3 ways to check if your financial wellbeing programme is working

It’s all very well offering employees benefits aimed at their financial health – but how do you know if they are having the desired result?

There are a huge number of benefits to improving your employees’ financial wellbeing.

But one issue that frequently comes up when introducing a financial wellbeing programme is how to measure its success. Here are three key ways to understand the impact it is having on your staff.

1. An employee questionnaire

One way of measuring staff financial wellbeing is to regularly run anonymous surveys or questionnaires to find out more about employees’ financial situations.

These could include questions about how teams feel about their finances, how often they worry about money and how much it affects their work.

Also, ask what areas staff would like help with – from budgeting to saving to buying their first house – and where they are struggling, for example with managing rising costs or paying off debts.

It may feel as if you’re probing into your employees’ personal lives and they may be reluctant to talk about their finances at first. However, you may be surprised at how many people would like their employer to help.

Claro Wellbeing’s Workplace Today report suggests that more than one in two (55%) workers do not think their employer cares about their financial wellbeing.

What’s more, more than one-third (69%) of employees feel their company should do more to support their personal finances.

Keep the feedback loop going using online forms, a dedicated email address and regular discussion groups to evolve your programme and ensure it remains relevant.

2. Productivity, retention and absenteeism

Poor financial wellbeing impacts productivity at work, leads to increasing sick days and repeated job hopping.

Financial stress affects productivity. More than two in three (67%) workers say money worries impact their work with more than half (59%) saying it makes them less productive.

Measuring productivity will differ between teams, roles and industries but having robust metrics in place will help you track your workforce’s efficiency. Introducing a financial wellbeing programme will reduce employees’ financial stress and help improve productivity.

Secondly, almost one in five (17%) people take more sick days because of financial stress.

Stress, anxiety and depression are also the biggest contributors to long-term sickness absence in the UK economy – and worrying about money plays a significant part.

Tracking sickness absence rates before and after a financial wellbeing programme is introduced is another useful way to measure if it is working.

Staff turnover is also a good pointer. While 19% of workers say they plan to leave their current job for another offering higher salary if the cost-of-living crisis continues or gets worse, eight in 10 (81%) said a financial wellbeing programme would increase their job satisfaction – with almost one in four saying it would do so greatly, according to Claro Wellbeing research.

3. Engagement with other benefits

Engagement with other company benefits such as your workplace pension or company shares scheme could indicate improved financial wellbeing as staff may have more money to invest in their future and a better understanding of how to make smarter financial decisions.

This could also be the case if you see more of an uptake with childcare benefits, discounts or vouchers, or even the cycle-to-work scheme.

On the flip-side, an increase in staff using salary advance schemes – allow them to access wages before payday – or more frequently, could indicate they are struggling.

If more employees are opting out of their workplace pension, or other salary sacrifice schemes, or requesting cash instead of holiday days or other benefits, this may also be a sign of poor financial wellbeing.

For more information on measuring the ROI of your financial wellbeing programme, see Claro guide here.