Somewhere in your organisation right now, someone is sitting at their desk worrying about money. Every single day. Leadership teams often have no visibility of it, which means you’re not able to support and retain employees who are struggling

They are unlikely to tell you. The shame of financial struggle runs too deep for that. So, they show up, they get on with their job, as best as they can while carrying this worry around. They put a mask on to get through meetings, deadlines, and performance reviews, while a part of their mind is somewhere else entirely.

The early signs are there but they are easy to miss and ignore. At first it shows up in working longer hours, the employee not being able to switch off, then it shows up in distraction, fatigue, presenteeism, reduced focus and additional work taken on outside contracted hours. Without structured support, organisations are absorbing that cost, and it is impacting their profit margins, project deadlines and reputation.

It explains why a previously high-performing employee may begin to struggle.It’s not that they’ve stopped caring, it’s not that they are no longer good at their job, iIt’s that their headspace is full and they don’t know what to do.

What financial wellbeing actually means

You’ll hear the term financial wellbeing thrown around but it’s worth being clear about what it actually covers because it’s much broader than most organisations realise.

Financial wellbeing isn’t about how much someone earns. It’s about how they feel about money, how they behave with it day to day, and whether they feel any sense of control over their financial life. Someone earning £100,000 can be just as financially anxious as someone on £50,000, sometimes more so, because of lifestyle creep, spending habits, budgeting avoidance and the expectations on them are higher, with the shame of struggling feeling greater.

At its heart, financial wellbeing sits across three areas:

Financial confidence — can someone make decisions about money without freezing, avoiding, or stressing out? Do they understand the basics of their own finances? When financial confidence is higher, money issues are addressed earlier, reducing presenteeism and reactive behaviour at work.

Financial mindset — what stories are shaping their behaviour around money? Many of us grew up hearing things like “we can’t afford that,” or “money doesn’t grow on trees,” or watching adults see money as a source of stress and conflict.

When those stories are understood, employees are likely to act, whether that is reviewing a mortgage, engaging with a pension, or planning, rather than carrying this financial stress and worry into the working day, snapping at colleagues, taking more sick days or struggling to perform at their usual level.

Mindset is part of financial education that is often missed. We focus so much on providing more practical skills, but without the mindset awareness and changes, employees are unlikely to take the actions needed, however much information they are given. Financial mindset shifts help the employee to stop the shame cycle and take action. They open the pension statement. They look at the budget. They have the conversation they’ve been avoiding. They sleep better, show up more fully and perform at their actual ability, not the reduced version that chronic financial worry produces. 

Practical skills — budgeting, saving, pensions, understanding debt. The real-world stuff that school never taught most of us.

When employees understand these fundamentals, engagement with employer benefits improves and the perceived value of your overall reward package increases.

An employee with strong financial wellbeing isn’t necessarily wealthy. They feel in control, make informed decisions, and money isn’t the thing consuming their headspace at 2pm on a Tuesday.

If you are responsible for your people’s experience at work and want to explore what financial wellbeing support could look like for your organisation, you can find my listing and get in touch here: https://expertservicesdirectory.com/directory/debbie-hancock/

Financial education as workforce risk reduction

Financial stress rarely operates in isolation. It layers on top of workload pressure, organisational change and external uncertainty. While financial education alone does not prevent burnout, it reduces one significant and controllable source of chronic stress within your workforce.

The early signs are subtle. Presenteeism. Difficulty switching off. Reduced confidence. Withdrawal. Employees stretching beyond capacity or struggling to perform at their usual level.

From a workplace risk perspective, this matters, because let’s face it, distracted employees don’t make the best decisions. It impacts profitability, delays decision-making and increases the likelihood of errors. The effect then ripples through teams, impacting performance, manager bandwidth and retention.

Structured financial education strengthens workforce resilience. Confident employees plan ahead rather than react to the news or external influences. They engage with benefits more effectively and they are less likely to carry financial pressure into leadership, client delivery or operational decisions.

The gap that’s costing your organisation

Research consistently shows that the vast majority of employees already know the right financial behaviours. Around 91% of people agree it’s sensible to save. 87% agree you shouldn’t spend what you don’t have.

But fewer than half have set a savings goal. Fewer than 40% have a monthly budget.

In part it’s an education problem but fundamentally it’s a behaviour problem and it has very different roots.

What sits between knowing and doing is often fear, shame, overwhelm, or a deeply held belief that financial security simply isn’t available to people like them. You can’t fix that with a blog on ISAs or directing employees to a well-known money expert online. It may all make sense at the time, but the thought of setting it up, knowing how much to put in, and so on, feels too much and not for them. They end up prioritising something else and then forgetting about it.

