Virus underlines importance of financial wellness

U.K retirement plan sponsors have rolled out a variety of financial wellness tools in the past few years, but the coronavirus pandemic is adding new urgency to their efforts as new tools.

Sources said some plan sponsors are adopting traditional financial wellness offerings such as debt consolidation programs, short-term loans, or budget planners. New additions include webinars and toolkits aimed at helping employees cope with debt and mortgage payments as well as manage their retirement savings as the pandemic goes on. All of these efforts are seen as way to help employees build resiliency, reduce stress and, hopefully, increase productivity at work when money worries are curbed.

In the past, the take-up of financial wellness tools has been poor due to a lack of quality education and promotion from plan sponsors, said Darren Laverty, financial well-being strategist and employee benefits consultant at Secondsight.

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