Mental and financial wellbeing at Christmas

As Christmas is just days away, John Mullally urges employers to review their provisions for financial and mental well-being.

For many, Christmas is not just about turkey and all its trimmings, or Christmas pudding, but also about pressures such as:

• Work – redundancies, deadlines, targets for the year, and Christmas parties (and their aftermath).
• Early December pay means that the January payday will be a bit further off and budgets may be tight. After expensive Christmas shopping, credit card bills are often left.
• Relationships: The first day of work after Christmas has been infamously called “divorce Day”, and it brings mental and financial challenges.
• Train tickets may increase in January
• Childcare: the increase in fees for after-school clubs and nursery may be due to take place at the beginning of 2019.
• Some people may not be able to see their children at all or only for a part of the Christmas season due to a family breakdown. Others might think more about relatives who are no longer with them. Some people may not have any family at all.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but it gives a few examples of what employees may encounter in the workplace.

What can employers do?

While employers may not have the time or resources to do everything, a simple solution (yet often overlooked) is to encourage regular walks away from work and to take some time off. Walking is known to reduce stress, promote a positive attitude and provide physical benefits. Employers can encourage meetings to take place outside of the lunch hour.

If you have a group policy that offers income protection, ask about the employee assistance program (EAP). Some group life insurance policies include EAP in their offer. Consider changing the way the EAP is promoted internally, or even the frequency.

Companies invest in mental health first aid training to ensure that they have people available to identify and help colleagues struggling with their health. This is a reactionary solution. If you want to go further, some companies offer wellbeing champions training to promote positive behaviour change in the workplace.

What is the number one benefit that your employees want based on a survey of employee opinions? Financial wellbeing support is also high on the list for many clients I speak with. What innovative benefits can you offer to retain and attract employees in relation to financial well-being? What is their demographic? What are their interests? You need to match your benefits to theirs to encourage them to talk about and discuss financial well-being.

Financial Provisions

Financial coaching is usually part of an employee’s journey through life. Where appropriate, employees can work with a financial advisor to review their finances from beginning to end to determine where to focus their budget. How flexible is the travel policy for employees who have to be at work? Can they work their normal hours, but come later to avoid the peak fares?

Is there a childcare facility near your office that you could consider? If a large number of employees bring their children there, could a partnership be explored? This may encourage employees to work in the office. However, some nurseries are national or regional so it could be possible to explore an arrangement to accommodate employees with contracts that require them to only work at home.

Several of these adjustments are easy to implement. There will always be competing priorities when a business case is required to justify the additional time or cost. It is worth considering that if there is a challenge, the alternative is to not do it. This could result in employees being absent. Open communication channels are the best way to facilitate reasonable adjustments.

I’d also like to add that when I speak with companies, they often boast about how much they invest in their employee benefits. Some of them say that they’re also lucky enough to have senior management buy-in to support their efforts. When I ask how many people are taking advantage of these benefits, they always say that there should be more.

If you are in HR, ensure that your benefits are communicated each year with the same amount of time and effort. They should be fresh, relevant, and appealing to your employees. It is important that your employees are aware of the benefits as well as the company buying them.

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