Financial Education Without a Sales Pitch
St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) June 17, 2014
Financial wellness firm, Four Seasons Financial Education, today announced their list of five common mistakes made by companies when implementing a financial wellness benefit.
1) Lunch and Learns - Employers that are new to financial wellness often start with lunch and learn programs that are optional for employees. Financial wellness is a process as compared to an event. Lunch and learns are typically infrequent and lack a long-term attainable goal. Results will be low because effort is low. A formal financial wellness program should replace occasional lunch and learn events.
2) Choose vendors wisely - The easiest and cheapest way to find a financial wellness vendor is to use any retail financial advisor. Although advisors would line up at the door for a chance to speak to your employees, they may not have a true understanding of actual wellness. For example, is a NASA engineer qualified to teach a third grade class? They may be intelligent, but they've never been trained on how to actually teach third graders. Pick an actual financial wellness vendor as compared to a general financial advisor. You get the best of both worlds.
3) 401(k) plans - Don't forget to team your financial wellness vendor up with your retirement plan professionals. They are both there to help the employees and business succeed and both have different specialties. Financial wellness vendors don't specialize in 401(k) plans and retirement plan vendors don't specialize in financial wellness. They need each other and you need both of them to work together.
4) Costs - It's tempting to use free financial wellness options from banks and credit unions. However, like anything else in life, you get what you pay for. Plan on the financial wellness program costing at least something. Costs range between $20 and $80 per employee per year for a basic program. If implemented properly, it can pay for itself or provide a return to the company.
5) Don't Forget the ROI - Once a financial wellness program is underway, it's easy to become busy with other business projects. Don't forget to track your progress. Monitor 401(k) deferral rates, HSA savings amounts, workplace accidents, absenteeism, and turnover. Also try employee surveys to help understand what employees are thinking. Without this information, it's impossible to tell if the program is worth continuing.
About Four Seasons Financial Education
Four Seasons Financial Education provides workplace financial wellness and education services to companies throughout the US in an effort to improve their bottom line. We take a strictly academic approach to financial education and focus on the core areas of personal finance, thereby seeking to increase employee productivity and organizational performance. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a Registered Investment Adviser. Member FINRA/SIPC