Your workers’ financial worries are hurting your bottom line

Any personal finance issues your employees run into is their problem not yours, right? Not according to these findings.

An employee with personal money problems spends an average of 20 work hours each month dealing with them, according to research by the Personal Finance Employee Education Foundation.

What’s more, workers’ financial issues also lead to decreased productivity, low morale and even stress-related health problems.

Worse: Personal finance problems are plaguing more than just a minor segment of employees. In fact, keeping up with monthly expenses was the biggest financial worry cited by employees in a recent study by MassMutual Retirement Services.

So now is probably a good time to focus on ways your firm can help employees with their day-to-day finances.

One place to direct them: their retirement plan provider. Many plan reps are more than willing to help employees find ways to manage their funds more wisely.

After all, the less debt employees are carrying, the greater the chances they’ll contribute more to their 401(k).

In addition, it’s a good idea to regularly direct workers to your provider’s website for help. Most providers offer an array of tools and resources geared toward helping participants with money management.