High inflation, volatile markets and conflict in Ukraine among reasons people more stressed
Rampant inflation, rising gas prices and war in Ukraine are among the reasons that people are stressed these days.
Three-quarters (75 per cent) of Canadians are feeling anxious about finances — up from 45 per cent in the same survey done in 2021.
“That’s the hit-you-in-the-eyes headline,” says Jeremy Beament, cofounder and director at nudge Global, in London, U.K., which polled 6,750 full-time employees across 14 countries in late March and early April.
A many as four out of 10 are living paycheque to paycheque, while 92 per cent are concerned about inflation.
“There’s high volatility in markets — have a look at Bitcoin by way of example or the NASDAQ — there’s also inflation creating cost-of-living challenges and in a lot of the regions that we look after, the World Bank is forecasting will go into recession in 2023 and 2024,” says Beament.
Further illustrating this anxiety is that 79 per cent of those surveyed by the financial education benefit platform feel pessimistic about Canada’s economic future.
However, financial education would have a positive effect on employee wellbeing. Sixty-six per cent of workers say they feel connected to employers who provided financial education, versus 43 per cent of those who didn’t, according to the survey.
“If the benefits package is not helping the employee bring their best self to work, then it’s not working and so the key ingredients of that are physical health, mental health and financial health,” says Beament. “But because money touches every part of our lives, financial wellbeing is potentially the most important or a key part of the overall wellbeing strategy.”
Financial stress and turnover
This desire for more financial education as a wellness initiative was also present in another survey done by Ceridian.
It found that 82 per cent of workers would be less likely to look for a new job if their current company offered more financial wellness tools.
“We recognize that the world of work is changing and that the demand in the marketplace, particularly from younger employees, and the role of companies is shifting, and that people are looking to their employers to provide more for them, particularly in the context of a tight labour market,” says Seth Ross, general manager, Dayforce Wallet and consumer services at Ceridian in Los Angeles.
“Even though there’s talk of recession and all of that right now… you’re still in a historically very tight labour market, where people have choices on where they want to work.”
The survey heard from 3,033 adults in Canada and the U.S. in April.
The Ceridian survey also found that 54 per cent of respondents had trouble covering expenses between pay periods over the previous six months.
“I think inflation in Canada is the highest number in 30 years, the U.S. is the same, and when you’re in a context of high inflation, you’ve got a few competing factors that that come into play: first of all, people feel tight, their finances feel tight and so they’re looking for ways to offer benefits to their employees that are not just raising salaries,” says Ross.
Because of this inflation, employers are also feeling the pinch when it comes to cost certainty and, therefore, offering pay raises across the board is hard to accomplish, making employers look to other ways of helping employees, says Beament.
“There have to be more creative ways of helping employees and financial wellbeing programs are a very good one of those, which is about helping people manage their money better.”
How can HR help?
For HR, this means not only educating employers around what their retirement might look like but offering them much more information, says Beament.
“What is different now is that a modern, best-practice, financial wellbeing programs will help the employee understand the things that they’re given in the workplace like their stock plan, their retirement fund, their open enrolment benefits, their pay. But then, importantly, the things outside of the workplace as well. So everything from their housing to their family, to avoiding scams; it has to be a much more holistic solution that takes into account the whole of the employee’s life.”
Be helping employees eliminate that anxiety, it will pay dividends back to the organization, says Ross.
“Financial stress has a huge impact on employee productivity, absenteeism, morale. A study from a couple years ago we did [showed] about $300 billion a year in lost in productivity due to employee financial stress. That’s just a huge impact for people and what we’re seeing actually is that when companies offer solutions for people that that really empower them to take control of their financial health, se see tremendous results not just for the individual in terms of reduced stress and greater wellbeing but also for those companies.”
