The cost of living crisis is weighing on employees. And as companies roll out more unique benefit offerings designed to support staffers, they should spend some time thinking about the financial benefits that workers actually want.
Two out of three U.S. employees ranked financial well-being as the top area within well-being overall in which they want support from their bosses over the next three years, according to a new report from Willis Towers Watson (WTW), an insurance services company. That beat out all other well-being subcategories, including a supportive company culture, mental, emotional, and physical health benefits, and workplace connections.
About 88% of workers are worried about covering their living costs, with 73% concerned about paying for food, 72% distressed about healthcare, 69% fretting over housing, and 66% troubled over transportation, according to the report. Around one in five American employees expect their financial situation to get worse over the next year.
In the past, retirement benefits were the main financial perk that employers would offer to their workers, Mark Smrecek, financial well-being market leader at WTW, tells Fortune. But as costs rise and workplace expectations shift, there’s been an increased emphasis on other meaningful employee benefits.
“As we look at broader lifestyle needs and concerns, the inventory on the employer side is far less equipped to serve its employee base,” he says.
Employers also seem unclear about how much workers actually prize financial well-being benefits. While 66% of U.S. workers want their employer to help them with their financial wellness over the next three years, only 23% of bosses prioritized financial wellness as an aspect of their well-being program.
When it comes to the kind of support they would like to see from employers, around 47% of U.S. workers say they want help growing their savings and wealth, according to the report. That’s followed by 35% who want help getting the most out of the benefits they already have, 33% who would like access to money in an emergency, and 21% want help managing debt. Around 21% want financial insurance, and 11% want help managing student loans.
Smrecek says that growing savings and wealth, as well as getting the most out of benefits, are two relatively traditional requests that employers are comfortable with. But others are more outside their wheelhouse.
“Providing access to money in emergencies and helping manage employee debt are two that are far more emerging from an employee demand point of view,” he says.
Smrecek adds that in addition to fulfilling workers’ specific financial benefit demands, employers need to do three things to best support staffers. He recommends bosses provide solutions that are relevant and accessible to their workforce, like financial literacy coaching and direct access to liquidity. Employers should also supplement those solutions with other less monetary-focused programs like affordable and effective healthcare plans. And companies should be proactive about connecting employees with these benefits.
“As employers look to really address the core need of the employee, how that relates to their business, and how they create value from their benefits, those aspects will drive a lot of the results that they’re looking for,” he says.
Emma Burleigh
emma.burleigh@fortune.com
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
Workplace vacancies hit a record high of 19.8% last quarter, and a Moody’s report shows that the percentage of empty U.S. offices could peak at 24% in 2026. Quartz
Patagonia told 90 of its remote customer service staffers that they have three days to decide if they want to relocate to one of the company’s seven “hubs” or leave their role. Business Insider
Despite some progress in California, most U.S. businesses are opposed to passing “right to disconnect” legislation, reasoning it wouldn’t fit well with remote workers and those logging in from abroad. CNBC
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Secret weapons. As more companies are trying to get workers back into the office, they’re employing sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists to understand how staffers tick. —Ryan Hogg
Lavish living crisis. U.S. workers earning $150,000 per year are more worried about covering their bills than employees making $40,000 up to six figures, according to a report. —Eleanor Pringle
Paychecks for prosperity. China’s biggest banks have requested senior staffers to waive deferred bonuses, or even partially return their wages, to abide by the country’s new $400,000 pre-tax limit. —Bloomberg
HOLYOKE — Amid a financial crisis in Holyoke, city Auditor Tanya Wdowiak gave her two weeks’ notice to the mayor and City Council president on Thursday.
Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia said Thursday that he received Wdowiak’s email resignation but hasn’t had a chance to talk with her.
Garcia said he came into the office to an email that requested he accept her formal resignation, effective Nov. 28.
If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
WASHINGTON — The government shutdown is creating a lot of uncertainty and disruption for Alaska Native communities, and for tribal organizations that administer federal programs.
These include SNAP, for food assistance, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which subsidizes energy bills.
Ben Mallott, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, said the prospect that both of those programs would run out of money, just as winter begins, puts some Alaskans in a life-threatening bind.
“Without LIHEAP, without SNAP, our communities, our tribal citizens will have to decide between fuel and food,” he testified to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee Wednesday.
During the pandemic, the Federal Subsistence Board allowed emergency hunting to improve food security. Now, with the government shutdown, Mallott said the Subsistence Board can’t even meet to consider it.
Since the second Trump administration began, advocates for Native American and Alaska Native people have stressed that programs that help them aren’t D.E.I. initiatives but the result of promises, treaties and laws. Now, between the administration’s cuts to government services and the shutdown, they say the government is dodging its responsibilities.
