Employees’ money worries impact your bottom line

You try hard to be a good boss, but what you do around the office is only half the battle. Did you know that your payroll practices affect the quality of your employees’ lives even when they’re off the clock? The financial woes they experience in the outside world can come back to hurt your bottom line. 

Yes, cultivating a healthy workplace culture and offering rewarding incentives is a fine start. After all, everyone loves a fulfilling career opportunity with benefits. 

Great perks aren’t enough, however. If your employees are struggling, you can make it easier for them to access the wages they’ve already earned when they need them. Doing this can help both your business and your employees while also saving you from lost wages and productivity or maybe even the cost of hiring someone new. 

Here’s how reducing financial stress can promote and sustain workplace productivity and how you can get started with earned wage access. If you’re ready to get started, sign up now.

There is a link between external financial stress and internal business affairs

You may not realize it, but your organization’s financial wellness is inseparable from the economic outlook of your workers. A 2022 PwC study looked at personal economic conditions as critical indicators of organizational health — and the major takeaways should come as no surprise to any compassionate boss. 

According to PwC, when your employees face financial stress, it impacts your organization in multiple ways. As an employer, there are three big factors to consider: retention, mental health and productivity.

Retention

If your team members aren’t earning enough, loyalty won’t keep them in your corner forever. No matter how nice a boss you happen to be, people need to pay their bills, take care of their families and build for the future. 

More workers list low wages as the reason they are leaving a job and the trend is growing. In a previous study, only 38% of workers who wanted to change jobs indicated their salary as a main motivator. In the most recent breakdown, that number jumped to 65%. 

What about compared with workers who weren’t experiencing financial pressure? There’s a stark contrast: Money-stressed workers reported being about twice as likely to look for new opportunities.

Retention has a direct impact on your company’s finances. Hiring and onboarding talent costs a lot. If you find that you need to hire, you might pay up to $15,000 to replace a worker. 

Mental health

Money worries take a toll on employees. For instance, almost 50% of financially stressed employees in the PwC report said money worries had caused them significant mental health issues during the previous year. By contrast, only 15% of employees who weren’t experiencing financial stress said the same. 

The impact of money-related mental health issues can be overwhelming. As an employer, you might see:

• Significant attendance problems among financially stressed workers.
• Less engagement from financially stressed workers than from other employees.
• Notable productivity differences between financially stressed workers and the wider professional population.

Productivity

When it comes to getting good work done efficiently, the study reported that financial worries severely impact workplace productivity. 

The study found that employees who said they noticed their personal money problems bleeding over into their work life then pointed to specific factors. For instance, 67% had trouble meeting monthly household expenses, 71% struggled with personal debt, and 64% relied on credit cards to afford necessities. About 55% said they were so distracted by their finances that they lost about 3 hours of productivity at work per week. 

What can you do?

There are many ways to ease financial worry and to help workers thrive. Even if you can’t afford raises, anything you can do to reduce financial stress makes good sense. For instance, you might offer financial coaching, student loan payment plans or other perks to foster lasting economic well-being. 

Some solutions let you make major changes for good without investing in complete overhauls — they can restructure your approach to existing benefits. Earned wage access lets employees receive the pay they’ve already earned on their terms and helps promote worry-free money management.

Let us help

Fingercheck’s Pay On-Demand makes providing your team members with earned wage access effortless. Instead of letting stress mount while they wait for their next paychecks or taking on debt with a payday loan, employees can get the money they need to pay unplanned bills, catch up before payment deadlines, and achieve a better financial state in general. It’s smart to show your workers that you care about making their lives easier — both on the job and off. 

Your employees shouldn’t have to face insurmountable financial stress to pursue rewarding careers. Why not make a change by building the kind of workplace that promotes financial equity and employee retention? Chat with a Fingercheck payroll expert about Pay On-Demand.