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3 Tips for Nurturing Your Employer Brand

Your company’s brand is far more than a logo or trademark. It’s everything that comes to mind when a person sees or hears your company’s name—the good, the bad, the true, the false, even the emotions it stirs. For many decades companies have worked diligently to build and manage this complex mix of impressions.

Only during the last 10 years or so, however, have they devoted a similar level of attention to their employer brands. Your employer brand is everything that comes to mind when people think about you as an employer—the types of jobs you offer, your company culture, what your current and past employees say about you, your compensation practices, the benefits you offer and so on.

Your employer brand is every bit as complex as your company brand, and just as important.

Why Your Employer Brand Matters
Your employer brand is crucial to attracting, recruiting and retaining quality talent. Whatever candidates know or learn about you helps them decide whether to look at your job ads, careers webpage and other recruiting channels and content. And the more they know about you, the more effectively they’ll self-select into or out of your jobs, which improves the quality of your applicants and reduces your recruiting costs.

Believe it or not, your employer brand also affects your overall company brand. A strong employer brand can help influence potential customers and investors to do business with you, while a negative employer brand can drive them to your competitors and do significant damage to your reputation.

Tips To Build Your Employer Brand
With so much at stake, here are three things you can do to nurture your employer brand and improve your ability to attract and retain high-quality talent:

Ensure that your employer brand and company brand are aligned. When they are, both brands reinforce one another and project a clear, consistent image to the marketplace. When they’re not aligned, they can confuse candidates and prospective buyers about your company, its mission, core values and culture. One way to make certain the brands are in sync is to have HR and your recruiting team work closely with your C-suite and Marketing department (who are typically the keepers of the overall company brand). Together you can determine exactly what and how to communicate to candidates based on the larger context of your company brand. For example, if your company brand stands for innovation, speed and disruption, your employer content should reflect this. Keeping the two brands in alignment not only helps you maintain a consistent image in the marketplace, but it also helps your recruiters find and engage talent more efficiently.

Make employee benefits part of your brand’s story. Without a doubt the quality of your jobs is the main draw for new talent. People want to do work that is meaningful to them. But make no mistake, compensation and the benefits you offer matter almost as much. This is because pay and benefits are concrete outward symbols of how you value employees and the respect and support you give them. These are critical aspects of any employer brand and how candidates think and feel about it. As we shared in a previous post, 62% of workers say benefits are a key reason they accepted a job with their employer, and 73% say that having benefits increases their employer loyalty. So, when telling your brand’s story, don’t forget to highlight your company’s benefits and the programs you have in place to support employees and their families.

Enlist your employees as brand evangelists. One of the most effective ways to build your employer brand is to encourage your employees to share their personal stories, insights and opinions about working at your company via Glassdoor, LinkedIn and other social media websites. The reason this tactic is so effective is because it’s completely authentic as you’re enabling employees to tell their stories in their own words. What could be more engaging to candidates and potential employees? Of course, sharing these stories online is only one way to leverage them. You can also bring employees who are willing to share their stories into the recruiting and onboarding process, allowing them to speak at recruiting events and during orientations, for instance.

Overall, your employer brand should convey what makes your company a great place to work. Implement the three tips above and that message will come through loud and clear.

If you’d like to discuss how to strengthen your employer brand—and the types of benefits and support programs that can really make your brand stand out—contact us here or call us at (866) 675-3751.

Employee Discount Programs: Hassle-Free Benefit That Packs a Huge Punch

There’s a good reason employers are implementing employee discount programs in record numbers. Actually, there are lots of good reasons:

First off, financial worries have reached epidemic proportions among American workers. An astonishing 78% are living paycheck-to-paycheck to make ends meet.
Second, 72% admit to worrying about their finances while on the job, which erodes their productivity.
Third, all this financial stress raises absenteeism and tardiness by 34%.
Fourth, financial stress contributes to a variety of costly health conditions including high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
And fifth, employees’ money worries drain the bottom line … to the tune of roughly $500 billion a year.

It’s no wonder companies are scrambling to adopt employee discount programs that help employees save money and stretch their hard-earned dollars.

