About 21% of employees claim to have lost motivation at work due to stress surrounding their personal finances
As New Zealander’s stare down the barrel of $13 cauliflowers, inflation, and the ‘rising cost of everything’, it’s no surprise that Employment Hero’s 2022 Wellness at Work report found 62% of New Zealand employees are feeling personal financial stress.
We don’t normally attribute workplace stress to our own finances, but the same report revealed that 21% of employees claimed to have lost their motivation at work due to stress surrounding their personal finances, while 19% claimed financial stress had made them feel tired and distant, and 18% said financial stress had them seeking a better-paid job.
It’s clear that financial stress will be one of the biggest threats to employee wellness this year, so should employers be recognising this and providing advice?
“We certainly do at Employment Hero” says Alex Hattingh, CPO at Employment Hero, where employees are invited to lunch and learn sessions on home loans and mortgages. They also have a Slack Channel dedicated to stock market enthusiasts who want to grow and share their knowledge.
The report found that financial incentives are still an employee’s highest priority, but these days employees are also seeking financial education. It’s the first time Employment Hero has included a personal finance question in the survey that generates the report.
Hattingh told HRD: “We decided to put it in there because we’re hearing more and more that people are worried about their personal finances. It started with the mental health and wellbeing angle but then it extended to [the fact] a person’s main source of income comes from their employer, so employers should be providing education around that.”
Hattingh said personal financial wellness will become a trending inclusion in corporate wellness packages. Only 16% of survey respondents said they didn’t want financial guidance from their employer with the rest saying they would like education in retirement and pensions, saving, investment, budgeting, and mortgages.
Despite the desire for employers to support financial employee’s wellbeing, the reality is that money remains a taboo subject in workplaces. The report found that 47% of people felt uncomfortable when it came to discussing their personal finances with their employer, so keep that in mind if you are exploring the idea of extending financial education to your employees. One more tip Hattingh adds - “you have to caveat that education with having a professional who is skilled up to give that advice”.
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The survey asks respondents how they would like their employers to support their financial wellbeing. Cold hard cash in the form of bonuses and overtime was the largest desire at 36%, followed by wellness initiatives like health insurance (22%) and mental health subscriptions (20%), then paying for or subsidising a selection of everyday expenses such as utilities and groceries (15%), commute costs (15%), childcare (10%), and healthcare (9%). 17% of people said they wanted nothing beyond salary.
Other key findings in the report were,
- Over half (53%) of NZ workers are struggling with burnout at work
- 70% of NZ workers feel they are in meaningful work
- 41% say the effect of Covid has decreased the importance they place on their career