How to help your employees feel more positive about their finances in 2024

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As we head into the new year, now’s a great time for employees to approach their finances with a fresh perspective. Here’s how you can help boost your employees’ financial positivity levels throughout 2024 and beyond. 

How many people are feeling positive about their financial situation?

Not that many, it seems, according to our Retirement Voice 2023 report. In our biggest-ever retirement study, our findings revealed that, for those who do no financial planning, just 21% feel positive about their finances.

But now for the good news. Our insights show that people who spend a bit of time planning are almost twice as likely (41%) to feel positive about their financial situation than those who do nothing at all. This jumps to 61% for those who do a great deal of planning.

The benefits of planning go beyond feeling positive. Planners are also more likely than non-planners to feel confident making financial decisions and that they’re saving enough for retirement.

Clearly, people who put plans in place are reaping the rewards of good financial wellbeing. This is further good news, because people who feel financially well are more likely to feel in control of their finances, be less stressed and distracted by financial worry, and more productive at work.

As the new year begins and your employees return to work after a well-deserved break, now could be a good time for them to approach their finances in a new light. Here’s how you can help get their financial positivity levels up in 2024:

1. Boost engagement with tailored comms

A good first step is to help employees get more engaged with their finances. And the best way to do this is to understand what their financial priorities are. 

Share an anonymous survey to gather insights into what’s important to your employees, and use these to send personalised communications. Employees are more likely to engage if relevant comms are landing in their inbox.

Consider weaving these communications into your internal comms calendar too, to remind people of key milestones such as share scheme maturity or annual bonus pay day. Doing so could nudge them into thinking about their finances, and even help them to take action.

If you’re with Standard Life for your workplace pension scheme, you can get insights like these through our Client Analytics tool. This allows you to see how many of your employees are engaging with their pension plan and how many are on track to meeting the PLSA’s Retirement Living Standards bands. And if anyone is falling behind, you can boost your communication efforts for those specific groups.

2. Help employees get to know their finances better

Next, help employees get a better understanding of their finances. Do they know their monthly incomings and outgoings, credit card usage, what’s going into their pension pots, or how much they’re saving? 

You can provide support by signposting to tools that help them get better acquainted with their finances.

For instance, Standard Life workplace pension scheme members can get a bird’s eye view of their finances through our Money Mindset platform. This uses open finance technology, which means employees can see their bank, savings, mortgage, pension, and other accounts in one place, and in real time. 

Services like MoneyHelper also provide calculators that can help people figure out their finances for a range of situations, from mortgage affordability to dealing with debt. 

3. Raise awareness of transferring pensions

Many of your employees have probably had a few jobs throughout their careers. So it’s likely they have several pension pots floating around – and it’s easy for these to get forgotten about.

In fact, it’s estimated that 1 in 4 UK people have lost track of at least one pension pot, which totals a combined value of £26.6 billion in unclaimed pension savings.

To help employees avoid the same fate, consider raising awareness of pension transfers. Transferring their pension pots into a single plan could make it easier and simpler for employees to manage. 

If employees aren’t sure where to find their old pensions, make sure to signpost to tools that help locate them, such as the government’s pension tracing service. Employees who are with Standard Life for their workplace pension scheme can also use our Pension Finder tool, available through Money Mindset. 

Remember that transferring pensions isn’t right for everyone and there's no guarantee of a better income as a result of transferring.

4. Empower employees to manage their everyday finances

We know that planning can go a long way to helping people feel more positive about their finances.

You can help make it easier for employees to plan their day-to-day finances by pointing them towards tools and resources that simplify the process.

MoneyHelper, for instance, provides budgeting tools to help people break down and prioritise their spending, as well as savings calculators to help them work out how much money to put away.

Our Money Mindset platform also allows scheme members to plan budgets, create savings goals, set up emergency funds, and get analysis into their spending. 

5. Help employees plan for retirement

When it comes to retirement planning, many of your employees may not know where to start, especially if they’re decades away from retirement age.

You can help demystify retirement planning by providing bitesize content and tools that break it down into manageable chunks. Doing so could help employees tackle their future plans during moments of downtime, rather than it being an overwhelming undertaking.

The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) and MoneyHelper offer loads of useful information on how to plan for retirement. For employees over 50, Pension Wise provides free, impartial guidance to help them understand their retirement income options.

Standard Life workplace pension scheme members can also use our Retirement Income Tool. This helps them see how much money they might have in future and what kind of retirement lifestyle they’re on track for.

For more information on financial wellbeing, including resources on how you can help support your employees, take a look at our Financial Wellbeing hub and read our articles.