Why Employers Love Discounts as Much as Employees
High-quality employee discount programs give access to local and national money-saving deals (often negotiated specifically for the program’s users) on a wide range of products and services including groceries and restaurants, furniture and appliances, cell phones, televisions and electronics, school supplies and tuition, child care and senior care—even big-ticket items like cars and homes.

Obviously, employees love discount programs because they can save money literally every day, whether they’re buying necessities, luxury items or dealing with unplanned expenses such as auto and home repairs. In addition, as noted in the John Hancock survey mentioned above, employees actually look to their employers for financial help and guidance, so an employer-sponsored discount program is a real advantage in terms of attracting and retaining talent.

Employers, on the other hand, love employee discount programs because they’re inexpensive to implement, they help to differentiate the company’s voluntary benefit offerings and they can be a powerful draw for younger talent who often are watching their pennies carefully.

If you’re wondering about the results a top-shelf discount program can deliver, LifeCare’s LifeMart discount program, for example, saved our clients’ employees $24.7 million on new car purchases, $7.9 million on child care-related purchases and close to $1.5 million on hotel bookings in 2018 alone. In general, LifeMart saved individuals an average of roughly $53 per purchase.

Bottom line, a great employee discount program can save your employees hundreds, even thousands, of dollars ever year. It’s a benefit they can use every day. Plus it costs you nothing to implement, it requires zero effort on your part to manage and it helps you attract and retain talent.

Seriously, what’s not to love?

If you’d like to discuss the value and business benefits of discount shopping programs—or details about the LifeMart program, in particular—contact us here or call us at (866) 675-3751.

These 3 Cost-Effective Programs Boost Employee Wellbeing

Each June, in honor of Employee Wellbeing Month, U.S. employers give special attention to improving the health and happiness of their workers.

The truth is it’s always a good time to improve employee wellbeing because the outcomes are so invaluable to your business: higher productivity, lower turnover, reduced absenteeism, and fewer expensive illnesses, to name just a few. So whether you’re looking to launch your first wellbeing initiatives or enhance your existing efforts, here are three high-impact wellbeing programs that won’t cost an arm and a leg to implement:

A Lactation Program—One way to show your commitment to wellbeing is to help your organization’s mothers return to work after having a baby. A high-quality lactation program offers prescreened referrals to lactation resources … 24/7 access to experienced consultants who provide guidance on breastfeeding challenges and concerns … and breast milk shipping so working mothers who travel can safely ship their milk home. LifeCare’s Mothers@Work program also offers discounted Medela breast pumps and a special kit filled with free breastfeeding products and information. 70% of employees who’ve used the Mothers@Work program say it made them more productive, 92% say it made them more loyal to their employers, and 98% say it reduced their stress.
Legal and Financial Services—Legal and financial concerns are among the most pervasive and potentially debilitating issues your employees face. In fact, the majority of U.S. workers are now stressed about their finances. You can help employees handle these issues with minimal stress and disruption to their productivity by giving them access to reliable legal and financial services that connect them with qualified attorneys and financial professionals. These services can include in-person and telephonic consultations, document preparation services, and identity theft protection and recovery, among others.
Work-Life Services—Research has consistently shown that work-life services benefit both employers and workers. One of the most recent examples occurred late last year when the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management issued a series of documents designed to encourage agencies to offer work-life programs because these programs “benefit our federal workforce and positively impact recruitment, retention and organizational performance.” In 2018, 82% of people who used LifeCare’s work-life programs said we reduced their stress levels; 80% reported an increase in loyalty to their employers; and 72% said our programs increased their overall productivity.

In addition to supporting your employees’ wellbeing, these three types of programs also boost engagement, satisfaction and loyalty levels.

Two Halves of Wellbeing: Health & Happiness
The mission of Employee Wellbeing Month is to “spotlight the workplace’s role in helping to create healthier, happier employees.” Although employers have known for decades that healthier employees are less costly to their businesses and provide a competitive advantage, they’ve only relatively recently begun to regard employee happiness in a similar light. This viewpoint is backed by a growing body of evidence proving organizations thrive when employees are happy.

