Providing company benefits is a must in many industries. Employees of today are more concerned than ever that they will have good company benefits to go along with a good company salary. One way for you to do this is to offer sound financial education and coaching for your employees. Putting your company 401k out there for employees to consider is one thing, but then helping them understand and recognize its benefits is a completely different thing. It might not be as bad as handing your 15-year old child the car keys without any drivers training education, but it’s close.
It is our opinion that a financially educated employee is a better employee. A better employee is one that is more educated, more energetic, and more productive. When people are better prepared for their financial future, they can focus more on the things that really matter in life-family, health, work, etc. Since financial pressures account for much of the stress in our day-to-day lives, why not help alleviate some of that problem.
Companies, just like education institutions, take time to explain to newly hired employees what the rules are, what the policies and procedures are, and what is expected of them, but nobody spends any time explaining the basic policies and procedures of finance. Nobody provides a roadmap to retirement. People are simply expected to understand this intimidating, complicated, somewhat secretive aspect of life, without much direction or guidance.
Educating your employees on many of the basic financial principles of compounding interest, rate of return, risk equals reward, portfolio diversification, etc. goes a long towards helping to reduce the worry of the unknown. Since most people are intimidated to ask basic questions related to investments and finance, it’s no wonder most people are not prepared for retirement. Much of today’s workforce has very little knowledge of investments, understanding what a 401k plan is, the benefits of a 401k plan, and where to turn when they have questions about their 401k account.
This is where we step in to assist. As your retirement plan financial advisers, our job is to help remove the fear of the unknown. We shed light in a gray area that has traditionally been kept somewhat secretive. We provide both group education meetings and one-on-one education meetings. We also encourage your employees to bring their spouse to their one-on-one meeting. We know that saving for retirement is a team effort and having your employees bring in their spouse helps to reduce the individual workload. We also hope that this team approach helps to strengthen their efforts to reach retirement together. Our goal is that everybody who attends our education meetings leaves the meeting smarter, and more financially empowered than when they arrived. We want your employees to take ownership of their retirement goals, and saving to reach those goals.
Our employee meeting schedule is extremely flexible. We realize that you need your employees to be at work, focused on the task at hand. With that said, we can either host meetings at your facility or at ours. We have a technology center that provides a safe, comfortable classroom environment for your employees to learn about their finances. Besides hosting our meetings in person, we can schedule large virtual meetings through Zoom or Google Meets. We also host a number of one-on-one meetings through email and telephone calls. Either way, our job is to make your employees feel comfortable and more knowledgeable about their retirement savings.
We also host meetings in the early mornings before work, during lunchtime, after work, and on the weekends. Hosting multiple meetings in one day is also beneficial to help catch company employees that work varied shifts. We realize the value of having educated employees, so we try to match your specific demands.
After years of hosting employee education meetings, we have found that employees also have other financial concerns beside their 401k account. We try to help people gain an overall clearer picture of exactly where they are, and where they want to be. For example, helping employees better understand how to set up an Idaho 529 College Savings account for their children or grandchildren. This is a classic financial savings tool that people love to establish, if they only knew how simple it was.
The bottom line is that we are here to serve you and your employees. Providing these basic education classes goes a long way towards not only helping employees get a better understanding of finances and retirement, but this in turn leads them towards becoming a more productive employee for you. As we said in the beginning, a financially educated employee is a better employee.