Crafting an Inclusive Financial Wellness Program to Engage and Empower Employees

BY Katie Chambers | August 29, 2024

Financial wellness programs have become essential for attracting and retaining top talent while fostering an inclusive and engaged workforce. More than 80% of employees want professional help with their finances, says Amy Chou, chief product officer at Addition Wealth, a holistic financial-wellness platform.

During a From Day One webinar Chou spoke about leveraging financial wellness programs as an integral component of an inclusive benefits strategy, empowering employees to make smart, informed financial decisions. She shared tips for designing a financial wellness program that effectively addresses the diverse needs and expectations of employees by combining digital tools with human expertise.

Why Financial Wellness

“Finances are really top of mind for all employees given all the changes in today’s economy,” Chou said. “The stats are really jarring.” According to the company’s research, Chou shares that 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, with credit card debt at an all-time high of $1.13 trillion. “We have the most educated workforce these days,” Chou said, but with that education comes $1.75 trillion in student debt. 27% of U.S. adults have no emergency savings; 64% of adults say that inflation is what is making it hard for them to save for unexpected expenses. And investing and saving options are becoming increasingly complicated, alienating those who might actually be in a position to start saving.

These numbers are causing anxiety, with 90% of Americans reporting stress from their finances, and 34% saying it impacts their mental health. Traditional financial solutions are no longer sufficient and leave a gap in knowledge and service for employees.  Financial advisors can be expensive and free tools are often too generic and unable to offer the comprehensive view needed today.

Trends Impacting the Financial Benefits Experience

The past few years have changed the HR landscape, Chou says. Pay transparency is becoming increasingly important. Market trends have impacted hiring, even though unemployment remains low, headcount reductions have hit certain industries.

The economy has changed how employees feel about their finances. Rising healthcare, living, and other costs have impacted employee financial security and demands from their benefits. And in turn, rising costs have impacted the cost of the insurance and benefits themselves, which in turn impact the employer’s bottom line. “This is where we believe financial wellness offerings come in,” Chou said.

Evaluating Financial Wellness Offerings

Amy Chou of Addition Wealth led the webinar (company photo)

Holistic well-being is increasingly important during turbulent financial times. There are many point solutions and benefits that employees are struggling with how to utilize best, such as inclusion emergency savings accounts, earned wage access, student loan reimbursements, tax benefits, life insurance, and more. “We think that the modern financial wellness program that can benefit an employer and employee alike is really one that stretches across all of these different areas,” Chou said. Wellness programs should be answering key questions like, ‘How do I stretch my income further? And which of these point solutions is best aligned with my personal goals?’

The best programs will offer “a solution to help people decide what they should be opting into, how much they should be opting into, or the order by which they need to be doing things,” said Chou. These offerings will benefit employers, also, leading to increased productivity, retention, and more.

An Inclusive Employee Experience

A financial wellness program, Chou says, should be flexible enough to serve employees of all levels, ages, and backgrounds. The best ones on the market should offer the following six components:

  1. Holistic offerings that help with all decisions, such as retirement planning and debt management. 
  2. A high-tech and high-touch model that is user friendly to both employees and employers and integrates easily with your HR systems. 
  3. Fiduciaries who aren’t pushing specific products in order to make money off of commissions, product sales, kickbacks, referrals and the like may distort their incentives. “Make sure that the financial wellness player is acting in a fiduciary capacity,” Chou said, and only acting in the interests of the employee. 
  4. One-on-one access to financial experts, such as certified financial planners, certified public accountants, investment advisors, financial fitness coaches and more. “Regardless of age, regardless of demographic, location, etc, if a problem gets too complicated and a person is getting too stressed, oftentimes it can be easier to talk to a person about it and to have that person guide you through and coach you through the situation,” Chou said. “A lot of these decisions are very emotional,” and can’t rely on technology alone. A personal touch may be required. 
  5. Personalized to your specific company needs, ensuring your employees get individualized and relevant information on your benefits packages, compensation models, and more. “This will drive engagement and better outcomes for employees,” Chou said. 
  6. Customized to the individual needs of your employees, allowing employees to choose how they want to engage (whether that’s self-service tools, one-on-one meetings, or live large-scale events) and match demographic and educational needs, including paying off student debt and planning for retirement for beginners vs. seasoned investments.

The Impact of Financial Wellness Benefits

“Once you get an offering that really understands a company, understands a base and understands the employee, you really can make a difference,” Chou said. Many employees appreciate the flexibility of technology-based platforms and the ability to access basic financial education that is unfortunately not really taught in schools, she shares.

“You can really make a difference in your employee’s life, but also the families, the dependents, the spouses of these individuals, because oftentimes this employee that gets access to financial education can bring that into their communities and can bring that into their home to really widen the impact of these benefits,” Chou said. “And once people can plan better and manage their finances better, they really get that peace of mind.”

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Addition Wealth, 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.

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