“One study found that happy employees are up to 20% more productive than unhappy employees,” writes AIM Leadership CEO Camille Preston in her Forbes article, “Promoting Employee Happiness Benefits Everyone.” “When it comes to salespeople, happiness has an even greater impact, raising sales by 37%. … The stock prices of Fortune’s ‘100 Best Companies to Work for’ rose 14% per year from 1998 to 2005, while companies not on the list only reported a 6% increase,” she notes.

So what drives employees’ happiness at work?

According to MetLife’s recently issued report, “Thriving in the New Work-Life World,” the top five drivers of employee happiness are:

Trust in the company’s leadership.
The company’s commitment to employees and their success.
A culture that encourages employees to share ideas and opinions.
A workplace where coworkers feel like family and friends.
Benefits customized to meet employees’ needs.

The report also offers statistics showing that happy workers are more satisfied with their jobs, more engaged, more successful and more loyal than unhappy workers.

Given the relationship between benefits and employee happiness, programs like the three listed above are a wise investment for your business’s future.

If you’d like to discuss the various benefits programs that can help your organization improve employee wellbeing, contact us here or call us at (833) 282-3366.

Infographic: Backup Care Utilization at a Glance

This infographic displays statistics around backup care program use by eligible LifeCare members in 2018.

If you’d like to learn more about implementing a backup care program or how LifeCare can create a custom program for your employees’ unique needs, contact us here or call us at (833) 282-3366.

Supporting Your Sandwich Generation Employees Is Smart Business

Statistically speaking, nearly one-quarter of your employees who care for a child, parent or friend are actually Sandwich Generation caregivers, meaning they’re caring for children and aging loved ones simultaneously. Their numbers are expected to grow substantially as the population ages and seniors live longer.

This surge in Sandwich Generation employees could cost you dearly in several crucial ways. The good news is … It doesn’t have to.

The Heavy Toll of Caregiving
The organizational and personal costs of caregiving are substantial and well documented. (Many are outlined here.)

As for sandwiched caregivers in particular, a whopping 83% of them report they’re struggling to balance caregiving, work and other responsibilities. These employees are far more likely to miss work and be less productive due to the constant pressures of caregiving. They also tend to be more stressed and spend less time caring for themselves, which results in their own costly health issues. Additionally, a recent survey conducted by Harvard Business School revealed that 32% of U.S. employees voluntarily left a job due to caregiving responsibilities.

Rather than waiting for those statistics to worsen, savvy employers are implementing a variety of programs to support their caregiving employees.

3 Foundational Pillars of Sandwich Generation Support
Two of the most written-about benefits that support family caregivers are flexible work arrangements and paid time off. However, these solutions require significant up-front analysis and a substantial investment. Whether or not you choose to implement them, your strategy for supporting caregivers should rest upon these three indispensable pillars:

Support for Working Parents —Nearly half of all working parents miss an average of four days of work at least once every six months. You can reduce this absenteeism (and other negative impacts such as diminished performance and productivity levels). Implement a comprehensive support program to help parents navigate and source solutions ranging from infancy through transitioning to college. It will give employees 24/7 telephonic and online access to bachelor- and master-level child care specialists, confirmed referrals to trustworthy providers, and a wealth of interactive educational content, webinars and other tools.
Support for Employees Providing Care to a Senior — Employees who serve as caregiver for elder parents or family members often are faced with complex, confusing and time consuming challenges. A high-quality senior care management program provides a spectrum of invaluable services including in-person assessments; detailed care recommendations; 24/7 telephonic and online access to experienced senior care specialists; and a host of educational resources to help your employees become better family caregivers.
Solutions for Employees When Care Plans Are Disrupted —A great backup care program benefits your employees by giving them access to reliable care alternatives when their regular arrangements break down; it also helps your company slash absenteeism/presenteeism, productivity losses, stress and the poor health issues that frequently afflict family caregivers. A state-of-the-art backup care program offers some very specific advantages: it’s available to your employees around the clock; it gives employees access to live, highly trained care representatives, not just an online database of caregivers; it’s flexible, allowing employees to use (and pay) privately secured care including trusted family members and friends as backup caregivers; and it provides invaluable educational resources regarding the care of children, older loved ones, pets, and employees themselves.

