Women financially stressed
WORKPLACE WELLNESS: STRESSORS INCLUDE THE COST OF MAINTAINING A HOUSEHOLD Affects bottom line, so gender-specific challenges need to be tackled.
Women are more affected by financial stress over household expenses, according to recent research into the state of employee well-being which reveals a number of factors that affect labour productivity.
The research conducted by on-demand earned wage access provider Floatpays showed financial wellness was a key factor in overall employee well-being and productivity, and revealed gender nuances when it came to financial well-being.
The most important difference was the main source of financial stress, which showed more women than men attributed it to the pressures of caretaking responsibilities and the cost of maintaining a household.
Andisa Liba, chief people officer at Floatpays, said this was not surprising considering 42.1% of households in South Africa were headed by women.
The study was conducted with the aim of helping businesses improve productivity through employee well-being programmes.
The gender dimension
Focusing on financial stress as a contributing factor to employee wellness, the study segmented respondents according to several demographics, including ethnicity, age, income bracket and gender.
According to the study, 57% of women attributed their financial stress to household expenses as opposed to 49% of men. The cost of food affected 52% of women compared to 42% of men.
“These findings indicate the gender-specific challenges which need to be tackled ... because this stress ultimately affects the bottom line,” Liba said.
Stress and productivity
Employees who experienced financial stress reported sleeping problems, difficulty concentrating and a negative impact on their mood. However, the proportion of women who experienced low emotional states was almost 10% higher than for men.
“Financial stress is a key trigger of a negative chain reaction that results in challenges, such as absenteeism, low presenteeism and workplace errors, which has an impact on productivity.
“Because such a large component of employee wellness relates to the financial state of employees, this should be a major concern for South African employers,” Liba said.
Ensuring a be er employee experience
However, Liba says, working towards a better employee experience was a multi-dimensional endeavour, which included fair compensation. For women, access to learning and development opportunities were valued more highly compared to men.
These opportunities extended to professional development, but also included education on aspects of financial management, such as learning how to be better financially prepared for an emergency, maintaining a healthy level of debt and managing cash flow between pay checks.
A total of 89% of the women in the study expressed a need to be educated on how to manage their money better.
Liba said there was a business case to be made for employers to offer this kind of training at work.
“Solutions to better employee wellness, such as financial management skills development, needs to take the prevailing gender nuances into account.
“Women, who carry most of the domestic caretaking load, can benefit immensely from education on how to handle their money more efficiently and practical tools to assist them with managing their cash flow from pay day to pay day better and saving in the context of limited financial resources.”