7 minute read
Invest in Human Capital First – Implementing Financial Wellness into Your Practice
Callie Huggins, CFP® Wealth Planner, CI-Private Wealth
You provide your staff with a salary, a retirement plan, and potentially even healthcare benefits. From a first look, your team members should be set. Yet when meeting with our dental clients this past year, the most common pain point for dental entrepreneurs was the rise in payroll increase requests and decline in employee motivation. With the rise in labor costs reaching record heights in the third quarter of 2022, the question is how can you continue to support your staff without risking your practice’s growth? The solution is Financial Wellness.
Many employees are not making wise financial decisions which affects not only their wellness, but also your practice’s profitability. A new survey by Workplace Intelligence found that 51% of employees are more stressed about their finances today than they were during the height of the pandemic and spend around 25% of their workweek dealing with financial issues.
If you were to do a survey of your practice and it were to resemble the national population, 40% of your employees would not feel as if they are on track to retirement. Even more disheartening, the same percentage, if faced with an unexpected expense of $400, would not be able to pay out-of-pocket without selling or borrowing funds.
Employers are starting to read between the lines. Dental practice owners are likely experiencing both high salary demands and high levels of turnover. If employees feel better about their own personal affairs, your practice may benefit as well. The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau defines Financial Wellness as a state of being where you can fully meet your current and future obligations while feeling secure in making choices that allow you to enjoy life.
The opposite of Financial Wellness, or financial stress, affects absenteeism and work time used for personal financial matters. If you want to increase your revenue each year, a present team is likely required to support that goal. And as an employer, you are uniquely positioned to create a positive impact for your staff.
The good news? You don’t have to increase wages to support your employees’ well-being. In fact, your cost may be a drop in the bucket if it means you can retain and support your staff. Financial Wellness programs and services have increased dramatically over the past decade. As long as the resources you provide to your staff include both financial education and live support, your employees and practice may be favorably positioned to reap any benefits.
You may often hear newer employees want to make more and work less. However, the AICPA conducted a survey that found
American employees would choose a job with benefits over a similar role that offered 30 percent more salary but no benefits, by a 4 to 1 margin, or 80%. This statistic supports the notion that employees generally just want to feel valued and healthy in their role – an outcome that financial wellness tends to provide.
Let’s keep it simple. Try to focus on these three options to try and make meaningful strides and progress in the health and wellness of your team.
Three Small Steps Forward:
#1 PROVIDE EDUCATION – ENROLLMENT MEETINGS, LUNCH, AND LEARNS
You are not solely responsible for this initiative. Lean on your network and the advisors around you to take on the work. For instance, our team in Charlotte, CI Private Wealth, often meets and travels to client offices to provide savings and retirement education to your staff. Additionally, we seek out experts in other fields to provide education for us every Wednesday at lunchtime. The impact of our “lunch and learns” equips our team to always show up better than the week before. People want to help people. This is the perfect opportunity to connect with other professionals and better your team while doing so.
#2 IMPLEMENT THE RESOURCES – SOFTWARE
Studies and resources in the financial well-being space seem to have improved dramatically over the past decade. EAP, or employee assistance programs, are becoming more robust and tailored to your specific needs. My colleague and I had a conversation with a client a few weeks ago. When asking if she provided a service or provider to assist her staff’s well-being, she confidently replied, “yes”, only later to find out the service her practice offered was targeted solely to emotional health. And while that is undoubtedly important, many emotions and feelings evolve from the topic of money.
Suggestions to help find a holistic EAP program:
1. Ask for specific requirements –
2. When including financial-wellbeing services, ask for focus areas that are relevant to your office staff. For examples, some types include, investment advising, loan repayment, cash flow management, financial coaching, financial education, hardship loan assistance, and budgeting. There are providers that address some needs better than others.
3. Find what medium the service offering uses to meet your employee’s needs.
4. Services can be offered online, in-person, or in-person only during working hours. Ensure that you are allowing your employees the availability to receive support.
5. Seek out and avoid any bias
6. Be wary when hearing the price is “free”. If the program is truly at no cost to you, understand where the financing is coming from and how this could impact any advice.
7. Request information on training and education
8. As mentioned before, financial literacy alone will not solve for financial well-being. Employees need to have the combination of education and the opportunity to request assistance from a counselor or advisor. As you search through programs, ensure that both options are available.
#3 EMPLOYEE HYGIENE DAY
A positive trend from Covid’s “work-from-home era” was the heightened awareness of mental health for employees. As a dental practice, you have less flexibility in offering your staff the option to stay home. One of our clients yesterday quoted, “Working upfront in an orthodontic practice is comparable to running on a hamster wheel. There are no breaks.” You understand this feeling all too well, and while it may not be feasible to offer work-fromhome environments, consider implementing a “take care of you” day. This could be as simple as one day of the year that is not included in sick leave or PTO that your staff can use to schedule healthcare appointments or have a financial check-in and budget session. When your team can address their personal needs first, likely only then can they have the capacity to focus on the higher needs of your practice.
One final thought. It is often said there are three topics you should never discuss at work: politics, religion, and money. It will not feel natural to bring up the topic of financial wellness. My advice is to stick with the facts and outsource. Sharing national data and delegating other people to educate your team takes the burden of broaching the subject off your shoulders. At the same time, acknowledging the “elephant in the room” can create trust and transparency with your staff. Ultimately, your practice and the people inside may be better off for you having done so.
About the author:
Caroline W. Huggins (“Callie”) is a Wealth Planner with CI Brightworth. She is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. Prior to joining the firm, she received a Masters in Financial Planning in 2020 from the University of Georgia (UGA) and a B.S. in Psychology/minor in Sports Management from UGA in 2019. While earning her Masters, she was an active volunteer at the Aspire Clinic, a UGA-sponsored community service that provides counseling and empowerment to individuals, couples, and families seeking to improve their personal finances. Born and raised in Augusta, GA, Callie has a passion for competitive volleyball and instilling the gifts of success through teamwork, concern for others, and self-confidence in the young women she coaches through the U.S. Amateur Volleyball Association.
