At the beginning of 2020, you had a plan for your finances. Maybe you planned to buy a house, pay off student loans, help your parents with medical expenses, start building savings, or get out of debt. But then something happened. A big something.

We’re in an important moment in personal financial health in the U.S. A confluence of factors–systemic racism and inequality, mass furloughs and layoffs, health risks, lack of family care support–are making it difficult for some people to maintain financial stability and difficult for many people to establish it at all.

According to a 2020 report published by the Financial Health Network, only a third of individuals in the U.S. are financially healthy, half are financially coping, and 20% are financially struggling. Inequality is clear when you parse financial health by race. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center in January, 58% of Asian American adults and 60% of white adults said their financial position was in “good” or “excellent” shape, while 66% of Black adults and 59% of Hispanic adults said their finances were in “fair” or “poor” shape. Many people say the effects of the pandemic will affect their finances over many years, some say in perpetuity.

Increasingly, employers are looking for opportunities to support their workforces in improving their financial health. Some are even making it a part of their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies. Financial Literacy for All, for example, is a coalition of major companies including Delta Air Lines, Disney, and Walmart, aimed at making financial literacy part of American culture. And Mercy, a St. Louis-based health care system that employs more than 40,00 people, created DEI-focused oversight for their benefits administration.

Ayanna Baldwin, a director of benefits and diversity officer at Mercy, said that last year the organization established a DEI governance board, appointed four diversity officers, and created a council called the Social Determinants of Co-worker Health, whose focus is to promote and establish programs that provide equity and dignity. “We also have a financial-wellness committee,” said Baldwin. “The financial wellness committee ensures and explores all options available to coworkers so that we can assist people along their financial journey every step of the way.” The council, she said, outlines guiding principles for issues like living wages and health-care equity.

Baldwin was among five expert speakers in a From Day One webinar, “For a Diverse Workforce, Are Your Financial Benefits Fair and Equitable?”, which I moderated. During our conversation, we talked about how employers are responding to the personal financial crisis in real time and how to think about designing benefits packages with DEI in mind.

“For 99% of employees, the employer is their sole driver of wealth creation. You're paying their paycheck, you're giving them a retirement account, health insurance, HSAs, FSAs, additional benefits,” said Matt Watson, founder and CEO at Origin, a company that works with employers to provide employees with financial planners and financial technology, about the importance of company support for employee financial wellness.

Bernie Knobbe, senior VP of global benefits, well-being, and compensation at the global infrastructure engineering firm AECOM, said he considers financial health part of overall employee care. “Financial well-being drives emotional well-being drives physical well-being and all the other aspects of that,” he said. “We didn't really think of it as financial wellness. We just thought of it as our global well-being program of which financial is one aspect.”

Employers are responding to specific financial hardships that have surfaced as a result of Covid-19. Craig Copeland, PhD, senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), said he’s seen a lot of discussion around emergency-relief programs administered through direct employer funding, cash advances, or paycheck loans. AECOM created a PTO donation program in which employees can donate paid vacation to colleagues who need it.

Copeland has also seen increased interest among employers in providing personalized financial-counseling services. “Everyone's finances typically are very different, so just offering a retirement plan really isn't helpful to the person [who is] struggling with debt. We really need to get them in a situation where they're able to save for retirement by getting their current finances in order, and that involves some coaching, some personalized experiences where people really understand and listen to them,” he said.

The identity and background of financial advisors matters, panelists said. Generic advice–contribute this amount to liquid savings, this amount to retirement–is out the window when someone has a mountain of student-loan debt or is caring for elderly family members.

Copeland said he has found that the ability to relate to one’s financial advisor makes a big difference. “When we specifically asked people what they look for in their financial advisor, the most common one is that they have someone that works with their experience, their particular financial experiences, or where their finances are.” Sharing a common identity–ethnicity or socioeconomic background, for example–can “give people an extra level of comfort,” Copeland said, because they know that this person shares similar values and experience and has their best interests in mind.