Helping employees better manage their competing caregiving and work-related priorities is more than the right thing to do. It’s the smart thing to do.

If you’d like to learn more about caregiving-related benefits to support your sandwich generation employees or other programs designed to help your employees better integrate their work and personal responsibilities, contact us here or call us at (866) 675-3751.

3 Tips for Securing a Backup Care Budget

One of HR’s biggest challenges each year is deciding how to spend its employee benefits budget. While traditional benefits (medical insurance, 401k plans, etc.) remain a good investment, emerging benefits—such as backup care programs—are increasingly important to attracting and retaining talent.

In fact, research from Willis Towers Watson shows 79% of employers agree that emerging benefits programs enrich their traditional offerings by adding greater personalization, 75% say these programs appeal to a multigenerational workforce, 67% say they attract new talent, and 65% say they support employee retention.

Backup care programs, in particular, deliver a powerful array of hard and soft returns on investment, as we outlined in a previous post, including reduced absenteeism/presenteeism, greater productivity, higher employee engagement, and improved health of employees who act as caregivers.

The demand for backup care programs is mounting rapidly as our population ages and workers from every generation are or soon will be caring for children, aging loved ones or both simultaneously. As a result of these trends, more and more HR departments are making the case for backup care to their senior management.

Making the Case at Your Organization
Here are three suggestions to help you build a compelling case for backup care:

Survey your employees. To show that your organization has a demonstrable need to support its caregivers, survey your workers about their caregiving status, situations and requirements. Ask whom they provide care to, how often, what their main challenges are, and what kinds of assistance and expertise they would value most. Regarding backup care specifically, ask how often their regular care arrangements break down, what they do when breakdowns occur, whether they have reliable backup care arrangements in place, and whether they use their own individual caregiver such as babysitter, friend, neighbor or family member as paid caregivers. Remember that many people don’t like to identify as “caregivers” for a variety of reasons, and many are reluctant to open up about problems that arise due to caregiving responsibilities, so be sure to make your survey anonymous. And the more thorough your survey, the better able you’ll be to select a program that suits your employees’ specific needs once you’ve gotten budgetary approval.
Get clarity on the types of backup care needed. Large, multigenerational workforces actually provide a range of care—to children, to older family members and loved ones, to pets, and even to themselves. Use your survey to discern which types of backup care employees will utilize and appreciate most. Younger workforces may have a greater need for backup child care, for example, while older workforces may provide more care to aging loved ones. If your company has a significant population of individuals in the sandwich generation, you’ll need a more comprehensive backup care program.
Gather and present trusted third-party data on the value of backup care and caregiver support programs. You can find data online through a variety of reliable sources including the Pew Research Center, the Family Caregiver Alliance, MetLife, AARP, and the National Council on Aging, to name just a few. You can also search this blog for posts about family caregiving and backup care; we’ve written quite a few pieces that contain recent statistics and links to useful resources. Data that can be especially compelling to your senior management may include the growing demand for employees to act as family caregivers, the generational impact of caregiving responsibilities, and the specific hard and soft business benefits of backup care (the money it saves employers, the productivity gains, the reduced turnover, stress alleviation, etc.).

Looking for assistance in building an evidenced-based case? LifeCare can help! With 35+ years of experience and expertise, we’ve helped organizations of all kinds support employee caregivers, providing them with information, guidance and referrals that ease their caregiving burdens and keep them healthy and productive. We’ll customize a plan to your specific needs that includes projected savings and ways your business will be positively impacted.

The case for offering a backup care benefit has never been stronger, as we detailed in a recent post on why your company needs backup care now. With all this in mind, it’s the ideal time to consider the many ways a backup care program would benefit your company.

If you’d like assistance building a case for backup care contact us here or call us at (833) 282-3366.

