Financial Education Archives

Why financial wellbeing is important in the workplace

Posted on July 4, 2023November 23, 2023 by Chris James

Improving employee wellbeing is one of the top priorities of HR leaders today. But what many people don’t realise is that 1.2 million households are currently suffering from financial stress. Therefore financial wellbeing is actually what sits at the centre of holistic wellness and has the potential to drive the most significant impact on working Australians. In this post, we’ll explain how to improve financial wellbeing in your workplace.

Financial wellbeing initiatives to bring into the workplace

Thankfully, there are many financial wellbeing initiatives that you can introduce to your employees. We share some of the most impactful ones below, along with an explanation of how they’ll improve the financial wellness levels of your workforce.

Novated car leasing

A novated lease allows employees to finance a new or used car by having their employer make payments out of their salary package with pre-tax deductions. With this arrangement, your employee is paying down a certain amount for a specified period of time. At the end of the lease period, they can choose to take out a new lease with a different car, extend the existing lease, or buy the car by paying the residual amount.

How this supports financial wellbeing:

One of the benefits of a novated lease is the tax break. Since the payments are coming out of your employee’s pre-tax income, your employee’s taxable income will be significantly reduced. Plus, your employees won’t have to worry about things like the goods and services tax (GST), which means they’ll have much more disposable income to use for their other needs.

Flexible pay

Flexible pay gives employees the ability to choose when they get paid – instead of following the organisation’s payroll schedule. For example, instead of receiving a paycheck every two weeks, an employee can choose to cash out on a weekly basis or even in real time. The whole purpose of this system is to allow employees to choose a compensation schedule that works for their specific needs and lifestyle.

How this supports financial wellbeing:

As you might imagine, flexible pay can ease a lot of financial anxiety for employees. Instead of worrying about whether they’ll receive a paycheck in time to pay rent or cover a credit card bill, flexible pay allows them to access the money whenever they need it.

Superannuation

Superannuation is money that’s set aside by your employer for your retirement – on top of your salary and wages. Employers are required by Australian law to make superannuation contributions for most of their employees and typically pay a minimum of 9.5% of ordinary time earnings.

How this supports financial wellbeing:

Superannuation is one of the best financial benefits for employees because it guarantees that they’ll have funds to use in retirement. Workers can also decide to make additional contributions to their own account or might be eligible to receive contributions from the Australian government, which can further increase the amount of retirement savings they accumulate.

Investment vehicles

There are many investment vehicle options that you can introduce to your employees – from managed funds to share schemes with your own company. Regardless of which ones you make available to your workforce, the most important part is educating them so they can decide which option is best for them. This can be done through training or financial literacy workshops.

How this supports financial wellbeing:

Helping employees find ways to invest and grow their money over time will help them in the long run – whether it’s when they retire or run into an emergency where they might need additional funds to dip into.

Lost super consolidation

It’s possible for employees to lose track of some of their super. This typically happens when they change their job or address. As an employer, you can provide the resources to help workers find their lost super, consolidate it with the rest of their contributions, and identify which account they want their future contributions to go to.

How this supports financial wellbeing:

Employees can save money by consolidating their super into one account. Having multiple accounts can accumulate fees, not to mention that having multiple sources of contributions can be difficult to manage.

Life insurance

The purpose of life insurance is to offer protection to employees and their loved ones in case of an unexpected life event. There are different life insurance products they can choose from that protect them from different types of events – whether that’s a death, a terminal illness diagnosis, or a bad accident.

How this supports financial wellbeing:

This is a wonderful initiative for employers to introduce because it gives workers peace of mind when it comes to unexpected life events. The last thing an employee wants to worry about after a car accident or diagnosis is to have to worry about finances, and life insurance is a great safeguard against that.

There are many effective initiatives that can increase your employees’ levels of financial wellness and – as a result – their overall wellbeing. Simply start with a few of the ideas that stood out to you in this post and go from there.

If you have any employees who are in need of support, be sure to check out Wellness@Work, a free hub designed to support HR and Australian workers by giving them access to free content.

If you’re looking for an additional HR software to support your business, Flare offers a free onboarding software with employee management and benefits. To learn more, please request a demo.