Millions of employees are navigating one of the most stressful aspects of their lives, alone, at work, while trying to do their jobs.

That stress has a price tag for your organisation. It shows up in absence, in presenteeism, in people who are in the building but not really there, and eventually in good people deciding to leave for a small pay rise, that they hope will improve their situation. Financial stress is one of the leading contributors to poor mental health at work and the cost to UK businesses in lost productivity alone runs into billions every year. This is a business problem that is already inside your organisation and costing you money.

There is also something else worth considering. You are likely already paying for benefits that are not being fully used, pensions, health cover, share schemes, life insurance. Employees who lack financial confidence often don’t engage with these at all, because the whole thing feels overwhelming. Workplace financial wellbeing support helps people understand and use what you already offer, which means better return on benefits spend, without adding to anyone’s tax liability. 

Why this lands differently at every pay grade

One thing I find genuinely important to name with corporate clients is this: financial stress doesn’t only affect your lowest earners.

Senior decision-makers often underestimate how much their mid-to-higher earning colleagues are struggling too, depleting savings, worrying about mortgages and interest rates, feeling the weight of keeping up an image of success.  Around 1.8 million fixed-rate mortgages are due to end in 2026, with the majority of those renewing facing significantly higher monthly payments than they budgeted for. That is sitting on the shoulders of employees across your entire workforce, regardless of what they earn.

Financial stress is rarely visible at first glance; people have got good at hiding it behind composed smiles and a lot of avoidance. Then it shows up in sickness levels, behaviour changes, distractions, and employee turnover.

What differs between pay grades isn’t really the stress, it’s the options available to manage it. And that’s exactly why a one-size approach to financial wellbeing support rarely works.

If you are seeing this across your workforce and want to understand what structured support could look like, I would love to have that conversation. You can reach me here: https://expertservicesdirectory.com/directory/debbie-hancock/

What actually helps

Organisations that address financial wellbeing effectively design support that is behavioural, practical and commercially aligned.

That includes:

• Behaviourally informed workshops that explore money habits and decision-making patterns, so that employees address financial issues earlier rather than carrying ongoing stress.
• Practical financial education covering future planning, budgeting, cash management and debt, so that employees make informed decisions and engage confidently with existing benefits.
• Structured programmes rather than passive resources, so that uptake is measurable and HR teams can demonstrate engagement beyond low click-through rates.

Financial education is not about overwhelming employees with more information, but providing structured guidance and simple steps they can take to improve their situation and understanding. 

It includes creating safe, confidential spaces where employees can admit they are struggling and access practical guidance without judgement.

The business case for getting this right is clear: 73% of people say they’re more attracted to employers who care about their financial wellbeing. Higher engagement, better retention, less presenteeism, fewer reactive pay conversations and reduced financial anxiety across all pay grades.

A bit about why I do this work

I spent years in FTSE 100 finance teams, where performance was measured rigorously and hidden costs were identified quickly. That experience shapes how I view financial wellbeing, as a workplace performance issue with measurable impact.

Alongside that, I have worked with individuals at every income level and seen something consistent, financial stress is rarely about intelligence or income level but about the behaviour and confidence of that person.

I also bring personal experience. I grew up in a household where money was scarce and stressful, where financial security felt out of reach. That perspective allows me to understand the emotional drivers behind avoidance and anxiety, not just the technical mechanics of money management.

I have seen highly capable professionals who manage multi-million-pound budgets, who in their personal life, struggle to manage money, review their spend, consider retirement and don’t understand why they can be exceptional at their jobs but not with their personal finances.

That combination shapes how I work with organisations. It is why I design programmes differently. I understand both how financial stress affects profit margins and how it affects human behaviour. Bridging that gap enables organisations to reduce distraction, strengthen resilience and protect performance.

If you are seeing:

• Rising absence
• Disengagement from progression
• Underused benefits
• Managers fielding financial worries they are not trained to handle
• High employee turnover due to pay rises

Then this is already costing your organisation more than you realise.

If you are seeing these patterns across your workforce, it is worth addressing them strategically rather than the early signs being missed and needing to act reactively.

I work with HR and People teams to design structured financial wellbeing programmes that reduce organisational risk and strengthen workforce resilience.

If this is part of your 2026 agenda, I welcome a conversation.

Get in touch here: https://expertservicesdirectory.com/directory/debbie-hancock/