As does consistency. Said Origin's Watson: “So let's say I’m your financial planner, we've met, you've told me about your goals in life, what you're doing. Now, it's now three months down the road and something happens, and that kind of throws our pre-existing financial planning out the window, right? You come back, and I already know your story. And now that we’ve built a relationship, I can help guide you through that.”

Importantly, the panelists said they're not keen on making assumptions about what workers need, and are instead giving employees as much flexibility as possible.

Take, for example, Mastercard’s Benefits Choice program. The points-based system, currently available to employees in Mexico, allows workers to pick and choose what their total rewards look like. Ana Mendez, Mastercard's VP of total rewards for Latin America and the Caribbean, said this about the program: “This simple, innovative and effective platform allows our employees to choose the right benefits programs, and the coverage level, based on what is important to them and their current stage of life.” Mendez has customized her own benefits choices, she said. “I decided that I'm not going to use maternity coverage any longer, but instead of that, those points will go to me and I want to offer medical coverage for my parents.”

“I absolutely think that companies should focus on the habit and not the income,” Baldwin said. For example, it may seem logical to think of workers who access paycheck-advance services as being those with lower income, but “our average hourly rate of coworkers that utilize that benefit is much higher than the threshold that we consider a lower-pay coworker. There were director levels, executive-director levels, that utilized that benefit. We want to address the behavior, because income doesn't always equal financial maturity.”

How an employer presents its benefits menu also matters. “We don't want to assume we know what it is that you need, we want you to tell us what you need,” Baldwin said. To do this, Mercy delivers “climate surveys” every other month. Origin surveys its customers’ employees, Mastercard taps into affinity groups for ideas and feedback and uses focus groups when the company is about to launch something new, and AECOM takes regular “pulse” surveys to understand how benefits are being used.

As companies think about how they'll improve their packages in the service of DEI, they should meet workers wherever they are in their financial journey, the panelists said. Individualized attention is at the heart of DEI-centered financial benefits. This is why Mastercard lets workers pick and choose their packages, Mercy provides everything from paycheck advances to retirement-savings programs, and Origin maintains consistency of advisors. Said Watson: “If you can help the employee really navigate their specific situation, there's a significant increase in value to that individual."

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a writer, editor, and content strategist based in Richmond, Va.

