For nearly 30 years, employees have been coached that the best way to save for retirement is to take advantage of tax deferred investing, most prominently through their 401(k) plans. This strategy has always been anchored in the hope that lower tax brackets await us during our retirement years. But current economic realities are causing many in the financial community to question whether tax deferred saving remains a healthy long term strategy for employees.
Tag Archive for 'Financial Education'
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GuideSpark, Inc. unveiled its Web-hosted workplace financial education service, a comprehensive approach that helps employees make better use of their organization’s benefits and achieve financial security.
The GuideSpark Benefits and Open Enrollment Learning Center is designed to help employers grappling with how to effectively educate employees on workplace benefits. Engaging multimedia lessons provide in-depth and self-paced information about increasingly complex benefits offerings. GuideSpark provides anytime access to benefits education, and can be customized to support key HR events like open enrollment, new hire training and benefit program changes.
The company’s Financial Wellness Center helps employees avoid pervasive financial distractions that add stress, lower productivity and adversely affect health. GuideSpark experts point out that major employers are beginning to get the message: IBM, Pepsi Bottling Group, and Home Depot have already implemented financial education and planning programs for their employees.
Recently after conducting a financial education workshop for a high tech company, a young lady in her early 20’s wanted to get together to discuss how she could retire early. She had seen an infomercial that described the beauty of passive income and decided it was her ticket to an early exit.
Unfortunately, just after learning of her financial ambitions, she informed me that she had maxed out several credit cards and financed two cars (one for her boyfriend) to the tune of a significant five digit debt. Even though she was making a good salary as a Human Resource professional, she was unable to pay her monthly bills and had stopped contributing to her 401(k).
If my brother-in-law was lined up with 10 people and you were asked to pick out the economist, he would be easily identified. In the 35 years I’ve known Mitch, he has never cared a lick about the clothes he wears or the car he drives. There is no pretense or image thing going on whatsoever. He’s just a solid, albeit quirky guy who happens to be intellectually brilliant. And doing things his own way, he retired early, owns a free and clear home in beautiful La Jolla, CA (my sister’s influence) and accumulated a fair amount of wealth, while never wavering from his extreme aversion to risk.
Voters in the state of California spoke loudly and angrily last Tuesday. After years of convoluted budget fixes, exotic borrowing schemes and skirting tough issues, Californians just said “no” to another series of band-aid fiscal ballot measures that just seemed like more of the same. Voter frustration has risen to such new levels that now there is even a movement to completely rewrite the State’s constitution to prevent the politicians from operating like credit drunk consumers.
“No Gold In State” was the title of this week’s article about California in The Economist magazine. The article chronicled, “At one point during his desperate campaign for six ballot measures meant to reduce California’s gaping budget deficit, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor, pleaded with voters not to make California ‘the poster child for dysfunction.’ But on May 19th they did exactly that.”
A few weeks ago I referenced the “Miracle on the Hudson” and how Captain “Sulley” Sullenberger’s Flight 1549 heroics can guide us during financial emergencies. You may recall that Sullenberger safely landed a commercial airliner on the Hudson River after hitting a flock of geese and losing both engines. I was intrigued by his success enough to study a few of the attributes that led to this amazing outcome.
All of us have baggage, some good and some not. Sulley packed incredibly good baggage for Flight 1549. In his bags were years of serious and specific training. While he had no idea of how the events would unfold, the resources he packed proved perfectly suited for the situation. When the engines blew out two minutes into the flight, Sulley drew upon among other things:
I’ve talked to some pretty nervous investors recently…even with this latest uptick they’re not sure if they can ever trust the stock market again. With their fears being totally understandable, I decided to research an historical worst case scenario to help them evaluate the length of time they needed to be in the market to be reasonably assured that they wouldn’t lose money.
This was accomplished by portraying someone who had decided to invest in the stock market just before the onset of the The Great Depression. If we could ascertain how long it took this unfortunate soul to get their money back including the worst market years ever experienced, then it may be helpful to of us who are nervous to get back in the game.
GuideSpark announced today a new financial coaching service, the latest offering from their Financial Wellness Center solution.
Customers of the GuideSpark Financial Wellness Center can now provide employees with online and telephone access to personal financial coaches. These financial coaches have extensive financial backgrounds to help users through a variety of situations, whether it’s creating a new financial plan or helping solve an urgent financial issue.
This new coaching service extends GuideSpark’s comprehensive financial wellness solution beyond education, tools and information to include personalized support for employees. Personalized support is an important step for putting individuals on the path to improved financial health.
GuideSpark has created the Financial Wellness blog to focus on the current financial issues and trends affecting today’s employees, corporations and organizations. This blog will not only provide thoughts and ideas for improving an individual’s financial well-being, but will also cover important topics for Human Resource professionals who are tasked with improving the overall wellness and productivity of employees.
In the past, corporations and organizations have primarily focused on health and mental wellness, but there has been an increasing trend to address employee financial wellness, which can be a major cause of productivity loss, stress and health issues. The move toward improving employee financial wellness is even more critical in today’s difficult economy.
GuideSpark announced today that 30-day trials of its online financial wellness solution are now available.
Beginning Monday, September 8, interested corporations, governments and organizations have the ability to access GuideSpark’s rich online learning experience and comprehensive benefits and financial education library. This free trial offers companies a low risk option for exploring the unique and powerful features of GuideSpark’s Software-as-a-Service solution.
For information about how to participate in a corporate trial, please contact sales@guidespark.com.