To Thrive, Employers Must Support Workers Inside and Outside of the Workplace

“If employers expect their organizations to thrive, they not only need to rethink the experiences they are creating for employees inside the workplace, but also how they are supporting employees outside of it.”

That’s the core takeaway from page one of MetLife’s latest annual employee benefits trends report, “Thriving in the New Work-Life World,” which is filled with insights employers can use to attract, engage, and retain the best talent.

The report makes clear that work and life are blending more than ever before and, as a result, workers are looking to employers to help them cope. “Employees need an ally,” say the researchers, “and employers can play this role by creating a workplace that not only recognizes employees holistically, but supports them holistically as well. … Traditional and emerging benefits can offer relevant support to employees—and they can be key ingredients for the kind of caring, trusting culture in which employees thrive.”

Why the focus on helping employees thrive?

“Because thriving, happy employees are better employees,” the report states. “They are more engaged in their work, are more loyal to their employers, and more meaningfully contribute to their organizations’ goals.”

Key Stats & Findings
Following are some of the findings from the report, based on MetLife’s 2018 survey of more than 2,600 full-time U.S. workers:

Stress:

Employees’ number one source of stress: personal finances tops the list, regardless of age or life-stage. One in three employees admit to being less productive at work because of financial stress.
Stress isn’t exclusively about finances, however—and employers are well positioned to help mitigate many of employees’ other pressures. Whether it’s easing the stress of work itself (the second biggest stressor), tending to personal or family health (the third biggest stressor), or managing personal commitments (the fourth biggest stressor), employers can play a substantial role in transforming the employee experience. The right combination of benefits and experiences can help employees feel more engaged and more cared for—and build the trust that enables them to thrive.
Everyday stressors can pose barriers to employees’ happiness and distract them from succeeding at work. And while some of these relate to employees’ personal lives, the role that work can play — in adding to or reducing stress—is a common thread that runs throughout.

Benefits:

67% of employees are satisfied with their benefits—down 4% from last year.
Better benefits is the third highest request on employees’ wish lists when it comes to what they need to succeed at work and navigate their work-life worlds. (And 30% of employees would actually be willing to trade a higher salary for better benefits.)
60% of employees are interested in their employers providing a wider array of less traditional, non-medical benefits, even if they have to cover some of the costs themselves
57% of employers are committed to offering their employees a wider range of benefits, including non-medical supplemental benefits like accident insurance, critical illness insurance, and legal services plans.

Benefits communication:

Communication is key: if employees don’t understand the role that benefits can play in their lives, they won’t appreciate their full impact.
Greater simplicity and clarity are needed: Only 4 in 10 employees strongly believe their employers’ benefits communication is simple to understand.
Employers should change the benefits narrative by showing how benefits work together in the context of employees’ lives, needs and sources of stress. This can increase understanding and engage employees in a more meaningful and personal way.
Employers should focus on communicating the relevance of the benefits packages they offer, including how benefits work together to play an important and useful role in employees’ lives.

Why Holistic Benefits Are Essential
The report also notes that, given the current robust job market and low unemployment, workers are less likely to stay with employers who don’t meet their work-life needs. Therefore, employers should design holistic benefits packages that employees can customize to their individual needs and that can be changed as their needs evolve.

Suggestions to help employers create these holistic programs:

Supplement traditional benefits with EAP and well-being programs, which support an array of work-life challenges including mental health counseling, elder-care advice and life coaching.
Provide employees an assortment of experiences and tools that help them better understand their benefits such as videos, guided learning experiences, and real utilization stories from their coworkers.
Offer financial wellness programs featuring resources such as personalized advice, one-on-one guidance, and goal-orientated short- and long-term planning.
Enhance retirement savings programs that offer employees ways to generate income during retirement and strategies for managing their savings so they don’t outlive them.

The report also addresses how employers can contribute to employees’ happiness, sense of purpose at work, and ongoing development—all of which are strong drivers of employee engagement and productivity.

If you’d like to learn more about how our work-life services can help you support employees with both their personal and professional needs, contact us here or call us at 866-675-3751.

