Are your employees going through tough financial times? If so, you might want to consider giving them a helping hand.
While at one time, employees were simply expected to turn up, do their work and go home without bringing their personal lives into work, times have certainly changed.
Now, a lot of research has revealed that helping employees with their personal issues, can bring great benefits to a business. Financial issues can significantly impact employee performance. So, by taking steps to help them, you’ll in turn be helping your business too. Here, we’ll look at some of the best ways to help your employees gain back their financial stability.
Provide financial training
Offering financial training is a great way to teach your employees how to deal with specific financial issues. This type of training can easily be implemented into the workplace.
Understandably, some employees may be reluctant to divulge the particular financial issues they’re experiencing. So, a good idea is to survey them anonymously. That way, they can tell you the issues they’d like to learn more about, without feeling embarrassed about it. Tackling the issues they are facing, is going to prove most effective.
Allow access to a salary-linked savings account
One thing many workers struggle with, is saving money. Savings can help to provide peace of mind in case any unexpected costs crop up. You can help your employees to start saving by introducing a salary-linked savings account. With one of these accounts, employee savings are taken directly from their pay cheque.
As it’s automatically being saved, your employees will barely notice it and they’ll be able to adjust to their new spending amount.
Help with travel costs
The commute to work can be pretty costly for some employees. So, why not help them towards the cost of travelling? You can do this in a number of ways, such as providing a company car and paying towards its running expenses. Or, you could introduce a bicycle scheme into the workplace. Anything you can do to help cover the costs of commuting will be appreciated.
Consider offering counselling
Finally, if your employees are really struggling, it may be worth providing them access to a counsellor. You can hire in-house counsellors or refer them to one. This won’t just help them to deal with financial troubles, but it will also provide them with support no matter what issues they are dealing with.
These are just some of the ways you can help your employees gain back their financial stability. You could also anonymously survey your employees to ask what type of financial problems they find the most debilitating. This will give you an idea of where to start when providing financial help in the workplace.