How HR can help employees with financial wellbeing outside of salary

Posted on October 7, 2020August 11, 2023 by Chris James

A lack of financial wellbeing is costing Australian businesses an estimated $31.1 billion in lost revenue every year. But more importantly, it’s negatively impacting the overall health of employees, who are having to take more sick days and struggling to be productive at work as a result of their financial stress.

What can HR teams do to support workers who are having trouble with their finances? Clearly, simply providing employees with a paycheck isn’t enough. In this post, we’ll explore additional ideas to help your workforce achieve better financial health.

How HR can support employee financial wellbeing

While paying employees a fair salary is an important part of financial wellbeing, there are other components to take into consideration. For instance, even if an employee makes a high salary, a lack of basic money management skills won’t set them up for success in the future.

That’s why HR needs to find other ways to advocate for the financial wellbeing of their employees – outside of their salary. We encourage HR leaders to work closely with their C-suite and finance teams to support initiatives that can set employees up for success – not only in the present – but also in the future. We share recommendations in the next section.

Ideas to help employees with financial wellbeing

There are many modern solutions to choose from when it comes to helping employees with their financial wellbeing. We share some of our favorite ideas below:

1. Encourage savings

Whether it’s to their superannuation account or a separate retirement account, it’s important to encourage your employees to put aside as much money as possible. There are a few ways to motivate employees to save. One of the most effective ways is to set up a system that allows workers to automatically take a portion of their paycheck and deposit it into their savings accounts. This way, your employees don’t have to make the challenging decision to manually take money out of their paycheck – it just goes into their savings without them noticing and will accumulate over time.

The benefits:

Sets employees up for success in the future
Allows employees to save for major milestones, such as purchasing a house or starting a family
Serves as a financial safety net in case of emergency

2. Provide flexible payment options

More and more employers are opting for flexible payment options for their employees. It’s easy to see why. Flexible pay is a great option for employees who want to access their paychecks on their own time instead of following the standard payroll schedule. So instead of receiving a paycheck every two weeks, an employee can choose to cash out what they earned in real time.

The benefits:

Allows employees to choose a compensation schedule that works for their needs
Relieves the stress of having to worry about whether they’ll receive a paycheck in time to pay rent or cover their next bill

3. Support major expenses

Many times, what prevents employees from experiencing better financial wellbeing is the major recurring expenses in their lives. For example, monthly car payments. Having to budget for the mortgage – on top of taxes, gas, and maintenance costs – for several years can be financially burdensome. To relieve the stress of this expense, your company can either offer company car loans or set up a novated lease that allows employees to finance a new or used car with payments out of their salary package with pre-tax deductions.

The benefits:

Makes major expenses more manageable and easier to budget for
Saves employees money in the long run
Doesn’t require a long-term commitment and offers more flexibility in terms of options

4. Create financial education opportunities

A lack of financial literacy is a huge blocker when it comes to employees achieving financial wellbeing. In fact, a survey found that fewer than half of all Australians could answer five basic financial questions correctly. To improve financial literacy, we recommend introducing various educational opportunities for your workforce. This can include anything from hosting financial literacy workshops to offering free sessions with financial advisors as a company benefit.

The benefits:

Empowers employees to take their finances into their own hands
Arms employees with the knowledge to make smart financial decisions

There are many things HR teams can do to improve the financial wellbeing of their workforce – even beyond just paying a salary. Identify which of these recommendations align with the needs of your organisation and get started on them today.

If you have any employees who are in need of support, be sure to check out Wellness@Work, a free hub designed to support HR and Australian workers by giving them access to free content.

If you’re looking for an additional HR software to support your business, Flare offers a free onboarding software with employee management and benefits. To learn more, please request a demo.

How to run a financial literacy workshop for employees

Posted on August 27, 2020August 11, 2023 by Chris James

We constantly hear about the importance of financial wellbeing. But how can we actually help our employees achieve this state? The answer lies in building up their financial literacy. While there are many ways to accomplish this, we believe that workshops are one of the most powerful approaches to financial education. In this post, we’ll share recommendations on how to run impactful financial literacy workshops for your employees.

