5 steps to improving your staff’s grasp of health care, finances

What your employees don’t know will hurt them, so bolster their understanding

In today’s workplace, employees from the boardroom to the break room are fretting about the troubling economic conditions and the apparent breakdown of our nation’s health care system. Atop their list of worries:

1. More than 70 percent are “seriously stressed” over their finances and don’t understand the help that’s available to them through their employers.

2. More than 90 million are baffled by how to make smart decisions about their health and health care benefits. (In fact, the miserable state of health literacy is costing our country about $238 billion annually.)

Both problems seriously affect employee productivity, engagement, morale, and retention. The good news? Both can be remedied in part by more-effective internal communications.

By learning how to improve health and financial literacy among your employees, you can make valuable contributions toward improving business results. Here are five steps you can take to improve health and financial literacy at work: