By Lisa Yackel, CVPM, PHR, SHRM-CP, CCFP
Statistics show that 78% of our employees are significantly in debt and live paycheck to paycheck. American workers are spending 3.6 hours on average each week at work managing personal financial issues, three in 10 workers say financial stress has impacted their job performance and personal finances ranked as a top workplace distraction and lead to high turnover. I come from a generation where we told employees to “leave their problems at the door when you walk into work.” As enlightened employers who know that a happy team makes for a healthy practice, we need to find solutions to help our team get control of their financial situations. Financial Wellness is part of the overall wellbeing of each of us.
We also know that the veterinary industry is not known for being well paying. Many of our employees have to make hard decisions about whether to have a decent place to live or a reliable car. Reliable childcare is often difficult and that leads to frequent absenteeism and fractured minds at work. These distractions can lead to mistakes and morale problems. Most employees will tell you that they have never had any education when it comes to making financial decisions. Nearly eight in 10 American workers say employers should help provide access to opportunities that help them be successful.
Whether you are a manager reading this blog or a team-member who identifies with the above scenarios, we want to give you tools to help you feel less stressed about your finances. Real financial wellness is about behavior change, both at the hospital level (professional) and on a personal level. In both arenas, education and awareness can be the keys to making profound changes to quality of life when it comes to financial stability.
How can we increase our Financial Wellness?
Access to financial products that help workers build and grow their savings are viewed as the most helpful employer offerings for ensuring long-term success (87 percent), as well as health and wellness programs (85 percent), access to job or technical training programs (85 percent), and free financial education courses (82 percent). The topics that employees felt would be best to learn include retirement saving/planning (86 percent), establishing emergency savings (83 percent), creating/managing a budget (78 percent) and identity protection (78 percent).
Knowing where your money is being spent is a first step. Just as we do in our practices, we need to be doing in our personal finances. Once we know where the money is spent, we can set up budgets to pay the essentials first and then see what is left over for discretionary spending. In both areas, goal planning comes into play here as well. Writing down goals and then setting out a clear path to get to those goals is crucial. Sacrifices will certainly come into play but keeping that end goal vision makes the small hardships doable.
How to embrace Financial Wellness both as a team and as individuals
- Set aside a staff meeting to discuss ways to start a budget (Check out our Staff Meeting in a Box!)
- Incorporate these personal plans with each employee’s regular evaluations by encouraging them with their goals.
- Find ways to have the team help each other save money. Ideas might be to:
- Carpool to work
- Cut out Starbucks runs during the day and encourage pooling together to make “fancy” coffees. If one person goes to get a coffee, peer pressure is hard to overcome😊
- Take turns bringing in lunch for everyone to alleviate eating out every day
- Ask a coworker to be your accountability partner
- Participate in your hospital’s IRA or 401 retirement plan
- Celebrate financial successes as a team (buying a new house, paying off a credit card, paying off student debt, upgrading a car, starting an emergency saving accounts)
- Periodically have a financial person talk to the team at a meeting. (Often the hospital’s bank will supply free checking accounts or other perks to your team.)
- Share podcasts like Planet Money and Dave Ramsey as well as articles that focus on finances and budgets
- If the practice has an EAP plan, ask if there is a financial aid portion that employees can be referred to
- Check your area for churches who may be offering Dave Ramsey courses
Other Useful Resources
Other resources can be found with Microsoft’s budget spreadsheets or setting up Quicken (a large proportion of managers use Quickbooks in the practice and can use that familiarity to help with the less robust version found in Quicken). There is a program called Smart Dollar (salessupport@smartdollar.com) that is staff support “in a box”. This program is certainly worth looking into as it has been proven to be hugely successful in thousands of workplaces and frees managers from recreating the wheel. Fees for the program are based on the number of employees. When we calculate a ROI based on the stat of 3 hours/week/employee wasted due to loss of productivity, it is worth looking into.
Bringing in life-changing financial wellness benefits to your team will impact their lives for generations and help your practice’s financial wellbeing as well. After all, “Happy Teams make for Healthy Practices.”