Support the Change: Why Menopause Should Be Part of Your Women’s Health Strategy

Did you know that signs of perimenopause can start appearing in women of childbearing age? Many of us are lacking crucial knowledge that can help us or our women colleagues navigate this time in their lives.Offering solutions to improve and support needs specific to women can also be an important factor to retention. But a new survey reports that only 1% of US women have menopause support as part of their employee sponsored benefits. What’s more, according to a new survey, 85% of women said they don’t know enough about menopause, and 83% experiencing menopause report that their symptoms impact their ability to work.During a From Day One webinar, panelists shared how employers can better support women experiencing the change, and the impact it can have on productivity, medical spend and retention.Often, the concept of “women’s healthcare” ends with postpartum. But Dr. Leslie Saltzman, chief medical officer at Ovia Health, says health care support for women of all ages is vital. “It’s so important to support women who are experiencing perimenopause and menopause because the symptoms aren’t just a nuisance. Evolving evidence is showing that severe menopausal symptoms, which impact a great portion of our population, also have long term health effects and accelerate cardiovascular disease and impact brain health. They’re having lots of negative impact in terms of quality of life and performance at work. We see women dropping out of the workforce just because of the symptoms that they're having,” Dr. Saltzman said.Juliet Vestal, corporate vice president, total rewards at B. Braun, says 50% of their workforce is women. “As our workforce continues to age, these are issues that we know are not being supported within the community by providers. And so we need to find solutions to help,” she said.Even younger employees are starting to ask about these topics, despite perceived taboos, says Melanie Baxter, director of global well-being at Alorica. “As a collective we stop women’s health awareness at motherhood. Opening a space of easy dialogue about any health issues when we're in the workspace can create a much happier workforce, can create longevity and can increase retention. It’s also just the right thing to do,” Baxter said. “It’s a way to communicate with our employees that, ‘Hey, you matter to us.’”Lisa Hammond, CHRO at Veradigm, says that she is answering the relatively recent call from employees to address this issue by providing webinars on the topic. “For me right now, it’s thinking about, how do we articulate menopause to our leadership, which is largely male, and help them get context for this in a way that’s not overly clinical or overly emotional, so that they can gain an understanding and become allies with us as we move through this next phase of our benefits programs and our culture internally,” Hammond said.Breaking Barriers to Healthcare AccessThere are a few issues that make it hard for women to get accurate and helpful information about menopause, says Dr. Saltzman. She cites a study from the Women's Health Initiative that “has been widely criticized [and] created a lot of fear” around the standard of care for menopause.The panelists spoke about the importance of menopause support in the workplace (photo by From Day One)This includes hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which is again now generally considered to be effective, though the stigma remains. Doctors also primarily experience “hospital-based training” tied to birth, and are less prepared for the one-on-one intimate office conversations necessary to discuss menopause. And lastly, the current shortage of primary care physicians means “we don’t have enough providers who are trained to be able to support the needs of women who are experiencing these symptoms,” Saltzman said. And when they do find a provider who can help, Vestal added, “there’s a six to eight month waiting period to get in.”Another part of the problem is the stigma and discomfort associated with simply talking about menopause. “For so many years, menopause and the symptoms were seen as, “a part of life and you just need to get over it and deal with it,’” said moderator Alice Park, senior health correspondent at TIME. “Are we getting close to really treating it as a medical condition in the same way that we treat conditions that affect men?”The unfortunate answer: yes and no. “Anyone who has experienced these symptoms themselves knows that this is not a psychological thing, and this isn’t something to be solved by dressing in layers or using a fan at night. But I still think that there’s a huge gap and lack of appropriate research,” Saltzman said. “As long as this market continues to grow, [with] more and more data supporting how important it is to treat women, there will be more and more solutions.”That means employers can help move the cause forward simply by being willing to address it. “The less we talk about something, the less people are likely to research it. My simple advice is to talk about it,” Baxter said. Since employees may be ashamed to bring it up themselves, leaders need to be proactive in making the service available to employees first, so they feel comfortable coming forward.Providing the Appropriate SupportProviding inclusive healthcare support that addresses menopause can make a workforce happier and more productive. “By not addressing these issues, people are suffering in silence and people are missing work,” Vestal said. The more employees and leaders are educated about the topic, the more they will be empathetic in their responses and in providing adequate support and planning. Additionally, Hammond says, the information will even be helpful to male employees whose partners or family members may be experiencing symptoms.A single point solution may not work for most organizations. “The experience of menopause varies dramatically from individual to individual, even when it starts,” Dr. Saltzman said. For some, it starts in their 50s, but others in their 40s, even those trying to conceive may experience symptoms. Therefore, raising awareness in general is most helpful, as is making sure there is access to healthcare providers with the appropriate training, including telehealth for easy access.Bringing in speakers is also beneficial. But be wary, as there’s a lot of misinformation. “If you’re looking for those resources, if you’re looking on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, make sure this is a licensed physician,” Baxter said.Especially given recent political developments in the U.S., panelists agree women’s healthcare education is more crucial than ever. “It’s a perilous time,” Hammond said. “We want to do everything we can within our organization to support women in making sure that, no matter what political party we are, we’re all humans. We all have bodies. We all should be able to maintain and enjoy power over our own beings.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Ovia Health, for sponsoring this webinar. Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