What is financial literacy, and why is it so important?

Before we dive in, let’s explore exactly what financial literacy is and why it’s foundational to achieving financial health. Financial literacy is having the knowledge to make informed financial decisions. This can be anything from understanding how to invest at the right times to knowing how to save toward a significant milestone like a house or a car.

A lack of financial literacy is a significant problem in Australia. A survey found that fewer than half of all Australians could answer five basic financial questions correctly. The reason why this is significant is because low levels of financial literacy translates to poor financial health.

That same survey found that poverty rates among the least financially literate are twice as high compared to the most financially literate. People with lower financial literacy are also less likely to participate in household budget decisions, tend not to save as much money, and are more vulnerable to financial stress – a factor that costs Australian businesses an estimated $31.1 billion per year in lost revenue.

Related article: 5 Ways to help your employees improve their financial wellbeing

Steps to run a financial literacy workshop for employees

One of the best ways you, as the employer, can help combat these low rates of financial literacy is with education. Workshops, in particular, are a great way to get your employees engaged in their financial education. Not only are workshops interactive, but also having a large group of people at your organisation participate in them can make learning about finances less intimidating for others.

1. Identify your employees’ needs

Before you design your financial literacy workshop, it’s important to understand exactly what your employees want to gain from the experience. That’s why we recommend distributing a short survey ahead of time to figure out what your workforce most wants to learn from the workshop. This will help you design a curriculum that’s truly valuable.

For example: perhaps your workforce feels most urgently about learning how to save money – especially given the current circumstances with COVID-19. Instead, you host a workshop that’s solely focused on investing because you made an assumption about what would be interesting to the company. As a result, you disincentivise employees from joining future workshops since they’re not addressing their most pressing needs.

2. Craft a workshop series that addresses these needs

Once you have a clear understanding of what your employees want to gain from the workshop, it’s time to use that feedback to craft your workshop series. Outside of the content, there are other considerations to think about as well. Use the questions below to guide the design of your workshop:

How many workshops will there be in total?
How long will each workshop be?
What will be the cadence of these workshops (bi-weekly, monthly, etc.)?
How will we accommodate for employees in different time zones?

Make sure to answer these questions from the perspective of what’s best for your employees. So if you know many of your employees have young children, try to schedule shorter sessions that happen at a reasonable time of day. Or, better yet, have multiple session options so people can choose a time that’s best for their schedules.

Related article: 10 Ideas to help you boost your employee engagement

3. Choose a top-notch facilitator

It’s critical to choose an engaging, professional, and knowledgeable facilitator for your workshop sessions. Facilitators are trained to lead conversations about various financial subjects, but they’re not necessarily certified accountants or financial advisors.

There are a few criteria to take into consideration when choosing a facilitator. Choose an individual who has expertise in the specific topic you want to address – whether that’s budgeting or investment portfolios. Similarly, make sure they have experience facilitating in a virtual environment since most of us are still working remotely. The last thing you want is to hire someone who is uncomfortable on video calls and ends up leading an unproductive session.

4. Set expectations

It’s important to be clear with your employees about what they’ll gain from these workshops. You don’t want them to go into the experience thinking they’ll receive personalised financial advice from their facilitator. Instead, in all your communication about the workshop, let people know that the purpose of these workshops is to gain a basic understanding of important financial subjects. If they want additional resources to improve their sense of financial wellbeing, there are certainly ways you can support them! But these financial literacy workshops are solely for general education.

5. Build anticipation around the workshop

Now that you have the financial literacy workshops scheduled and in place, how do you get your employees to actually join? In addition to announcing the workshop at your next all-hands meeting, there are other creative tactics you can implement to build anticipation around the workshop:

Set up catchy Slack reminders about the upcoming workshop
Incentivise participation by offering a random prize drawing for those who join
Ask the CEO to join and encourage participation
Communicate the benefits that come with increasing financial literacy
Take photos (or screenshots) and create a “teaser” video after the first workshop to encourage more people to join for the next one

6. Follow up with a survey

Finally, just as we started the financial literacy workshop with a survey, we want to end with one too. After the first session, ask your employees how they felt about the experience. Specifically, did they gain value from it? If not, what could have been improved? Also ask questions about the facilitator to make sure they’re the right fit for your workforce. You can then use all the feedback you collect to make adjustments before your next workshop.

