employees with young families, for example, then it could be that offering incentives around childcare may be the most impactful way to boost employee financial wellbeing. Or, it could be that many of your employees are caring for their parents, which may mean support with eldercare could be more welcome and stress-alleviating.
As Mercer’s report also identifies, “the financial strain of balancing work and caregiving responsibilities is a significant concern”; 49% of caregivers and 46% of parents report workplace stress.
It’s not just the money that causes stress in these situations, it’s often the stress of finding a trusted supplier which is something that employers can help with. Employers can help employees secure access to emergency care, back-up care or subsidies.
Getting time off work to carry out caring responsibilities can also be extremely stressful, which is why offering flexible working arrangements can be particularly impactful.
But, of course, help with money will also always be welcome, even a small subsidy from an employer can make a big difference to strained budgets, boosting loyalty and wellbeing.
Ask them what support they need and want
After you’ve identified where the financial worries lie, ask employees themselves what support they’d value. As Affinity Health at Work discovered in its research report on ‘Using non-pay offers to support workers through the cost of living crisis’, many employers offer support which is not necessarily what employees want and need.
Consequently, its recommendation is:
“Involve employees in both co-designing support initiatives and providing feedback on those already in place.”
Affinity suggests doing this via employee committees, staff forums and action sets to ensure that those offerings are fit for purpose, accessible and seen as helpful.
Additionally, the research shows that employees usually want a wider range of support that is typically offered by employers. Affinity recommends assessing your current offerings against the eight themes identified in its research.
These are:
- Access to Benefits to increase financial resources/ security
- Ability to design a job / craft a role
- Measures to combat stigma (around money issues)
- Measures to improve equity
- Health promotion and stress management
- Business ecosystem and strategic measures
- Worklife balance practices
- Peer support
Target retirement worries
One of the biggest financial worries, present across generations, surrounds retirement.
Again, particularly for younger generations, employers can play a pivotal role in education by ensuring providers talk to them about their options and demystify the potentially confusing topic. (Remember Financial Wellbeing is not necessarily linked to being well off, but to being in control and confident about the money you do have and how to use it).
Employers can also help employees save for retirement by implementing pension related initiatives, like bonuses allocated to pensions.
They can also allow employees to exchange a portion of their gross salary for enhanced pension contributions which can lower an employer’s overall National Insurance contributions.
Address stigma around money worries
Affinity Health at Work’s research report on supporting employees with non-pay offers through the cost of living crisis is full of practical ideas. For instance, employers can improve the financial wellbeing of employees by:
- Helping with essentials like food by offering discounted canteen food, food vouchers, free food, access to food banks, free feminine hygiene products
- Helping with travel: car sharing, subsidised train fares, more time working from home without need to travel
- Signpost to low cost ways to access money like hardship funds and low cost loans
- Help with education running things like money advice clinics
- Help making money last by offering to spread pay over the month
- Offering a monthly wellbeing fund allowance for things like haircuts and discounted leisure activities
While all these ideas are helpful and supportive, employees will be reluctant to make use of them if they feel there is a stigma attached to doing so.
To get over stigma, the report advises:
“Adopt a clear and consistent organisational narrative. Organisations should role model a culture of open conversation about financial wellbeing and wellbeing and mental health more generally which is free of judgement and stigma. This narrative needs to be consistent between both communications and practice, and therefore ensuring senior leadership are on-board will be key.”
As Money First Aid co-founder Rachel Harte says in this previous article on Financial Wellbeing, stigma is best broken down through giving people the skills, knowledge and language around finances so they feel comfortable starting a conversation. To hear from First Bus ED&I Director Gareth Hind about bringing in Money First Aid to help do this, read this case study here.
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