Why You’ll Lose Talent Without Caregiving Benefits

If you don’t have strong caregiving support programs in place, plan to lose valuable talent to employers who do. And it won’t just be the rank and file who jump ship. You’ll lose upper-level managers and even C-suite executives.

This warning to U.S. businesses is a key theme of Harvard Business School’s (HBS) report, “The Caring Company,” which we wrote about previously here and here.

“When it’s too hard to provide care and work at the same time, people end up leaving the workforce,” the report stated. In fact, nearly one-third of employees surveyed by HBS voluntarily left a job due to caregiving responsibilities. Notably, upper-level managers, senior leaders and highly paid men were most likely to report that their jobs and productivity are affected by caregiving.

“But the flip side is a very real incentive,” noted the report. “If you, as an employer, provide benefits that allow people to live full lives and take care of their families … your talent pool opens up tremendously, because there are millions of people who want to work, while providing for their families at the same time.”

The upshot is clear: caregiving benefits significantly impact talent acquisition and retention, and companies that offer these benefits have a distinct advantage in the escalating war for talent.

4 Programs Employees Absolutely Love
Since the 1980s, LifeCare has championed caregiving solutions as powerful talent acquisition and retention boosters. The HBS report emphatically affirms our position and the growing importance of caregiving solutions to the future of U.S. businesses.

Based on more than three decades of experience, we’ve found there are four caregiving-related programs you should strongly consider implementing—programs that our clients’ employees have consistently rated as most helpful to them. These programs are:

Backup Care—This industry-leading program helps employees find and pay for reliable temporary care when their normal care arrangements fall through, so they can get to work. LifeCare’s program is particularly known for its quality and flexibility: it covers children, elder loved ones, pets and self care; it gives employees access to a fully vetted national network of caregivers as well as a robust selection of out-of-network options; with the ability to schedule care either via phone or online, 24/7. In 2018, 87% of our clients’ employees who used Backup Care Connection said the program reduced their stress levels, 85% said it increased their productivity and 87% said it made them more loyal to their employer. On average, the program saved each user more than 16 hours per use.
Elder Care Referrals & Counseling—Employees have 24/7 online and telephonic access to highly trained and credentialed elder care specialists, as well as confirmed referrals to elder care providers nationwide and an array of educational materials, interactive content, webinars and specialized tools such as our Adult Caregivers Kit. In 2018, 69% of individuals who used Elder Care referrals and counseling services said they increased their productivity, 82% said they made them more loyal, and 99% said they’d recommend the program to their coworkers. On average, the program saved each user roughly 14 hours per use.
Senior Caregiver Support Program—LifeCare’s comprehensive program provides each employee with a full in-person needs assessment of their aging loved one’s home and condition by a Senior Care Manager, followed by a detailed care recommendation plan based on the evaluation, and 24/7 support from senior care specialists. Our client organizations report a number of benefits including reduced absenteeism, improved physical and mental health of their employees and less turnover due to burnout. Last year, 78% of those who used our Senior Care Management Program said it reduced their stress levels, 73% said it increased their productivity and 85% said it made them more loyal to their employer. On average, the program saved users about 13 hours per use.
Mothers at Work Program—This award-winning program supports mothers so they can successfully transition back to work while breastfeeding. It provides the option for a breast milk shipping service, so working mothers who travel can safely ship their milk home, along with 24/7 access to lactation consultants who offer guidance on breastfeeding challenges and concerns. The program also provides mothers with prescreened referrals to local lactation resources, discounted breast pumps and a unique kit filled with free breastfeeding products and information. In 2018, 93% of those who used our Mothers at Work Program said it reduced their stress levels, 56% said it increased their productivity and 77% said it raised their loyalty level. On average, the program saved users about 5 hours per use.

Employees of all ages and at all levels need your assistance in meeting their mounting caregiving demands. Helping your organization’s caregivers is not only critical to their wellbeing and success, but to your organization’s as well.

If you’d like to learn more about implementing caregiver support benefits or other results-oriented work-life programs, contact us here or call us at 866-675-3751.