Workshops are a fantastic way to help your employees with their financial literacy and, in turn, improve their sense of financial wellbeing. Use the steps we outlined above to run a financial literacy workshop that will be impactful for both your workers and your business.

If you have any employees who are in need of support, be sure to check out Wellness@Work, a free hub designed to support HR and Australian workers by giving them access to free content.

If you’re looking for an additional HR software to support your business, Flare offers a free onboarding software with employee management and benefits. To learn more, please request a demo.

Understanding the finances of your international workforce

Posted on July 27, 2020September 7, 2023 by Chris James

For Australian employers there are many considerations to be taken into account when employing people from overseas. One that may not be so obvious is understanding the financial circumstances of these employees with international backgrounds.

For example, did you know that many international employees may have loved ones living overseas with a financial responsibility to regularly send a proportion of their earnings back home? This financial assistance, known as ‘remittances’ supports their loved ones with daily living expenses like paying for rent, utilities, groceries, health and education.

This following article outlines some of these considerations and the role you can play as an employer to support your employees.

Global Remittances

Remittances are an essential source of income for millions of families around the world and remitters play a key role in the social and economic development of their countries.

In 2019, global remittances reached a record US$554 billion and they are instrumental in many countries. For example, personal remittances received in Nepal made up over a quarter of the country’s GDP in 2019. In the Philippines, it is a well-established cultural practice to head overseas to work. In fact, 2.2 million, at any time, of these overseas Filipino workers are engaged in industries as diverse as healthcare to seafaring. From Australia, both India and China are also substantial recipients of remittances. Many remitters will see their remittance as a non-negotiable financial commitment, in the same vein as Australians might regard their mortgage payment. Behaviour varies, but many remitters will send money home as many as four times a month.

Financial Access

Like all employees, migrants working in Australia require an Australian bank account to receive their salary. Fortunately, unlike other countries, it is very easy to set up, with the ability to apply for one online regardless of location, with many free or low-cost options.

However, for recent arrivals to Australia, applying for credit cards is not as simple. Banks will usually require some credit history here in Australia before granting even a small credit limit. This can place a credit card off limits for new arrivals, which can be a source of frustration for migrants who have enjoyed well established financial affairs in their original home country.

Tax and Super

The rules relating to taxation and superannuation are complex, and vary according to the individual circumstances of your employees.

In general, many people from overseas who have worked and earned super while visiting Australia on a temporary visa, can apply to have their super paid to them as a departing Australia superannuation payment (DASP) after they leave.

On tax, as long as foreign residents have earned more than $1 in Australia during the financial year they can choose to lodge a tax return. This lodgement can even be done online in your employees’ home countries after they depart. If your employees are leaving Australia permanently, they may be eligible to lodge an Australian tax return early. In this instance the process is offline and is known to take longer.

The monies received from a superannuation payment or a tax refund, regardless of amount, is highly valued as an extra boost of financial support for when your international employees are returning to their home country.

What can you do as an employer

Understanding the unique financial considerations of your international and migrant workforce is a great first step, but there are also a few practical ways you can help:

Sending money home: For remitters, maximising the amount their friends and family receive whilst ensuring the security of the transfers is paramount. Due to lack of awareness, many new arrivals will default to using their bank to transfer money home. However, the Australian Government (in the ACCC’s 2019 report) expressly highlighted that using digital non-bank alternatives, such as WorldRemit, can be a cheaper and faster way to send money home. Also, for employees who are working in remote locations, the fact that these services are fully digital means they can be accessed from a smartphone at any time (without having to visit a bank branch or agent location). Helping make your employees aware of these alternatives, can ensure their families and friends are receiving the greatest amount possible by way of remittances without delay.

Financial access: As employees establish themselves in Australia, you may find they come to you more frequently than others for proof of income or employment, as they navigate the likes of housing and credit applications. Bear in mind your company expenses policy, where they require employees to front large expenses before being reimbursed, may be unduly burdensome (or not possible) for new arrivals who don’t have a credit card.

