Financial Wellness Linked to Improved Worker Productivity

Employers are increasingly concerned with helping workers improve their day-to-day finances, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) Financial Wellbeing Employer Survey found. Companies today are concerned with helping workers prepare for retirement and are expanding the areas they wish to address with their financial wellbeing offerings. In addition to retirement planning, other top issues include helping workers deal with high health care costs, high costs of living, financial-related stress, daily living expenses, and budget and money management.

Recent public policy developments—such as the passage of SECURE 2.0 — have led to an increased focus on emergency savings, which is reflected in the priorities of employers: 77% reported either offering or planning to offer an emergency savings account within the next year or two, a slight increase over last year.

However, employers cited costs to employees and the company itself as a challenge in offering financial wellbeing programs.

Continuing a trend observed in 2023, employers measure the impact of their financial wellness offerings on employee productivity and worker satisfaction. In turn, 70% of the companies surveyed reported having explicitly developed a cost-benefit analysis to determine the return on investment (ROI) of their financial wellbeing offerings. When asked about the factors these cost-benefit analyses were based on, benefits decision makers most commonly reported basing their calculations on improved employee financial wellbeing, improved productivity and performance, and improved employee recruitment/retention. Improved absenteeism/tardiness and reduced medical or mental health claims were less commonly cited in formulating cost-benefit analyses evaluating firms’ financial wellness offerings.

Satisfaction with financial wellness initiatives themselves was also an important measure of success. Improving usage of existing employee benefits and improving employee retention were slightly less important this year than in 2023.

Still, most benefits decision makers reported being optimistic that their company’s budget for these benefits will increase in the short term, an indication that these benefits are a critical component of their benefit offerings.