“While making working from home possible and practical, preferable even for many, the global crisis has dramatically increased the requirement that employers and HR teams take care of employee needs beyond providing the tools of their trade and organising the occasional staff gathering,” said Brett Mackay, Investment Consultant and Group Retirement Annuity Manager at 10X Investments.
Mackay pointed to the Top Employers Institute’s global HR Trends Report 2021, which found that there had been significant growth in wellbeing practices at the 1,700 leading organisations around the world surveyed for the organisation’s HR Best Practices Report.
“Employee wellbeing was traditionally a feel-good topic for organisations. In 2021, 92% of Top Employers believe wellbeing is a strategic imperative for their businesses, up from 83% one year ago,” the report found.
Noting that employee wellbeing had multiple dimensions – including physical, financial, emotional and social – the report added “the most innovative companies perceive it through a preventative lens”. It describes a “new breed of corporate wellbeing programmes”, covering topics from physical health and financial management to mindfulness, fitness, nutrition and stress management.
10X’s Mackay said: “Employers can advance employee wellbeing in many different ways, from facilitating Zoom fitness classes and giving employees access to counselling services to providing financial planning tools and access to such game-changing benefits as a retirement savings scheme.
The HR Trends Report found that Top Employers were increasingly allocating a percentage of their total HR budget to programmes related to health and wellbeing.
“Some big interventions can be more about doing background research than making an additional financial outlay,” says Mackay. “Giving employees access to a group retirement savings scheme, for example, won’t necessarily cost a small business anything, but it will involve some research comparing fees and fund performance.
“After that, there are companies, such as 10X Investments, that take all the work out of providing this benefit to staff. In the case of a 10X Group RA, the fund is set up and all the payroll admin is done by 10X.”
Mackay added that 10X is very aware that smaller companies seldom have the staff or admin capacity to take on extra work, although most “would love to set their employees up with a simple, cost-effective solution that would help them plan and save”.
Research frequently shows that financial insecurity, or thinking that financial insecurity might lie around the corner, is one of a working person’s biggest worries. Even those who worry about providing for their old age are often too busy with more immediate problems – such as the ever-increasing cost of raising a family, or supporting elderly parents – and have to put their own long-term needs on the back-burner.
“Not only do those workers miss out on the great benefit of starting to save early (that your investments will generate a lot of the growth required), there can be no doubt of the high cost of internalised stress and insecurity,” says Mackay.
In addition to delivering industry-beating returns at a very low cost, 10X Investments’ Group Retirement Annuity gives members access to free financial tools, such as a retirement planner and calculators that can be used to work through various planning, saving and spending scenarios.
Each employee will get their own individual Retirement Annuity that they can add to via the company. It allows individuals to top up or continue their contributions into the fund even when they are no longer working for that company.
“Creating a long-term financial plan will give employees a sense of ownership and certainty that will relieve the stress of sailing head-first into the unknown,” says Mackay. “It also facilitates the opportunity for people to change the path they are on and possibly set them on a course to a different financial future.”
Get your team on track for a happy retirement with 10X
The HR Trends Report found: “In making employees actors in their own change journey, preventive wellbeing programmes have a positive impact on the general health, lifestyle, and behaviours of employees.”
The report also found that wellbeing interventions achieve a lot more than just increasing the feel-good factor: “they impact positively on the productivity and image of the company as a whole”.
“Organisations that make these kinds of investments can expect to see a reduction in the costs and performance risks of poor productivity, absenteeism, stress, and burnout,” it added.
Mackay says: “In these uncertain times, companies that go the extra mile to assist employees, particularly to build security and resilience, will be remembered for years to come. They will also get repaid in terms of staff engagement, productivity and loyalty.”
The content herein is provided as general information. It is not intended as nor does it constitute financial, tax, legal, investment, or other advice.