Tax and Super: Each individual is different so the best thing you can do is direct your employees to the ATO website, which has extensive resources relating to international tax and access to superannuation. The ATO guidance suggests that employees check with their employer before they depart to make sure that all super contributions have been paid – so don’t be surprised if you receive these sorts of queries from your team.

WorldRemit is currently offering the first three transfers free to all Flare users. You can access WorldRemit through the Flare employee benefits portal.

Why providing financial literacy for employees is important

Posted on July 13, 2020August 11, 2023 by Chris James

Everyone is familiar with the concept of literacy, which refers to one’s ability to read and write. It’s a skill that clearly has a huge impact on everyday life. But what people might be less familiar with is the idea of financial literacy, which is having the knowledge to make informed decisions about one’s financial situation – from budgeting to investing to saving.

Unfortunately, Australians have long struggled with financial literacy. A study found that only 50% of men and 35% of women were able to answer five basic financial questions correctly. The good news: there’s an opportunity for employers to step up and help improve the financial literacy of their employees. We explore how in this blog post.

The importance of financial literacy

Before we dive in, it’s important to establish why financial literacy is such a critical skill to invest in. The short answer is that financial literacy leads to better financial health. And there’s a lot of research to support the fact that poor financial health creates many problems for employees – from health problems to anxiety, which eventually leads in lost revenue for companies.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the statistics:

Two in five Australian workers experience financial stress during their careers
As a result, these employees take an extra 2.4 sick days per year
1 in 5 employees also admit to being less productive at work because of financial stress
This costs Australian businesses an estimated $31.1 billion per year in lost revenue

Looking at these numbers, it’s clear that improving the financial literacy of employees should be a top priority for organisations.

Barriers to financial literacy in Australia

So what exactly is it that’s preventing people from being financially literate? We can generally attribute low financial literacy to a lack of access in three categories:

1. Education. By far the biggest barrier to financial literacy is a lack of access to financial education. To have the confidence to make smart financial decisions, one first has to be equipped with the knowledge to do so. Unfortunately, financial topics aren’t built into our education system, which means that many people reach adulthood without an understanding of how to manage their money or save for long-term milestones.

2. Tools. To improve financial literacy, it’s not enough to simply memorise information. That knowledge needs to be put into action. But employees may find themselves feeling overwhelmed or require some assistance to get started. That’s where access to financial tools – which can serve as the bridge that helps people go from having knowledge to taking action – may be useful.

3. Professional support. Finally, it’s important to recognise that financial topics are inherently complex – which is a large part of what makes financial literacy so difficult to achieve. This means that almost everyone could benefit from receiving professional support to help answer questions and guide their decisions.

In the next section, we’ll share a few recommendations to help lower the barriers to entry when it comes to these three categories.

How to help your employees build financial literacy

When it comes to your own employees, there are many ways you can improve their financial literacy. This will, in turn, help their sense of financial wellbeing and lead to decreased stress, boosted productivity, and less revenue lost for your organisation.

Related article: 5 Ways to help your employees improve their financial wellbeing

Education

To increase access to education, consider offering financial wellness benefits that provide employees with the space to learn more about relevant topics. This can come in the form of online courses, in-person trainings, or even printed materials that your HR team puts together. The most important part is to make sure these educational resources are accessible to your entire employee population. Here’s how:

Raise awareness. If employees aren’t aware that these educational resources exist, then they won’t use them. Throughout the year, send out reminders to employees – whether it’s through email, Slack, or in-person announcements – that make them aware these benefits are available to them.

Offer various formats. Not everyone enjoys learning through an online course. Similarly, some people don’t enjoy reading through printed materials. So where possible, try to offer a variety of educational formats to match the specific needs of your employees. Better yet, consider using a survey to make data-driven decisions.

