Employers, Employees Value Holistic Financial Planning

Employers are definitively moving the needle on holistic financial wellness programs, said Rebecca Liebman, CEO and co-founder of LearnLux, at the 2024 PLANSPONSOR Roadmap livestream, “Elements of an Effective Program.”

“Years ago, people thought that a retirement account was financial wellness, and now we know that you really need to look at your overall financial picture as a whole,” Liebman said. “When you talk about holistic financial well-being, that’s everything from helping people pay off debt—credit card debt, student debt, medical debt—all the way through retirement drawdown, estate planning and every decision in the middle.”

Liebman said holistic planning is one of the biggest industry changes she has seen: People are transitioning from having one vertical of financial wellness to embracing a multifaceted program.

In the past companies may have only had executive planning programs, she told the live webinar audience. Now they are looking for a program to support their entire workforce, including people of all income levels.

“Companies are seeing the highest rates of 401(k) loans and hardship withdrawals that they’ve seen in decades; if you put all your assets into retirement, but you can’t pay for day–day living right now, that’s a problem,” Liebman said. “If you have an independent program, you can help the employee with the real issue, whether that’s redoing their budget, understanding cash flow, paying off debt or having emergency savings—in the right order.”

Employees do want holistic financial wellness, but they are also looking for consolidation, noted Adelia Soremekun, senior director of total rewards at the Jackson Laboratory.

“As much as they say, ‘Give me guidance here, give me guidance there,’ they also don’t want to go to 10 different places to get help,” Soremekun said. “One of the things that we’re trying to do with our retirement recordkeeper is to enhance the tools that they’re using.”

Soremekun is trying to incorporate tools that will allow people to see their bank account, student loan and mortgage information in one place, all while having a personal coach to explain the different financial areas and offer tailored advice on how to allocate savings.

Kelli Send, co-founder and senior vice president of financial wellness services at Francis LLC, agreed that personal coaching can be a vital tool. She said people need somebody to talk to, either face-to-face or virtually, about their overall financial standing.

“The SECURE 2.0 Act [of 2022] is helping employers do more financial wellness, because now we’re thinking about including programs like the student loan payoff or having employer contributions be done to Roth,” said Send. “Those are all pretty big decisions that people need help with.”