The Causes and Costs of Workplace Stress, and What You Can Do About Them

Work-related stress is rising, according to the American Institute of Stress, but that doesn’t mean your organization has to be a victim to it. There are ways to lower your employees’ stress levels—and strengthen your employment brand in the process.

Before we explore your stress-busting options, let’s consider some recent data on workplace stress, courtesy of Korn Ferry’s 2018 survey of 2,000 professionals:

65% said their stress levels at work are higher than they were five years ago; 26% characterized their stress as “much higher.”
76% said stress at work negatively impacted their personal relationships.
16% actually quit a job due to stress.

What’s Causing All This Stress?
Asked about their biggest on-the-job stressors, 35% of the Korn Ferry respondents cited their boss, 20% cited a long commute, 19% cited a low salary, 14% cited their coworkers, and 12% cited too much work.

Obviously, not all of an employee’s stress is work related. Asked about stress at home, 55% of respondents said their job productivity is impacted to “some extent” by home-based stress, while 15% said their job productivity is impacted to a “great extent.”

Other potential stressors that erode employees’ performance include financial worries, family issues, health concerns, keeping pace with changes in technology, the pressure to learn new skills and interpersonal conflicts.

What’s Stress Costing You?
Failing to address workplace stress can lead to a variety of negative consequences—not only for your employees and their physical and emotional wellbeing but also for your organization’s bottom line.

Workplace stress contributes to higher rates of absenteeism, according to a 2017 survey of thousands of U.S. workers across all industries conducted by Mental Health America. Thirty-three percent of respondents said they always, often, or sometimes miss work because of stress; 38% of these individuals missed six days a month or more; 35% missed three to five days a month; and an alarming 14% missed more than 21 days.

Beyond absenteeism, a recent Forbes article highlighted what it called “the two primary costs of stress” that often escape employers’ notice: productivity costs and financial costs.

Productivity costs—The article cites a study of 18 U.S. industries, which found that working long hours increases stress levels and lowers average output per hour worked. It also revealed that productivity declines much sooner than expected. “Once workers clocked … more than 48 hours, output started to fall,” the study stated.
Financial costs—The Forbes article also noted that the financial cost of unhealthy workplace environments, including those with high levels of stress, account for about $180 billion in additional healthcare expenditures, which is about 8% of total healthcare spending. These additional expenditures relate to an increased risk of stressed employees developing heart disease, diabetes, cancers and other chronic, costly diseases.

And the costs of workplace stress don’t end there. A special report from the Korn Ferry Institute suggests that stress depresses motivation, which in turn curtails innovation.

So What Can You Do?
One of the best ways to combat stress at your organization is to give employees the tools they need to help themselves. High-quality work-life and employee assistance programs are an easy and effective way to deliver these tools.

LifeCare’s integrated work-life and EAP services, for example, provide telephonic and in-person counseling to address the specific work-related, family-related and personal issues that are creating stress and eroding their performance and productivity. Employees have 24/7 access to a nationwide network of providers along with bachelor and master-level specialists who are trained to assist them with child and elder care challenges, substance abuse, financial and legal issues, health concerns and other pervasive causes of stress. We even help companies overcome catastrophic workplace incidents and assist managers in addressing organizational issues that give rise to stress.

You can also take ongoing measures to identify the causes and impacts of stress in your workplace:

Conduct employee surveys to evaluate how stress is affecting your workers and to what degree … whether particular teams, departments or functional areas are experiencing more stress than others … and what specific stressors your people are facing.
Monitor absenteeism, presenteeism, stress-related illnesses and turnover. As noted above, these are some of the key outcomes of high-stress environments. Tracking these items can help you determine when fluctuations in employee stress occur, why and what specifically you can do to offset them.
Conduct exit interviews asking departing employees about job-related stress. They can offer useful insights into causes of stress and what could have been done better to help them.

As employees’ stress levels continue to rise, companies that act now to create less stressful workplaces will surely have an advantage in attracting and retaining talent.

April is National Stress Awareness Month, which makes this the perfect time to give your organization’s stress levels a closer look. Let us know if we can help by contacting us here or call us at 866-675-3751.

