While wellness programs focusing on employees’ physical, mental and emotional health have become the norm at many companies, programs that emphasize financial wellness are just beginning to emerge. “Poor financial health among employees hurts productivity and can be costly to employers” says Hussain Zaidi, CEO and co-founder of Advizr, a provider of financial technology-driven solutions for financial advisors and organizations.
This challenge led Zaidi to invest in the creation of Advizr WorkPlace, a financial wellness solution that helps employers increase financial confidence, literacy and wellbeing among employees through tech-based planning tools and financial education resources.
Advizr WorkPlace consists of two components: The first is self-directed financial planning software that employees can engage with at their own pace. Employees can use the self-directed planning platform to work toward goals such as increasing their 401(k) contributions, creating a budget or saving for a child’s education.
The second component is turnkey internal communication campaigns that firms can use to engage with and educate their employees. Before a company conducts an internal communication campaign, Advizr WorkPlace performs assessments of its employees to understand their financial picture and assess priorities. It then creates a series of turnkey campaigns the company can execute via email and connects employees to Advizr’s financial planning modules. During the campaign, Advizr WorkPlace offers reports on employee engagement.
Common campaigns include debt management, budgeting and cash flow, retirement planning, and how to plan for the unexpected . Employees using Advizr WorkPlace can contact their designated financial advisor, who is traditionally associated with their company’s retirement plan, to further customize their plan to meet their unique personal finance goals.
Advizr has recently joined forces with Alight Solutions, a leading provider of technology-enabled health, wealth, HR and finance solutions to provide Advizr’s financial management and planning technology to select clients of Alight Solutions.
“Financial wellness is a fairly new area that is gaining a significant amount of traction, and employers have a large appetite for delivering solutions,” says Zaidi.
“Today there aren’t many financial planning platforms in which participants can be self-directed, and yet have the option to connect further with a financial advisor. We believe we’re ahead of the curve.”
