It’s gotta fit.
Even if the new thing you’re starting is the most beneficial thing in the world, if it doesn’t fit into your life or organization, it won’t last. It won’t be sustainable.
A financial wellness program could be just what your company and your employees need, but let’s make sure you’re developing a sustainable program.
Creating a sustainable and successful financial wellness program demands an examination of the components which make up a program, the required resources to put it into place, an understanding of how to do it, and finally, its execution.
I’ve been helping organizations help their employees become more financially literate for over 20 years. Organizations are in a unique position to help their people with this because employees are accustomed to getting more and more benefits from their employers.
It’s my desire to help you figure out how to make yours work.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- The components of a successful financial wellness program
- The required resources
- How to do it
- Making it real and sustainable
Let’s get started.
The components of a successful financial wellness program
There’s a lot more to a financial wellness program than offering a 401(k). A successful program provides employees with access to independent and autonomous learning opportunities, live workshops, interactive programs, peer-to-peer learning, as well as one-on-one coaching.
Independent and autonomous learning opportunities
Making online courses, on-demand courses available to your employees is a great way to increase financial literacy. Offering courses covering a wide variety of topics will help meet your people where they are. Some of your people will just be getting started, some will be interested in getting out of debt, and others will be preparing for retirement. Making sure your curriculum is appropriate for your employee population is essential.
Live workshops
Either in-person or online, holding periodic live workshops is a great way to bring this information to your employees. I’ve found life workshops to be great opportunities to bring timely subjects to people’s attention. For example, hosting a workshop on money and mental health in May (mental health awareness month) is a great way to bring awareness and provide actionable information.
Interactive events
One of the benefits to offering financial wellness through the workplace is the built in community your company has. When you’re able to work on breaking a bad habit and or create a beneficial new habit, doing it as a group can help a lot. For example, perhaps your company could hold a workshop on budgeting, and hold potlucks for lunch instead of eating out. This can be a great way to save money.
Coaching
The vast majority of Americans will never interact with a financial advisor. Making one-on-one money coaching available can be extremely impactful. What makes “coaching” attractive versus “advising,” is that there is not a profit incentive for the coach. They’re there simply to provide behavioral advice and aren’t compensated by selling products or advice. Bottom line; you don’t need to worry about someone trying to sell something to your employees.
Community or peer-to-peer learning
Providing a community forum where your employees can go to ask and answer questions is another great way to make financial literacy and wellness available. Giving people as many different mediums for learning is a best practice.
Retirement plans
Giving your employees access to a retirement plan is an essential component to a successful financial wellness program. 401(k), SIMPLE IRAs, SEP IRAs, and 403(b)s are all examples of retirement programs.
If you’d like help in selecting the right plan for your organization, we’re thrilled to help.
The required resources
In an ideal world, there’d be ideal situations. In the real world, we have finite resources. The idea is to create a sustainable program. In order to do that, you need to weigh these five variables.
Time
How much time do you have to devote to this program?
Money
What is your budget for the program?
Attention
How much headspace are you interested in investing into the program?
Knowledge level
What’s your personal level of financial literacy? Are you comfortable spearheading the program?
Desire
How interested are you in being involved with the program?
There’s no right or wrong answer to these questions. In order to make your program a sustainable success, the more honest you can be, the better.
How to do it
Once you’ve decided on how to allocate your resources, it’s time to figure out how to create your program. Here are my thoughts on the three ways to make yours a reality.
Buy a program
There are a lot of financial wellness programs available for purchase. Should you decide to go down this path, I encourage you to utilize the framework I layed out in a previous section for making your decision about which program is right for you.
If what I shared makes sense, I encourage you to consider our offering, Money Alignment Academy.
Partner with professionals
Buying an existing program isn’t the only way to go about it. You can also find trustworthy professionals to develop yours. For example, you could partner with a financial advisor to present on financial topics like investing, and provide coaching. You could connect with an attorney to talk about estate planning, a CPA to talk about taxes, and curate a network of other professionals.
DIY
Finally, you can do it yourself. There are countless free resources online, and there’s a YouTube video on every topic imaginable. If you’ve got the time and desire, a lot of what you need is out there.
Making it real and sustainable
Now it’s time to talk about how to execute on your program. Your employee population and your program will determine how frequently you’re delivering content and learning opportunities. If you’ve got a large population, perhaps you’ll make monthly opportunities available.
If financial wellness isn’t #1 on your agenda, perhaps you’ll have a wellness week once a year and incorporate your program there.
Bottom line; there’s no right or wrong way to do it. Setting the intention to make it happen is the first step, and getting it started is the second. From there, commit to testing different things and refining your program.
That you’re interested in learning about it suggests you want the best for your employees and your company, and I commend you for it.
Check out Money Alignment Academy, and let us know if you’d like to chat about retirement plans.
We’ve got three free courses as well: Our Goals Course, Values Course, and our Get Out of Debt course.
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