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Large Employers Get, Support Financial Wellness

A new survey of finance executives finds that 72% of respondents agree that the financial wellness of employees is a focus for their organizations, and even more (84%) say that it is important to ensure that their companies’ employees are educated on key tenets of financial wellness.

Seven out of 10 respondents (70%) — most of them at large U.S. companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenues — agree that it is important for their companies to measure employees’ financial wellness. About the same number (71%) agree that benchmarking their employees’ financial wellness versus other companies is valuable.

Benefit Benefits

More than 8 out of 10 (82%) finance executives surveyed respondents believe that their companies benefit from having workforces that are financially secure — and nearly as many believe that employers should assist employees in achieving financial wellness during their working years.

The survey, the sixth annual one that CFO Research has conducted with Prudential Financial, Inc., finds that nearly two-thirds (63%) say that employee satisfaction with benefits is important for their company’s success, and 65% believe that employee benefits are critical to attracting and retaining employees.

By far, the finance executives surveyed consider higher employee satisfaction (59%) and increased retention (53%) as the most important benefits of a focus on financial wellness.

According to the survey of 180 finance executives, even if the deductibility of employer-sponsored benefits were to be removed, a majority of respondents say that their companies would either maintain the status quo (29%) — that is, continue to offer the same package with the same subsidies — or would increase employee compensation to counterbalance reduced corporate subsidies (28%).

All of the companies in the survey also have defined benefit (DB) plans with more than $250 million in assets; 31% have between $1 billion and $5 billion in assets, and an additional 31% have more than $5 billion in assets.