Put These 5 Financial Wellness Trends to Use in 2019

Do employers have a responsibility for the financial well-being of their employees?

Remarkably, more employers (59%) than employees (50%) say yes to this question, according to MetLife’s 2018 U.S. Employee Benefits Trends Study. Even so, only 18% of companies currently offer financial wellness programs, workshops and tools to their employees.

This dearth of resources is about to end as 67% of companies plan to expand their well-being initiatives over the next three to five years to address non-physical aspects of well-being such as financial health.

In light of this growing focus on employees’ financial wellness, here are five voluntary benefits set to trend upward in 2019 and beyond:

Financial education resources, including guidance by professionals. Most employees want to make their own financial decisions—but they want to be better educated about finances in general and they want at least some counsel from experts. This was clearly validated by PwC’s 2018 Financial Wellness Survey of full-time U.S. employees. It asked participants which benefit they would most like their employer to add, and their top response was a financial wellness benefit with access to unbiased counselors. Be sure the resources you offer address “the basics” such as debt counseling, budgeting and retirement planning. Consider using a variety of educational channels including online tools and resources, onsite workshops and seminars, and phone consultations with financial coaches. If you want to go beyond the basics, customized financial action plans and resources are excellent options.
Student loan repayment benefits. These benefits (including debt refinancing programs and employer contributions to loan balances) will be especially popular among companies looking to attract younger workers and recent graduates. But, as a recent SHRM article pointed out, it’s not just youngsters who owe on student loans. In the U.S., more than 44 million people collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loans.
Employee discount programs. A high-quality discount program gives employees access to national and local discounts from a variety of trusted brands, helping them save money on major purchases (a home, a car, vacations, etc.) as well as on everyday items (groceries, clothing, health club and gym memberships, school supplies, restaurants, and more). The best programs also help reduce employees’ child care and senior care expenses, which many families experience simultaneously.
Installment loans and credit. These voluntary benefit offerings keep employees from making bad decisions such as taking out cash advances on their credit cards or taking payday loans when they face unexpected medical expenses, emergency home repairs, and the like. By providing them with low-interest loans they can pay off in reasonable installments or giving them access to credit at a reasonable rate, employers can forge strong bonds with workers and earn greater loyalty.
Life event financial support. Another key way to help employees is to provide them with financial tools related to major life events— for example preparing for a baby, buying a new home, sending a child to college, or supporting an aging loved one. These life events are some of the most stressful your employees will ever face, and they represent significant money management challenges. Helping employees resolve them is a great way to raise loyalty and engagement levels.

Why Employees’ Financial Wellness Matters
The majority of U.S. workers (54%, in fact) are stressed about their finances. So offering financial wellness benefits could give you a decided edge in attracting and retaining talent. Indeed, the PwC Survey found that 68% of Gen X workers, 67% of Millennials and 50% of Baby Boomers are more likely to be attracted to another company that cares more about their financial well-being.

Talent attraction and retention aren’t the only business benefits of helping employees improve their financial health. As the PwC Survey report states: “Our research is showing that financial stressors are not only negatively impacting employees, but are costing employers. Stressed employees are found to be less productive, take more time off to deal with financial matters, are more likely to leave the company for higher compensation, and are more likely to cite health issues caused by financial stress. These findings evidence a direct correlation between an employee’s financial well-being and a company’s bottom line.” In short, helping employees remove financial stressors is every bit as good for your business as it is for your people.

The fact is, employers are already adopting a more holistic view of financial wellness. According to last year’s Health and Well-Being Survey, conducted by Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health (NBGH), 90% of employers now consider financial well-being to be one of the top three components of an employee’s overall well-being (physical and emotional health are the other two).

But as the MetLife study makes clear, this altered outlook hasn’t yet translated into widely available resources for employees. If you act soon to implement financial wellness benefits, 2019 could be a breakout year for your talent strategy and your employment brand.

As always, if you’d like to learn more about implementing financial wellness benefits or other results-oriented work-life programs, contact us here or call us at 866-675-3751.