Financial wellness has long been fully embraced by credit unions—not just through affordable and accessible products and services, but also through counseling or education done by the credit union staff, through a partnership with another organization, through a FinTech, or a combination of all of these.
Is your business development team leveraging the power of your financial wellness program to build deep partnerships with HR leaders? Many credit unions have repositioned their business development efforts from a workplace “banking” program to an employee financial wellness program. After all, financial wellness isn’t something we do; it’s everything we do.
Human resources leaders at the SEGs you work with or target are managing multiple concerns on a daily basis—and some of them are related to the financial challenges of their staff. In 2023, the TIAA Institute and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC) published a report indicating employees spend an average of eight hours a week handling financial issues—half of which occur at work. That’s 10% of the work week!
When team members are struggling with the stress and administrative challenges of financial problems, they have higher rates of absenteeism, lateness, and “presenteeism”—distraction while at work. It also can impact morale; certainly their own day-to-day attitude can be impacted, and it’s easy to see how negativity in the workplace can spread.
Organizationally, there is room for financial wellness support as well. Equitable use of 401(k) plans can be a challenge in some companies, which can be mitigated through financial tools and coaching to help employees understand the value of contributing, and room in their budget to do so. Employee retention is on everyone’s mind. Providing wellness tools can aid in retention by helping to reduce stress; helping employees manage their money within their salary, which can keep them from job hopping for a small increase; can support homeownership which often leads to stability in employment; and make the employee feel invested in by the company. Further, if the organization is in the unfortunate situation of doing layoffs, bringing in financial wellness support at that time can help ease the transition.
While certainly HR leaders are concerned about their staff’s personal well-being, and about the best interest of the organization, it’s smart for business development teams to remember to highlight how financial wellness will make the HR teams’ lives easier. These are busy people—often too busy to meet with our BD teams—but you can help them find efficiencies by helping their staff avoid wage garnishments, 401(k)loans, and other issues that can bog down HR team members in administrative tasks. HR is often tasked with creating and promoting organizational activities, corporate events, tabling opportunities, and lunch and learns. Your BD team participating in these financial wellness tools help that HR team look good to the CEO, the Board of Directors and reflect positively on the annual impact report. Finally, many HR teams have DEI at the forefront of their minds. Financial wellness is equity and inclusion. Ensuring every team member—regardless of salary or background—has the tools at hand to manage their finances is ensuring that each is included and treated equitably.
I challenge you to look at your financial wellness program and consider the needs of the HR leaders you connect with in business development. Use those tools to create meaningful value propositions that can support the staff, the organization and the HR team members. By creating a partnership with the HR team that’s grounded in those three pillars, you’ll strengthen the relationship and have greater access to your future members.