Tools

As we mentioned before, tools are a great way to encourage employees to take action on the financial knowledge they acquire. There are many types of financial tools you can offer your employees, such as real-time payments or budgeting apps to make money management easier. The tricky part, of course, is getting employees to actually use the tools you offer. Here are a few tips to improve adoption:

Create incentives. Consider building in incentives for employees to use the financial tools that are available to them. For example, perhaps you can “gamify” the budgeting app so that every time an employee uses it, they collect points and can eventually win a prize of their choosing. Or you can incentivise more superannuation contributions by “matching” however much they add to their accounts, up to a certain amount.

Make it social. Believe it or not, there are ways to make finances fun for your employees. One way is to make using financial tools a social experience. Create a financial health support group, which employees can voluntarily join to talk about their favorite tools or their personal finance goals. Or, with permission, share employee testimonials on the intranet or at the next all-hands meeting about how much they’ve benefited from using the financial tools provided to them. This may inspire others to adopt those same tools!

Professional support

You can also offer professional services, such as financial advising or counseling, as part of your financial wellness benefits. You, as an HR leader, can also offer up your expertise on topics like salaries and retirement savings. Having access to an expert who can answer questions or explain tricky concepts is an effective way to improve an employee’s financial literacy. Of course, talking about money to you or a professional may feel uncomfortable for employees. To help, we have some recommendations:

Normalise the conversation. Make finances a normal conversation to have in the workplace. To encourage this mindset: train your managers to openly answer questions about salaries; Host lunch and learn about financial topics; And encourage support groups where employees can discuss finances in a safe space.

Have company leaders set an example. One of the best ways to encourage employees to have more conversations about finances is to have your company leaders set an example. For instance, have your CEO share that he or she also uses the company’s financial counseling resource. Seeing someone in a leadership position get help with their own financial situation may inspire others to do the same.

Financial literacy is so critical in determining the overall success, wellbeing, and productivity of your employees. As an organisation, you have the opportunity to unlock financial resources that they might not have access to otherwise. Start with one or two of our recommendations to help improve your employees’ financial wellbeing.

If you have any employees who are in need of support, be sure to check out Wellness@Work, a free hub designed to support HR and Australian workers by giving them access to free content.

Related article: 10 Ideas to help you boost your employee engagement

If you’re looking for an additional HR software to support your business, Flare offers a free onboarding software with employee management and benefits. To learn more, please request a demo.

5 ways to help your employees improve their financial wellbeing

Posted on June 29, 2020August 11, 2023 by Chris James

Every company has employee wellness on the mind. As a result, employers are increasingly investing resources into making sure their workers are physically, mentally, and emotionally taken care of so they can produce their best work. But there’s another type of wellness that has historically been overlooked but is becoming a bigger part of the conversation: financial wellbeing.

In this post, we’ll explore why financial wellness is such a critical component of overall wellbeing. We’ll also share five actionable steps you can take to improve financial wellbeing for your own employees.

What is financial wellbeing, and why is it important?

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) surveyed the general public to gauge their thoughts on financial wellness. The results informed a collective definition of financial wellbeing, which we shared below:

“Financial wellbeing is when a person is able to meet expenses and has some money left over, is in control of their finances and feels financially secure, now and in the future.”

Why is this idea of financial wellness so important? To understand the impact, we need to take a look at how a lack of financial wellbeing affects individuals. This report from AMP paints a picture of how an unstable financial situation can negatively impact employees:

There are currently 2.44 million Australians suffering from financial stress
In the workplace, this results in two in five Australian workers experiencing financial stress during their careers – with nearly half feeling financially stressed for an average of six and a half years or more
Employees troubled by their financial circumstances take an extra 2.4 sick days per year and spend almost an hour per week dealing with money problems at work
This financial stress costs Australian businesses an estimated $31.1 billion per year in lost revenue

Looking at these statistics, it’s clear that financial wellbeing (or a lack of) can have a significant effect on productivity, absenteeism, revenue, and more.

5 Ways to improve financial wellbeing

The good news is that there are ways for organisations to improve the financial wellbeing of their employees. Below, we outlined five recommendations to help your employees feel more in control of their financial situations.

1. Know your workforce

Taking a one-size-fits-all approach to financial wellness isn’t effective. To truly make a difference in the life of your employees, you have to know your workforce and understand their needs. Employee satisfaction surveys are a great way to uncover this information. For instance, let’s say that your survey reveals that the majority of your workforce can comfortably afford basic expenses with their existing salary. But what they struggle with is saving enough money for future milestones like buying a house or starting a family.

