Are employers doing enough for their staff?

Jamie Jenkins, head of strategy and proposition at Standard Life, reveals how employers are under more pressure than ever to help employees achieve long term financial security.

Employers have long played a key role in helping their employees plan their financial futures. But it is a role that continues to change. While the need to support and engage with employees is more crucial today than ever before, many challenges and question marks remain. How should employers engage with their employees? How can they help them plan their long term finances? To what extent are they responsible for that anyway?

To answer some of these questions in today’s workplace environment, we recently partnered with leading occupational psychologist Emily Hutchinson to develop Insights into Financial Responsibility. The study aims to help define how employers can best support employees and help them achieve long term financial stability.

Financial uncertainty

Interestingly both employers and employees largely agree that individuals are primarily responsible for their own financial security. Government is not seen as responsible by most, indicating that both parties realise they need to address the issue of long term savings themselves, with the state no longer helping as it once might have done.

But despite this perception of being personally responsible, almost a third of individuals surveyed have no idea of how they will ensure their security in the future. They are not confident about how secure they will be when they are 60 and more than half also say they worry about finances.

Employees are looking to employers as never before and this is recognised by many employers. Three quarters of employees surveyed would value more support from their employer around financial planning. This provides an opportunity for employers to engage and it is one that many recognise. Almost two thirds agree that an employer who offers help with financial planning would be attractive to employees.

They can see the retention and recruitment value. They can see that if they do more to meet the needs of employees they could potentially show how they stand out from competitors.

Overall, employers continue to feel responsible for their workforce, especially in the current climate.

Six in ten employers believe they are responsible for their employees’ financial security to some extent.

Almost a quarter of employers agree/strongly agree that they are primarily responsible for their employees’ financial security, with an equal proportion of employees feeling the same way too.