Hearing witnesses said tribal Head Start programs will run low on money if the shutdown extends into November, and that many agency experts tribes normally turn to have lost their jobs.
Pete Upton testified about the Trump administration’s plan to abolish a fund at the Treasury Department called the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. Upton runs the Native CDFI Network, whose Alaska members include the Cook Inlet Lending Center. He said tribal communities are often in banking deserts.
“Native CDFIs are typically the only financial institutions serving these communities, providing access to capital, credit and financial education where no alternative exists,” he said.
Early in the shutdown, the Treasury Department fired the entire staff of the CDFI Fund. With no one at the federal office to certify the CDFIs, Upton said it’s hard for the community finance organizations to attract private-sector and philanthropic investment.
Certification is “a stamp for investors to say that ‘you are investable,’” Upton said. With it, “we bring in private capital at a rate of eight to one.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chair of the Indian Affairs Committee, said tribes face enormous uncertainty as the stalemate in Congress nears the one-month mark.
“We can’t figure out the path forward right now on our spending bills, although I am a little bit more optimistic on that today,” she said.
She didn’t elaborate but said earlier this week that senators are engaged in productive talks.
Police cruisers parked in the Stamford Police Department parking lot photographed on August 7, 2024.
STAMFORD — A member of the Stamford Board of Representatives said he was “disgusted” by the city’s Board of Finance’s decision to delay a potential increase in budgeted officers for the city’s police department.
“I’m angry,” said Sean Boeger, D-15, during the Board of Representatives’ Fiscal Committee meeting Monday.
Article continues below this ad
Boeger is also a sergeant in the Stamford Police Department. The increase, which was on the committee’s agenda, would have created 13 more officer positions in the department. A grant would help pay for six of the 13 new positions.
It would’ve brought the total number of officers in the patrol division from 217 to 230, resulting in a 300-person force when all other ranks are considered. In the early 2000s, the department had 314 budgeted sworn officers, according to Chief of Police Timothy Shaw.
Lou DeRubeis, Stamford’s director of public safety, health and welfare, said the proposed increase was the first “in quite a number of years.”
The Board of Finance, however, during its Oct. 9 meeting, voted to hold the increase and asked the police department to provide more information, such as where the officers would be used and the total cost of hiring them outside of wages, such as health insurance and overtime.
Article continues below this ad
Boeger said during Monday’s fiscal committee meeting that he believed there were four officers assigned to traffic enforcement because “patrol demand is so high.” He said the department should be able to double the number of officers for traffic enforcement, which he said was “the top gripe of our citizenry.”
He also said the department was “lucky if we could cover the high schools when it’s busy.”
“If we want to be responsible and we want to have the nice things that a nice city like Stamford should have…we have to do something about this,” Boeger said.
Boeger said the department had opened up testing for new positions and that the department can’t send people to police academies, whether the city’s own or others, until the new positions are approved.
Article continues below this ad
“We’re gambling with open positions based on academy availability,” Boeger said.
Amiel Goldberg, D-13, said he wanted members of the committee to reach out to the Board of Finance to “let them know how deeply disappointed and frustrated our committee is.”
There had been an attempt to add the 13 police officer positions during the most recent budget process, but the Board of Finance cut the funding for those jobs.
At that time, members of the board said to come back with the request once the department filled out the rest of their 287 budgeted officer positions. The department will reach that goal by December, Bridget Fox, chief of staff of the mayor’s office, said during the Oct. 9 meeting.
Article continues below this ad
Shaw, in an interview before the fiscal committee meeting, said getting more people for the department would mean less people have to work overtime and because of that, less people would burn out and leave the force. Half the budgeted overtime, he said, is for the patrol division.
During the Oct. 9 meeting, the chief said the 13-person increase could result in a $500,000 reduction in overtime costs.
Laura Burwick, a member of the Board of Finance, said during the Oct. 9 meeting the request of $743,941 for the new positions was “a huge additional expense to the budget” and that she wanted to “see a little bit of the analysis that went into this.”
Article continues below this ad
Geoff Alswanger, a member of the finance board, said during that meeting that there have been “many sessions” where the board had “angst at the management” of the city’s pension funds and that the board “can’t ignore that as part of this equation.”
Boeger, however, during Monday’s meeting, said the department “has no power or control over that.”
Video: How Mamdani Has Evolved in the Mayoral Race
Video: Federal Agents Detain Man During New York City Raid
Books about race and gender to be returned to school libraries on some military bases
Video: Driver Crashes Car Into Security Gate Near White House
Video: Inside Our Reporter’s Collection of Guantánamo Portraits
Hunter Biden breaks silence on pardon from dad Joe: ‘I realize how privileged I am’
Jack Smith defends subpoenaing Republican senators’ phone records: ‘Entirely proper’
Trump to host NATO chief at White House as Putin meeting collapses