How to Use Skills Data to Power Development and Achieve Business Objectives

The skills required for success are constantly evolving and organizations are struggling to adapt without clear visibility of the strengths and skills gaps in their workforce. This uncertainty leaves talent management and employee development journeys to guesswork, resulting in lost opportunities and strategic missteps. Being armed with skills data and then acting on it is a key strategy to keeping employees happy, loyal, and developing.Organizations that utilize data about their talent's skills, or catalog and organize the skills workers currently possess, as well as identify the skills needed for future roles, are actively preparing their workforce to tackle new challenges as they arise. During a From Day One webinar, leaders discussed how talent skills data can transform your approach to talent management.As a first step, companies must identify which skills are the most relevant to their business’ present and future, the panelists shared. This decision should not be made just by HR, senior leaders, and stakeholders, but by employees at other levels too, says Marquisa Nash, Head of HR, performance materials at BASF. “[There might be a gap between] what leadership thinks is important and what people think is important,” Nash said.Tomislav Vujec, director of learning at Red Hat, says it’s easier for HR to get a buy-in from business leaders when discussing employee skills as opposed to competencies. “We get to be closer to their problems and we open a door to validate what we can actually do, which is develop a skill. As opposed to risking too much by promising a business change, which often does not only depend on the skill being developed, but other factors,” he said.The rapid changes brought about by the pandemic also emphasized the need to focus on skill-building, says Didem Onem, Head of TA operations and programs at Eaton Corporation. “That made us look at our talent and skills availability and ask ‘where are we headed – and are we ready for that?’ It meant bringing a new type of talent into the organization,” she said. For Eaton, this meant an initiative for upskilling in digitization techniques so that employees would be more prepared for a digital way of doing business. Her team mapped out the new skills plan based on manager feedback, honest self-assessments, and forecasted what would be needed down the line.Those self-assessments, though, can be tricky. “Oftentimes people are not terribly good at assessing their own levels of facility with certain things,” said moderator Lydia Dishman, senior editor for growth and engagement at Fast Company. “Is there a way to make sure that what people are reporting is actually where they are?”The panel of industry leaders spoke about "How to Use Skills Data to Power Development and Achieve Business Objectives" in a session moderated by Lydia Dishman of Fast CompanyLarger companies, especially, must work hard to not lose track of each individual’s growth. “With 600,000 employees all around the globe, it’s hard to know who can do what and what they are good at,” said Abbe Partee, VP, head of global certified learning at DHL. So DHL created a Career Marketplace, which integrates both its learning and performance system. It includes an individual’s skills data not just from self-assessment but also manager feedback, succession planning meetings, and the combined skill profiles of their current and previous roles.“We want to build a culture of learning and continuous education,” Vujec said. That begins at onboarding and continues throughout an employee’s entire career journey, regardless of their level. It’s also important to recognize, he says, that “the foundational skills of today might not be the foundational skills of tomorrow.” In turn, the onboarding itself should serve as a mindset shift to prepare employees for continuous learning, rather than the expectation that development will stop after a few months on the job.Skills data should be something that is embraced by employees. “We know employees want to grow with the organization, and skills is a great conversation to get that going,” said Lucy Beaumont, solution lead, manager and leader at SHL. The biggest shift she is seeing is that the skills conversation during reviews is less about how employees are succeeding in their current roles, but rather where they want to go in the future. “What is your skills potential, and therefore, what is the right career path for you where can you lean into those strengths? If you do have those gaps, and they're relevant to the job you're doing or the job you want to do, how can we get around that and support that?” she said.Post-pandemic, individuals are more acutely focused on whether they are happy in their current position, so it’s important for employers to facilitate those conversations early and help workers move and grow internally, rather than externally, to boost retention.Beaumont says organizations should not only be measuring skills as they stand, but also tracking how those skills gaps are then bridged over time. While pulse surveys are helpful, they can sometimes have a tough time measuring soft skills, such as leadership. Therefore, the hard data must then be analyzed with a human approach. “We do take broad strokes, but then that aggregate view allows us to prioritize and see what it’s hinting at,” Vujec said. HR can allow the data trends to drive what areas will require a deeper, more complex dive.Nash notes this “human skills” area is, ironically, where emerging technology can be the most useful during employee surveys. “We use AI to go back into the comments to extrapolate, to see what other additional data points we can obtain to understand what skills employees are looking for,” Nash said. Then those themes are linked back to the organization’s business strategy and core values.What skills do the panelists see as most valuable going forward? All of them are tied to transformation. They include data analytics, to boost agility in reacting to needs; digitization, to make business more efficient; a digital mindset when it comes to problem solving; and an overall change in agility. And lastly, the skill of learning itself is vital. “Re-skilling potential: what does it take to be willing and able to learn new skills,” Beaumont shared, is integral in today’s rapidly evolving workforce.Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

