More employers than ever are taking additional steps to help their employees achieve financial stability. While in the past most of their efforts were focused on encouraging employees to save for retirement, many are now educating their workers on a variety of topics in the financial realm.
According to a recent survey conducted by Aon Hewitt, 69 percent of employers already offer online investment advice, and another 18 percent say they plan to do so in 2015. Also this year, 53 percent offered their employees telephone access to a financial advisor (up from 35 percent in 2014).
Roughly half of employers (49 percent vs. 44 percent last year) are also offering third-party investment advice, and 47 percent are offering managed accounts (up from 39 percent last year). What’s more, a whopping 93 percent of employers say they would consider offering tools such as mobile apps and online financial planning calculators to help employees understand financial concepts and prepare for the future.
These increases come as a result of recent findings that financial stress can have serious negative impacts on employees’ work performance. In fact, 1/5 of workers admitted to skipping work to deal with personal financial problems. Among the topics employers are beginning to address with their workers are planning for life events such as saving for college or buying a first home.
Could your employees benefit from education on these or other related topics, beyond the typical retirement savings conversations? For more information, you can check out this article on BenefitsPro.