The recent economic downturn has affected employees on many levels and the stress that is associated with it inadvertently comes to work with them. Financial stresses affect every area of an employee’s life, including work productivity, so many organizations are incorporating financial education into an employee’s training. The goal is to help employees get a handle on their personal finances to minimize one kind of distraction at work.
Statistics show that one in four Americans say they feel stress associated with their personal finances and they would like to be better managers of their money. It is also interesting that 401(k) plan sponsors report that most employees will not be prepared for retirement and many site credit card debt as one of the reasons for not saving more. Many employees are seeing their debt increase, home values decrease, foreclosures rising and an inability to repay debt.
More and more organizations are developing training programs that help employees learn to set financial goals, manage credit, increase savings and improve retirement savings. The basic principles of money management are taught at an elementary level to give employees the tools they need to improve their personal finances. Organizations believe that employees who are relieved of this kind of stress can actually be more productive at work.
According to the Personal Finance Foundation “Companies providing financial education show results that include improvement in workplace productivity, employee morale, and company loyalty while reducing absenteeism, turnover, workplace distractions and operational risk across the company. Financial education programs have the effect of contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to the company’s bottom line.”
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) have partnered to launch the Workplace Leaders in Financial Education Award which recognizes organizations that provide financial literacy programs for their employees. The program encourages organizations to improve financial literacy among employees to ultimately improve employee financial decision making.
Applications for the Workplace Leaders in Financial Education Award is available and organizations interested in applying can register online until July 1, 2011. The winning organization will be announced this fall.
Do you provide personal finance education for your employees?
photo by: o5com