Innovative and Engaging Approaches for Leadership Development

“The war for talent is over, and talent won.”This was a quote that resonated with Miguel Oliveira, senior HR director supporting the brand management and marketing teams at Danone North America, he said during a recent From Day One webinar.Leaders are now being evaluated “not only on the results they bring to the business, but on results from engagement, well-being, and retention,” he told moderator Lydia Dishman during a From Day One webinar about supporting tomorrow’s leaders.Amanda Grow, director of customer success for ETU, says the company has leadership training programs centered on skills related to values such as authenticity and courage, emotional intelligence, and psychological safety.“I always want to see inclusive and emotionally intelligent leaders, because that really does have a major impact on every organization and your culture and what you're trying to instill in your employees,” said Grow.Things have changed tremendously in the workforce in recent years, which impacts what leadership looks like, says Johann Laville, the chief learning officer at Merck.Remote work is becoming more commonplace, the workforce is younger and more diverse, and “technology is driving our future at light speed,” he said. As a result, leaders are listening more and focusing more on leading with humility, he says.Tips for Training Future LeadersEarly talent programs are a way companies can develop future leaders, says Minh Pham-Costello, vice president of business management at Santander. Employees can get an endorsement from their manager when applying.It’s crucial to make sure the employee is committed to the program “because sometimes you push programs to people and they either don’t have the capacity or the desire,” Pham-Costello said. It is also important to have programs that cater to senior leaders’ professional development needs.Programs for future leaders shouldn’t be one size fits all, according to Grow.“It’s great to have a global skill set that we’re trying to adhere to, but we also need to dig down and go to the level deeper and really understand how those skills show up at different role levels, different proficiency levels, and more, so that you really can personalize some of the training,” said Grow. For example, a senior leader who takes a junior-level course probably won’t find it engaging.The panel of leaders spoke about "Supporting Tomorrow's Leaders: Innovative and Engaging Approaches for Leadership Development" (photo by From Day One)Oliveira compared leadership training to trying to teach someone how to ride a bike. You can have trainees watch a movie on how to do it or “put them on a bike and have someone hold the bike to let them understand how it works,” he said.When exposing employees with leadership potential to management fundamentals, “It’s really important to create ways and mechanisms to give them visibility to what it looks like without the responsibility of leading someone directly,” Oliveira said. “I still see today many people stepping into their first managerial leadership opportunity and they still lack those fundamentals, and unfortunately, those suffering are those reporting to the individual.”How Employees Can Demonstrate Leadership SkillsAlthough organizations are investing in leadership development more than ever before, individuals still need to take the initial steps toward getting to the next level, says Pham-Costello.“Of course, other people can help you, but when you take the initiative with your career, you are not only developing your skill but also showing the organization that you are committed to the company and to your growth,” she said.Business resource groups (BRG) are essential when it comes to leadership development, says Pham-Costello. A BRG “gives you that visibility. People see you leading and influencing.”Laville said Merck has a true gig economy. This means if an employee wants to demonstrate their capability of being an effective leader and there’s something they are passionate about – whether it’s a topic, division, or product – they can apply internally, be interviewed, and be selected.That employee would then have support from the leader who releases them into the gig and the leader who would accept them “to come in and provide a new value,” Laville said.Seeking mentorship is another way for those who wish to be leaders to get to that level. Mentors are “subject matter experts that you can have some really open conversations with to help guide you on that path,” he said.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, ETU, for sponsoring this webinar.Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa.

Building Inclusion into Your Financial-benefits Plan

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Support the Change: Why Menopause Should Be Part of Your Women’s Health Strategy

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