Each month on Talking Benefits, I join Julie Stich, Kelli Kolsrud and Justin Held, International Foundation benefits nerdthusiasts, to discuss a trending employee benefits topic we think our listeners want to know more about. April is financial literacy month in the U.S. and, although the month is coming to a close, it’s an important topic for employers to master beyond the month of April.

According to International Foundation Financial Education for Today’s Workforce survey report, U.S. employers said about a third of their participants were only a little bit financially savvy, while 5% said they were not at all savvy. About half said that their employees were somewhat savvy but only 17% said very or extremely savvy.

Financial stress is impacting productivity, job performance, ability to focus at work and staff turnover. One way employers are combating financial stress is by offering employees a financial education program. Tune in to find out more about offering a financial education program to your employees or tweaking your current one.

We spoke with Paula Stop, director of benefits at Bell Partners, Inc. in Greensboro, North Carolina. Paula has done some pretty innovative things with her financial wellness program and shares helpful best practices in this episode.

Toward the end of the episode, we talked a lot about free resources the International Foundation has in place for employers to help their employees learn more about financial education. Here’s a handy listing if you’re interested:

Employer Financial Education Tools

• Financial education program checklist
• Sample employee assessment survey
• List of questions when hiring a vendor
• Retirement plan checklist

Employee/Participant Financial Education Resources

• Retirement 101
• Communications tool kit
• Budgeting worksheet
• Retirement planning worksheet

Financial Education Videos

• A Tale of Two Kitties
• Go Nuts and Save Early
• Adventures in Behavioral Decision Making (Starring me!) 
• Bulk Up Your Budget With the Financial Fitness Brofessionals (Starring Justin!)  

Find even more financial wellness resources on the International Foundation Financial Education and Retirement Security webpage.

Subscribe today! Subscribe to Talking Benefits on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts for automatic updates as new episodes are released, or watch for new episodes on the International Foundation website.

Anne Patterson
Social Marketing and Communications Strategist at the International Foundation

Related Reading:

• 23 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Financial Education Vendor
• How to Measure Financial Education ROI
• Best Practices for Workplace Financial Education
• How to Target Young Workers in Your Financial Education Initiative