In this situation, you may not want to invest all your resources into giving people more raises. Instead, you want to focus on getting your employees the tools and training they need to learn how to manage their money better. This example demonstrates why it’s critical to know your workforce instead of making assumptions.

2. Provide financial education

Education is the most powerful tool when it comes to finances. Unfortunately, most of us have never received a formal education around important life skills like money management and saving for retirement. That’s why many people feel lost and overwhelmed when it comes to these topics.

HR leaders have an opportunity to step in and help fill in these gaps in knowledge. You can connect employees to resources – such as online courses or training led by professionals – that cover key financial topics. Similarly, you can also cover the cost of financial counseling for your employees and their partners. These various forms of education are a great way for workers to ask questions, make a long-term plan, and receive support around their financial goals.

3. Encourage positive financial habits

Habits don’t develop overnight. They require daily, consistent practice to eventually take hold and make an impact on someone’s life. Given that we spend most of our waking hours at work, it only makes sense that many of our financial habits be developed in the workplace.

But how exactly do you encourage your employees to develop positive financial habits? The best way is to show them by example. One way to do this is by making additional superannuation contributions to their accounts. By doing so, you’re demonstrating that you want to invest in their financial futures, and watching their accounts grow over time can motivate employees to make their own contributions. Make sure your workers also know that they can make personal super contributions during a financial year. This is a great way to reinforce good saving habits.

4. Destigmitise conversations about finances

Historically, money was a taboo topic – especially in the workplace. Unfortunately, this stigma creates barriers when it comes to employees taking control of their financial health. If they don’t feel comfortable going to their HR team to ask questions about their salaries or financial benefits, then who can they turn to? Companies should strive to overcome these stigmas and encourage a culture where it’s ok to discuss financial topics.

As HR leaders, there are a number of things you can do to make this a more widely accepted topic: host conversations about the most frequently asked financial questions by your employees; Train managers on how to have transparent conversations about things like salaries and raises; Host open office hours where people can come ask questions. The more you can normalise the conversation about finances, the more empowered your employees will feel to learn more about the subject.

5. Create equal opportunities for success

Finally, it’s important to create equal opportunities for success within your organisation. What exactly do we mean by this? This means being able to take a step back and gauge whether everyone at your company has the same ability to get promoted, receive a raise, and take advantage of the benefits that are offered to them.

For instance, if you were to run an analysis on salaries across the board, would you find any discrepancies with regard to gender or race? If so, this is problematic because you’re lowering the chances of a specific group receiving a pay raise – something that could make a huge difference to their financial health. Another example: are you communicating your financial benefits in a way that’s accessible to all employees? If you have workers in manufacturing or are outside the corporate office, chances are that email and Slack won’t be their primary form of communication. So if you’re only talking about benefits in those channels, you risk having an entire segment of your workforce be unaware of the financial help you offer.

Your employee’s financial wellbeing can have a huge impact on other aspects of their health, as well as their performance at work. By investing in their financial futures, you’re not only helping reduce a significant burden in their lives, but you’re also helping the success of your business.

If you have any employees who are in need of support, be sure to check out Wellness@Work, a free hub designed to support HR and Australian workers by giving them access to free content.

If you’re looking for an additional HR software to support your business, Flare offers a free onboarding software with employee management and benefits. To learn more, please request a demo.

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How HR can support employee financial wellbeing

Ideas to help employees with financial wellbeing

1. Encourage savings

2. Provide flexible payment options

3. Support major expenses

4. Create financial education opportunities

What is financial literacy, and why is it so important?

Steps to run a financial literacy workshop for employees

1. Identify your employees’ needs

2. Craft a workshop series that addresses these needs

3. Choose a top-notch facilitator

4. Set expectations

5. Build anticipation around the workshop

6. Follow up with a survey

Global Remittances

Financial Access

Tax and Super

What can you do as an employer

The importance of financial literacy

Barriers to financial literacy in Australia

How to help your employees build financial literacy

Education

Tools