REBA Inside Track: Financial wellbeing is both a business and personal risk
Financial wellbeing has long been considered one of the fundamental pillars of employee wellbeing, alongside physical, mental, and increasingly social wellbeing.
But REBA’s Employee Wellbeing Research 2022 found that only 11% of employers believe that they have a mature financial wellbeing strategy. For comparison, 29% said they have a mature mental wellbeing strategy.
The cost-of-living crisis has shone a powerful light on financial wellbeing. Increases in food, fuel and other living costs driven by soaring inflation have caused acute money worries for many households. While current inflationary pressures will hopefully be finite, the crisis has also exposed longer term, more ingrained financial wellbeing challenges such as low general financial resilience and widening financial inequalities.
Poor financial wellbeing is clearly a business risk as well as a personal one, and an important part of the HR agenda. With finances now near the top of most people’s agenda and with all businesses more focused than ever in looking for increased engagement and productivity, with a sensitive approach, now is the perfect time to review financial wellbeing. Employers can start to help employees build a stronger, more resilient financial future which will help them to better prepare for any future shocks.
Building a financial wellbeing strategy, which has such a potential wide scope, can appear a daunting prospect. REBA’s Technical Guide to Evolving a Financial Wellbeing Strategy is designed to help you with tips and ideas, no matter whether you are starting from scratch or looking to enhance and evolve an existing strategy.
