Employers know that their workers’ financial health is causing stress and impacting all aspects of their personal and professional lives. They know that offering tools and resources to address these issues not only improves productivity but can give them a recruiting advantage in today’s job market.

They know all of this. Then why aren’t they doing something about this? Probably for the same reason their employees are struggling. Financial wellness is daunting, and most just don’t know where to start.

recent webinar hosted by Businessolver offered some guidance to employers. Presenters Brian Cosgray, head of innovation works at Businessolver and Matthieu Despard, professor at Washington University in St. Louis, broke the lofty concept of financial wellness down into more concrete, easy-to-understand concepts.

One key is to recognize the different levels of financial health. While employers have traditionally focused on retirement planning for employees, there are many more immediate hurdles employees need help with. Cosgray broke financial health down into different components based on present and future, security and freedom of choice.

“Where most of want to be is the flexibility to make choices,” Cosgray said. “Not only be able to pay bills but have discretionary income to take a vacation, go out to eat. That is going beyond financial security to financial freedom. But we still have employees struggling back at the beginning to deal with financial shock. This is an area where clients ask us to do more, and there are real opportunities.”

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