By Alice Monk, General Manager of the MIA
These are challenging times for everyone and, like your customers, staff are feeling the pain of the current financial crisis. It can be hard to know how best to support them, so last week, we held a session focused on this topic lead by Nicky Gleadow of The HR Point and attended by a group of MI leaders. Here are some of the ideas that we discussed.
Firstly (& maybe most importantly) – removing the stigma & inviting conversation
One of the main issues when dealing with money worries, mental health and wellbeing is talking about it. It can be hard to talk about feelings and worries at work. If you have colleagues you can talk to, or a manager who asks how you are, it can really help, A strong starting point might be to make sure that you are openly acknowledging the economic turbulence, assuring staff of confidentiality and generally encouraging conversation and opening lines of communication.
It’s also important to address the elephant in the room when you’re touching on the subject of providing assistance during the cost of living crisis: salary increases. Businesses are facing the very same price rises and pressures that individuals are, and upping salaries is not going to be possible for all organisations.
If your company isn’t in a position to give a workforce-wide wage increase, be honest about it. People will always appreciate honesty over sugar-coating. If you avoid talking about salary increases, you’re allowing for potential negativity towards whatever alternative means of support you’re offering – it’s inevitable that employees will query why you aren’t simply offering them a pay rise.
It might be worth considering whether you can offer employees a one-off Cost of Living allowance in lieu of an ongoing pay rise, as this would have a lesser financial impact on the business but would be very helpful at a point when energy costs are at their peak.
Ask your people what they need
Once you’ve been honest, transparent, and direct about remuneration, you can move on to finding the most useful alternative or additional means of support. When it comes to sensitive topics like finances, people can be reluctant to offer up their views. Anonymous surveys are a powerful tool for gathering feedback, and it isn’t something that you’d need to hand over to an HR specialist. Free tools such as Google Forms and SurveyMonkey will allow you to ask specific questions with multiple-choice options or input text boxes geared around gauging how your employees are feeling.
What’s more proactive than asking your team outright how they would like to be supported through this difficult time?
Flexible Working & Benefits Packages
Now that you’ve asked, you should listen, strategise & respond. If a recurring theme is rising transport costs, look at relaxing the number of mandatory days in the office, or encouraging off-peak travel, and even provide assistance with transport costs for those most vulnerable if you can.
One of the leaders on our zoom call last week wanted to find a practical way to help their team with rising food costs, with grocery prices rising at their fastest rate in eight years. This leader purchased a Costco Annual Subscription & Membership that can be used by all employees. Employee discounts are also great for saving on treats, cinema tickets, gifts or days out for example.
If you discover that your people are struggling with debt and planning, there are wellbeing programmes that you can provide which help boost employees’ confidence in financial planning and coping with financial pressures and challenges.
We know that the health and wellbeing of your staff is going to continue being of importance to you into the New Year, so we’ll work on bringing you more content and events pertinent to this issue.
